KPIs: what to measure - part 2

The second part of my developer bonus programme is designed to make sure that I can afford the staff that I have.

Each piece of work that you ask us to do goes through an eight-stage development process. This ensures that it meets your needs and gets delivered bug-free, to your specifications.

One of those stages is the “estimate”. Here, we assign each piece of work a points score, between 1 and 9, based upon its complexity and its fit with our internal tools. These estimates are decided by the team as a whole, so everybody gets a say.

I then track the number of points each staff member has completed each month, and match that against their hours. This gives me a ratio which is an extremely simple, but effective productivity measure.

Achieve a certain value and that gets you 3 points onto your monthly score. Achieve a higher value and that gets you 5 points onto your score. This score then correlates really well with the company’s margins.

And of course, this is published every month so the developers know exactly where they stand.

Take action What affects your margin? How do you make sure it stays where you want it to be?