this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
4 points (64.3% liked)

Experienced Devs

3950 readers
2 users here now

A community for discussion amongst professional software developers.

Posts should be relevant to those well into their careers.

For those looking to break into the industry, are hustling for their first job, or have just started their career and are looking for advice, check out:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
snowe@programming.dev
jmk1ng@programming.dev
drewsiferr@programming.dev
4
Inside the Workflow Metrics of Elite Dev Teams (devinterrupted.substack.com)
submitted 1 year ago by BenLloydPearson@programming.dev to c/experienced_devs@programming.dev
3 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

DORA metrics aren’t enough on their own. Here's how dev teams can make the leap to elite performance by focusing on pull request size and dev workflow while improving their cycle time.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] apd@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Goodharts Law applies here - "Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes"

[–] douglasg14b@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago

Pretty much.

For instance focusing on PR size. PR size may be a side effect of the maturity of the product, the type of work being performed, the complexity or lack thereof of the real world space their problems touch, and in the methodologies habits and practices of the team.

Just looking at PR size or really any other single dimensional KPI lead you to lose the nuance that was driving the productivity in the first place.

Honestly in my experience high productivity comes from a high level of unity in how the team thinks, approaches problems, and how diligent they are about their decisions. And isn't necessarily something that's strictly learned, it can be about getting the right people together.