Engineering Metrics Skill

"If you can't measure it, you can't improve it" — but measuring the wrong things destroys teams. This skill covers the metrics frameworks that correlate with actual engineering effectiveness, and how to avoid turning metrics into gaming incentives.

When to Activate

• Setting up an engineering effectiveness program
• Running a quarterly engineering health review
• Reporting engineering team performance to leadership
• Diagnosing why a team feels slow despite high activity
• Designing a Developer Experience (DevEx) initiative
• Establishing a DORA baseline for a newly formed engineering team
• Evaluating whether to track velocity, cycle time, or throughput for a specific team context
• Identifying leading indicators that predict deployment frequency or change failure rate before problems surface

DORA Four Keys