Principles behind crafting meaningful metrics, with a focus on what drives and detracts from meaning up and down the org chart and across the different areas of the engineering org.

1. @rstephensme
Crafting
Meaningful
Metrics

2. 2@rstephensme
1. Power of metrics
2. Where metrics go wrong
3. Building meaningful metrics
Agenda

3. Context

4. 4@rstephensme

5. 5@rstephensme

6. Pitfalls

7. Lack of
Priorities
#1

8. 8@rstephensme
KPWhys?

9. 9@rstephensme
OKAre-we-
really-doing-
this?

10. 10@rstephensme
Burnout

11. 11@rstephensme
When everything is
a priority, nothing
is a priority.

12. Local
Maximas
#2

13. 13@rstephensme
Gaming
the System

14. 14@rstephensme

15. Poor Metrics
#3

16. 16@rstephensme
Easy !=
Useful

17. 17@rstephensme
“The most important
figures that one needs for
management are
unknown or unknowable.”
—W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

18. Guiding
Principles

19. 19@rstephensme
Global
not Local

20. 20@rstephensme
Outcomes
not Outputs

21. 21@rstephensme
“Our research consistently finds that
the highest performers are achieving
excellence in both throughput and
stability without making tradeoffs. In
fact, throughput and stability enable
one another. ”
—DORA, 2018 Accelerate State of DevOps Report

22. 22@rstephensme
Teams
over
Technology

23. 23@rstephensme
Technology is not a
long-term, sustainable
competitive advantage...

24. 24@rstephensme
...but your people
and your culture
can be.