CHOOSING METRICS FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPER’S SCRUM TEAMS

Abstract

Background. There are many books about software development, slightly fewer books about software development team’s management, and very little about work metrics of software development teams. Existing developers scrum team metrics definition practices were analyzed in this article and common rules were proposed. Application of the rules will allow implementing the Pareto principle in the choosing and using of metrics in developer’s scrum teams.
 Methods. General scientific methods such as the analysis of Russian-language and foreign thematic literature, comparative analysis, induction and analogy were used.
 Results. The result of the article is an ordered action plan, using of which makes it possible to most effectively evaluate the work of the developer’s scrum team. The target audience of the article is wide. Managers of different levels (from the team manager or scrum master to the head of the department) can use the described approach to create metrics for their departments. Developers will be able to better understand how managers see their work and take this into account in their work.
 Conclusion. Software developer typical tasks are divided into technical stages. When allocating metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of each stage, the risk of local optimizations increased. In addition, if the area of responsibility of the manager shifts from the whole to the part, from the efficiency of the company to the efficiency of the business unit, then the risk of choosing the wrong metrics increases many times. Metrics that evaluate a partial result are considered incorrect – they relate to a part of the functionality, a division within the company, etc. As a result, the likelihood of making a management decision in accordance with the interests of the division, rather than the company or the product as a whole, increases. For this reason, the use of private metrics should be avoided.