Evaluating your organization

The first step in improvement is figuring out what you want to evaluate. When evaluating your organization first put together a set of criteria and metrics that can be used to assess the team's performance, effectiveness, and overall success. The metrics should be measurable and relevant. It needs to be able to be used by managers, team members, and other stakeholders to identify areas for improvement and ensure that the team is aligned with the organization's goals.

The evaluation should be comprehensive and should minimally cover

• Skills and knowledge: The organization should have the skills and knowledge necessary to complete their work. This includes knowledge of programming languages, software engineering methodologies, and other technologies required for the job. I also recommend looking at what business knowledge is required for the team to be successful.
• Process: The organization should have a well-defined software development process in place. This process should be documented and followed consistently.
• Productivity: The organization should be able to deliver projects and features on time with quality. This can be measured by tracking metrics such as velocity, cycle time, and defect density.
• Communication: The organization should be able to work together effectively and communicate effectively with customers. This can be assessed by observing the organizations interactions and gathering feedback from stakeholders.
• Customer satisfaction: The organization should be able to deliver products that meet the needs of their customers. This can be measured by collecting customer feedback and tracking metrics such as customer satisfaction scores and net promoter score.

This is a starting place for metrics. Additional metrics may need to be added to address specific business goals. Common additional metrics might include uptime, time to resolution, time to respond, etc.

When metrics have been selected, it is important to collect data and metrics to assess the team's performance against each criterion. This data can be collected through surveys, interviews, observations, and tracking tools.

Once the baseline is set the metrics should tracked on a regular cadence to track the organization's progress over time. This will help to ensure that the organization is on track to meet its goals and will act as a "canary in the coal mine" to signal issues that need to be addressed quickly after they occur.

Here are some specific examples of metrics that can be used to evaluate a software engineering organization:

• Velocity: The number of story points or other units of work that the organization completes in a given period of time.
• Defect density: The number of defects found in the software, divided by the total number of lines of code.
• Customer satisfaction score: A measure of how satisfied customers are with the organizations products or services.
• Net promoter score: A measure of how likely customers are to recommend the organizations products or services to others.

In addition to quantitative metrics, it is also important to collect qualitative feedback from stakeholders. This feedback can provide insights into the team's strengths and weaknesses, as well as areas for improvement.

By using this approach to evaluate the organization's performance, managers and other stakeholders can ensure that the organization is on the right track and that it is meeting the organization's goals.