Benchmarking your code review performance can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, set realistic goals, and track your progress. It can also help you align your code review practices with the expectations and best practices of your team, organization, or industry. By benchmarking your code review performance, you can demonstrate your value, enhance your reputation, and increase your confidence as a developer.
No one-size-fits-all answer exists for determining the metrics and indicators to use for benchmarking code review performance. Different teams and projects may have different criteria and priorities for code review. However, some of the common metrics and indicators that you can use include code review coverage, speed, and feedback. Code review coverage measures the percentage of commits, lines of code, or files that are reviewed. Code review speed measures the average time between when a code review request is made and when it is approved or rejected. And code review feedback measures the number, type, and severity of comments, suggestions, or issues that you give or receive in your code reviews. High coverage, fast speed, and constructive feedback can all indicate that your code is reliable, efficient, collaborative, communicative, and respectful.
In order to collect and analyze data for benchmarking your code review performance, you need to use tools that can track and report your code review activities. Code review platforms such as GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Gerrit, and CodeGuru are online platforms that allow you to create, manage, and participate in code reviews. These platforms provide various statistics and insights on your code review coverage, speed, and feedback. Code quality tools like SonarQube, Codacy, CodeClimate, and CodeFactor can analyze your code for errors, bugs, vulnerabilities, style, complexity, and other quality aspects. These tools offer various metrics and indicators on your code quality and compliance with the standards. Lastly, code review surveys are surveys that you can conduct with your peers or managers to get their feedback on your code review performance. You can use online survey tools like SurveyMonkey, Google Forms or Typeform to create and distribute these surveys. Questions should be asked about your code review skills, behaviors, and outcomes.
To compare and improve your code review performance, you need to use benchmarks that are relevant, realistic, and reliable. Your own historical data, peers' data, and industry standards can all provide valuable insights into your performance. Using these sources to identify gaps, strengths, and opportunities is essential for setting SMART goals and action plans. Additionally, it's important to monitor and evaluate progress regularly to adjust strategies as needed. Doing so will help you stay on track in achieving the desired results.
Benchmarking your code review performance is not only a way to measure and improve your skills, but also to communicate and celebrate your achievements. You can use the data and benchmarks to showcase your value, impact, and contribution to your team, organization, or industry. Additionally, you can recognize and appreciate your peers' efforts, feedback, and support. To communicate and celebrate your code review performance, you can share reports and insights with peers, managers, or stakeholders using visualizations such as charts, graphs, tables, or dashboards. You can also request or provide feedback on code review skills, behaviors, and outcomes through formal or informal channels. Furthermore, you can use rewards, recognition, or appreciation to acknowledge or motivate your code review performance. Finally, you can celebrate achievements and progress with events or social media.