What are the main challenges on today’s distributed software
development teams with respect to delivery efficiency?
In my opinion, as a CIO, it is to get everyone working in the same
direction when teams are not meeting in person on a weekly basis. When
the amount of small talk is heavily reduced, it’s harder to identify
misunderstandings in an early stage or to identify where additional
clarifications might be needed. People also tend to avoid “nice to
know” questions in meetings or to ask someone they never met in
person, and when those questions are not asked in the lunchroom
either, they tend to stay unanswered. For this reason we work actively
with our teams to not only know “what” they should do, but also “why”
they should do it. When everyone is aware of the “why” we work better
as a team and we see a reduced need for clarifications.
How do you and your teams currently use the CodeScene reports?
Depending on our roles in the teams we use them in different ways. As
a CIO I’m mainly interested in getting an ”unbiased opinion” on how we
are doing as an development organization, and an ability to identify
potential risks lying ahead. I also see that our teams become more and
more accurate in estimating tasks and maintaining their backlogs when
this data is used for reports which are shared with management –
something that makes it easier to plan our work. In essence our
developers have increased their contribution in the areas of panning
and reporting, in addition to coding, after we implemented
CodeScene.
Which is the most important metric you are tracking in the CodeScene
reports?
We are looking at lead times, throughput and code quality as some
examples. We try to follow a group of KPI’s that has impact on each
other to make sure that an increased output does not also come with
lower code quality or longer lead times for fixing bugs (as one
example). By following KPI’s in this way we can ensure that an
increased focus on one area does not mean that we lose focus on other
areas.
Daniel Asvelius, CIO Ework Group
Would it be possible to get this data without a tool like CodeScene?
It would, but it would take substantially more manpower to get the
same level of insights into the data. It would also be harder to
identify unknown risks since humans tend to focus on the risks they
are already aware of, not the ones they are not aware of. All together
I believe that CodeScene contributes with better insights, at a lower
cost, compared to manual processes.
Is there any specific project you could share metrics about? In % if
you are prohibited to share actual figures.
For the past years Ework has invested heavily in an online
marketplace for services, such as consulting and staffing, called
Verama (www.verama.com). Most
of our development teams are focused on various parts of the Verama
platform and since sales of it has gone better than expected, with
multiple global brands already on board, our development teams have
high expectations on their output.
I know from experience that when the demands for output increases we
face risk of lower code quality which was one of the reasons we got in
contact with CodeScene in the first place. At that time we set up an
internal KPI saying that regardless of the pressure to deliver new
features we should not let our code quality drop under 9 out of 10 to
avoid building a technical backlog already from start. 3 years later
we still keep this KPI and with a short drop to 8 and then back to 9
we have been able to maintain this high code quality throughout the
whole project. This is something that I know our developers are very
proud of and as a CIO its great to know that we are building on a
solid foundation.
Read more about Ework group ->
About the company
Ework Group AB is a Swedish company founded in 2000 with
operations in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Poland and Denmark. The
company mediates consultants in collaboration with small and
medium-sized consulting companies in IT, telecom, technology and
business development.
Learn more about Ework group
Ework Group uses CodeScene to get an unbiased opinion about how
they are doing as a development organization and to identify
potential risks lying ahead.
Key Insights were gathered from:
Code Health
Lead Times
Predictions and Risk Identification
Key Results Achieved:
High code quality throughout the whole project.
Better insights and at lower cost, compared to manual
processes
Increased contribution in the areas of planning, reporting and
coding
If you’re interested in learning more about CodeScene, please reach
out to sales@codescene.com
