Identify project metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs)

  • 3 minutes

We spoke earlier about the importance of shared goals. It was also agreed upon by team members that the goals needed to be specific, measurable, and time-bound.

It is essential to establish (and agree upon) appropriate metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to ensure these goals are measurable.

While there is no specific list of metrics and KPIs that apply to all DevOps Projects, the following are commonly used:

Faster outcomes

  • Deployment Frequency. Increasing the frequency of deployments is often a critical driver in DevOps Projects.
  • Deployment Speed. It is necessary to reduce the time that they take.
  • Deployment Size. How many features, stories, and bug fixes are being deployed each time?
  • Lead Time. How long does it take from the creation of a work item until it is completed?

Efficiency

  • Server to Admin Ratio. Are the projects reducing the number of administrators required for a given number of servers?
  • Staff Member to Customers Ratio. Is it possible for fewer staff members to serve a given number of customers?
  • Application Usage. How busy is the application?
  • Application Performance. Is the application performance improving or dropping? (Based upon application metrics)?

Quality and security

  • Deployment failure rates. How often do deployments (or applications) fail?
  • Application failure rates. How often do application failures occur, such as configuration failures, performance timeouts, and so on?
  • Mean time to recover. How quickly can you recover from a failure?
  • Bug report rates. You do not want customers finding bugs in your code. Is the amount they are seeing increasing or lowering?
  • Test pass rates. How well is your automated testing working?
  • Defect escape rate. What percentage of defects are being found in production?
  • Availability. What percentage of time is the application truly available for customers?
  • Service level agreement achievement. Are you meeting your service level agreements (SLAs)?
  • Mean time to detection. If there is a failure, how long does it take for it to be detected?

Culture

  • Employee morale. Are employees happy with the transformation and where the organization is heading? Are they still willing to respond to further changes? This metric can be challenging to measure but is often done by periodic, anonymous employee surveys.
  • Retention rates. Is the organization losing staff?

Note

It is crucial to choose metrics that focus on specific business outcomes and achieve a return on investment and increased business value.