Measuring your software delivery pipeline effectively

Engineering Metrics

Oct 11, 2023

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, the efficiency of the software delivery pipeline is paramount. It's not just about writing and deploying code; it's about understanding the intricate processes and metrics that drive software engineering. For engineering teams to truly shine, they need a comprehensive grasp of their software delivery pipeline, encompassing both the 'how' - the stages like coding time, pickup time, and review time, and the 'what' - outcomes such as the investment profile. Let's delve deeper into these metrics and understand how they can revolutionize your engineering productivity.

Decoding the 'How'

  1. Coding Time: This is the heartbeat of software development. It measures the time developers invest in crafting their code. By optimizing coding time, engineering teams can ensure a streamlined development process, reducing cycle time and enhancing software engineering productivity.

  2. Pickup Time: After the code is penned down, the clock starts ticking. How swiftly is it picked up for review? Delays here can introduce CI bottlenecks, slowing down the entire engineering process and affecting the lead time.

  3. Review Time: The essence of quality assurance. Monitoring the time taken for code review can shed light on team collaboration, bottlenecks in the review process, and overall code quality.

Understanding the 'What'

  1. Investment Profile: This is the compass for your engineering team. It shows where efforts are channeled - new features, refactoring, or perhaps addressing technical debt. Grasping the investment profile aids stakeholders in decision-making and resource allocation.

  2. Engineering Projects: These are the milestones. By keeping an eye on ongoing engineering projects, engineering leaders can ensure alignment with broader business goals and stakeholder expectations.

  3. Code Quality Metrics: Beyond functionality, how robust is the code? Delving into metrics like lines of code, pull requests, and feedback from code review can offer invaluable insights.

The Power of Dashboards

In our data-centric world, dashboards are the lighthouses. They illuminate the software delivery pipeline, offering a visual narrative from coding to deployment. With dashboards, engineering leaders can pinpoint bottlenecks, streamline workflows, and champion continuous improvement.

Engineering Metrics: The Backbone

Metrics are the lifeblood of any engineering organization. They offer a tangible measure of processes like cycle time, lead time, and the overall engineering productivity. Granular metrics such as benchmarks, story points, and KPIs provide a detailed view, enabling engineering leaders to make informed, data-driven decisions.

Beyond Numbers: The Human Element

Metrics are pivotal, but they're just one piece of the puzzle. The morale of team members, the collaboration within development teams, and feedback from stakeholders play an equally vital role. It's essential to balance quantitative data with qualitative insights, ensuring a holistic view of engineering productivity.

Leveraging BuildPulse for Enhanced Insights

To elevate your software delivery pipeline measurement, you need potent tools. BuildPulse Engineering Metrics is a game-changer. It dives deep into engineering metrics, offering insights into code velocity, quality metrics, and even CI bottlenecks. Whether you're assessing developer productivity or setting ambitious business goals, BuildPulse is your trusted ally.

In Conclusion

Measuring the software delivery pipeline is both an art and a science. It demands a blend of robust metrics and human insights. By understanding the 'how' and the 'what' of the pipeline, engineering teams can drive unparalleled value, aligning with business objectives and fostering a culture of excellence. And with tools like BuildPulse Engineering Metrics, the journey is not only insightful but also transformative.

FAQ

Does BuildPulse replace my current CI system?

No.

We use GitHub Actions / CircleCI / Semaphore CI self-hosted functionality to run your builds on our infrastructure.

Other than faster builds, there are no changes to your developers' workflows - you can continue using your CI system as-is.

How is BuildPulse faster than GitHub Actions hosted runners?

We use GitHub’s self-hosted functionality to run your builds on our infrastructure with latest generation + high single-core performance CPUs, also then further optimized for CI-type workloads. We’ve also tuned our VMs and block storage devices, increasing baseline performance while also cutting costs in half.

We also provide a toolkit to further speed up your pipelines, which includes ultra fast remote docker builders, docker layer caching, dependency caching, and more. With all of these improvements, we’ve seen 2x+ performance improvements in build times.

Can I use BuildPulse with other CI providers than GitHub Actions?

A false positive is a test failure in your test suite due to an actual error in the code being executed, or a mismatch in what the test expects from the code.

A flaky test is when you have conflicting test results for the same code. For example, while running tests if you see that a test fails and passes, but the code hasn’t changed, then it’s a flaky test. There’s many causes of flakiness.

Is there a free trial available?

Yes, you can book a meeting here!

How do you secure my builds?

BuildPulse runs each job in a network- and compute- isolated environment with ephemeral VMs that leave behind a clean state after every run.

Do you support Mac and Windows runners?

This is on our roadmap! Email us at hello@buildpulse.io, or book a demo here!

Is BuildPulse SOC 2 compliant?

Yes, BuildPulse is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant.

Contact us at hello@buildpulse.io for more information.

How are BuildPulse Runners priced?

BuildPulse Runners charges on a per-second basis, which depend on the runner-type used. See our pricing page for more details.

How long does implementation/integration with BuildPulse take?

The minimum implementation involves 2 steps: Signing up for BuildPulse, and changing 1 in your GitHub Actions yaml file.

If you're using Semaphore CI or Circle CI, it's a 4 line change. See our Getting Started guide for more details.

Does BuildPulse replace my current CI system?

No.

We use GitHub Actions / CircleCI / Semaphore CI self-hosted functionality to run your builds on our infrastructure.

Other than faster builds, there are no changes to your developers' workflows - you can continue using your CI system as-is.

How is BuildPulse faster than GitHub Actions hosted runners?

We use GitHub’s self-hosted functionality to run your builds on our infrastructure with latest generation + high single-core performance CPUs, also then further optimized for CI-type workloads. We’ve also tuned our VMs and block storage devices, increasing baseline performance while also cutting costs in half.

We also provide a toolkit to further speed up your pipelines, which includes ultra fast remote docker builders, docker layer caching, dependency caching, and more. With all of these improvements, we’ve seen 2x+ performance improvements in build times.

Can I use BuildPulse with other CI providers than GitHub Actions?

A false positive is a test failure in your test suite due to an actual error in the code being executed, or a mismatch in what the test expects from the code.

A flaky test is when you have conflicting test results for the same code. For example, while running tests if you see that a test fails and passes, but the code hasn’t changed, then it’s a flaky test. There’s many causes of flakiness.

Is there a free trial available?

Yes, you can book a meeting here!

How do you secure my builds?

BuildPulse runs each job in a network- and compute- isolated environment with ephemeral VMs that leave behind a clean state after every run.

Do you support Mac and Windows runners?

This is on our roadmap! Email us at hello@buildpulse.io, or book a demo here!

Is BuildPulse SOC 2 compliant?

Yes, BuildPulse is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant.

Contact us at hello@buildpulse.io for more information.

How are BuildPulse Runners priced?

BuildPulse Runners charges on a per-second basis, which depend on the runner-type used. See our pricing page for more details.

How long does implementation/integration with BuildPulse take?

The minimum implementation involves 2 steps: Signing up for BuildPulse, and changing 1 in your GitHub Actions yaml file.

If you're using Semaphore CI or Circle CI, it's a 4 line change. See our Getting Started guide for more details.

Does BuildPulse replace my current CI system?

No.

We use GitHub Actions / CircleCI / Semaphore CI self-hosted functionality to run your builds on our infrastructure.

Other than faster builds, there are no changes to your developers' workflows - you can continue using your CI system as-is.

How is BuildPulse faster than GitHub Actions hosted runners?

We use GitHub’s self-hosted functionality to run your builds on our infrastructure with latest generation + high single-core performance CPUs, also then further optimized for CI-type workloads. We’ve also tuned our VMs and block storage devices, increasing baseline performance while also cutting costs in half.

We also provide a toolkit to further speed up your pipelines, which includes ultra fast remote docker builders, docker layer caching, dependency caching, and more. With all of these improvements, we’ve seen 2x+ performance improvements in build times.

Can I use BuildPulse with other CI providers than GitHub Actions?

A false positive is a test failure in your test suite due to an actual error in the code being executed, or a mismatch in what the test expects from the code.

A flaky test is when you have conflicting test results for the same code. For example, while running tests if you see that a test fails and passes, but the code hasn’t changed, then it’s a flaky test. There’s many causes of flakiness.

Is there a free trial available?

Yes, you can book a meeting here!

How do you secure my builds?

BuildPulse runs each job in a network- and compute- isolated environment with ephemeral VMs that leave behind a clean state after every run.

Do you support Mac and Windows runners?

This is on our roadmap! Email us at hello@buildpulse.io, or book a demo here!

Is BuildPulse SOC 2 compliant?

Yes, BuildPulse is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant.

Contact us at hello@buildpulse.io for more information.

How are BuildPulse Runners priced?

BuildPulse Runners charges on a per-second basis, which depend on the runner-type used. See our pricing page for more details.

How long does implementation/integration with BuildPulse take?

The minimum implementation involves 2 steps: Signing up for BuildPulse, and changing 1 in your GitHub Actions yaml file.

If you're using Semaphore CI or Circle CI, it's a 4 line change. See our Getting Started guide for more details.

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