Improving the development process with metrics-driven insights

Data informs everything Indeed does, including managing and improving its dev process. Jack Humphrey and Kevin Binswanger offer an overview of Indeed's open source analytics platform, Imhotep, explaining how Indeed uses it to surface metrics that serve as a starting point for discussion and insight.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” As a useful principle, this popular aphorism applies to the software development process just as much as it does to other endeavors. Data informs everything Indeed does, including managing and improving its dev process. Jack Humphrey and Kevin Binswanger offer an overview of Indeed’s open source analytics platform, Imhotep, explaining how Indeed uses it to surface metrics that serve as a starting point for discussion and insight. Developer productivity and software development lifecycles are complex and multidimensional phenomena. Looking at metrics in isolation can be harmful and counterproductive. But these numbers can be very useful in context. Imhotep’s tools help Indeed give individuals a view into their contributions over time, analyze the speed and quality of feature delivery, and find opportunities for process improvement. These metrics are used to coach individuals toward improved behaviors. Indeed also measures the success of its release tools by looking at delivery stats and looks at issue state transitions to see time saved through innovative process automation. Jack and Kevin explain how you can apply this approach to any organization, open source team, or individual. You’ll leave with concepts and tools you can use to analyze your dev process. This session is sponsored by Indeed.