KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) is a term which, as an entrepreneur, you probably know very well. They enable people to quantify business objectives, monitor their performance regularly, and determine what works and what needs to be improved. Have you wondered how to set them when you outsource software development?
In this article, we present you with project metrics that you should track along with software KPIs. Tracking the performance of IT specialists allows everyone to focus on the big picture, which is a huge advantage. Software metrics can have different values for different teams. It may happen that the specifics of the project make it impossible to apply all of them. However, the metrics we describe are commonly used by many companies. You can choose the most suitable ones for applying in the process.
It is estimated that 70% of projects in the world fail. However, KPIs help to prevent such situations and can boost outsourced developers’ productivity for sure. In turn, monitoring the outsourcing process in Poland and around the world can be significantly improved. Check them out and enjoy the benefits of IT outsourcing!
Why are KPIs so important?
Establishing and monitoring performance metrics allows you to manage the progress of your business projects properly. Today, KPIs are used in almost all industries, including IT, where they help measure and manage the progress of software teams. Establishing KPIs that measure programmers productivity in outsourcing projects is crucial because outsourced projects are much more challenging to manage than in-house ones.
Their advantage is that they can help to detect issues and track or prioritize potential problems that may appear. To sum up, they provide opportunities for improvements for the IT team. If you want to be as efficient as possible, you should prepare both KPIs and metrics related to smaller tasks to get you closer to achieving your goal.
Introducing software engineering KPIs into the development process allows you to:
- Manage the project workloads effectively
- Identify problems on time
- Prioritize the work accurately
- Reduce overtime
- Establish better clarity of goals or expectations
- Visualize the accomplishments of teams
Main project KPIs for IT outsourcing
Costs
Regardless of the industry and project specifics, one of the most important metrics is cost. By establishing this at the beginning of the project, you will avoid going over budget.
You can divide this ratio into two parts by considering:
- Actual costs — which will allow you to regulate ongoing expenses;
- The budget needed to complete — which enables better estimation of all potential budget deviations.
Productivity
Another important determinant is team effectiveness. It will monitor how much work is done and measure the effectiveness of software development teams. This issue is significant for Project Managers who watch over the team’s efficiency and make sure that the project is delivered on time.
When measuring the effectiveness of a team, you should focus on following issues:
- Cycle time – the number of hours/days required to complete the task;
- Lead time – time in which the task will be completed, taking into account other tasks the team is working on;
- Team execution speed – which will help estimate the number of iterations the team needs to complete each task (in this case, we recommend using code churn — a measure that shows the rate at which code is evolving);
- Deployment frequency — that is how often new functionalities are added into production. This metric should be maintained at a similar level for the project duration)
- Schedule compliance — allows measuring the ability to schedule and complete work on time.
- Sprint burndown — showing the speed at which work in a particular sprint is completed and how much work remains to be done.
- Code churn — this metric refers to the frequency of code changes. It also measures code stability.
- MTTD — (Mean time to detect defects) refers to the time between when an issue happens and when the IT specialists detect it.
Customer satisfaction
Another critical KPI for IT outsourcing is attention to customer satisfaction. How to measure it? The most important issues include:
- Scheduling (on time/deadlines)
- Quality (service & deliverable)
- Satisfaction of working with the team (taking into account their willingness to be helpful, proactive and good communication)
- Transparency (providing feedback)
- Overall customer satisfaction
The best proof to confirm whether you have achieved your goal will be to ask for references or complete a customer satisfaction survey.
Working with the customer
Customer satisfaction is one thing, but effective customer collaboration can also be considered a KPI. You should pay attention to:
- Customer engagement — for example, the time spent by the customer in meeting the supplier’s requests.
- Delay time on the customer side — monitoring this factor helps to explain possible delays in the project.
We hope these metrics will help you become more efficient in your operations.
KPIs for IT outsourcing in Poland
Establishing important metrics can help with achieving improvements in the projects and preventing many issues. Thanks to this you have the situation under control and possibilities of risks can be significantly reduced. Knowing how to measure the process of the project that you outsource to a team in another country is very important in case of high-quality cooperation.
If you have any questions related to the outsourcing of IT specialists in Poland or you’re looking for a productive team that works with specific KPIs, it is the best to contact us and talk about it. As an experienced IT recruitment agency, we provide help that improves the recruitment processes.