We're Data-Oriented

A lot of companies like to say that they’re data-oriented.

They love metrics and go to great lengths to measure everything they can.

A common example is developer productivity.

Tech companies spend a lot of money on engineers’ salaries. They want to measure how productive engineers are to deliver features faster with the same amount of engineers.

This is a great goal that often goes nowhere.

What usually happens next is they get a team together to start measuring developer productivity. Somebody ends up using the DORA or SPACE frameworks and sends out surveys.

From here, I’ve seen two common scenarios that have happened multiple times:

• The survey results aren’t useful because there’s a lack of response, so management throws it out.
• The majority of engineers complete the survey, and management does nothing.

If you’re not planning on making a decision based on data that will be collected, don’t collect the data for the sake of collecting data.

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