Which software development KPIs should you track for your project?

The best software companies in Sri Lanka know a good thing or two about monitoring the effectiveness of software development projects, what with having served clients the world over. Add to that the fact that no two companies and their products are the same; even sister products, no matter how similar they seem on the outset, have completely different requirements, results and yes, KPIs to be monitored.

This goes to show that KPIs need to be precisely tailored to your software’s unique attributes. Of course, this in itself isn’t breaking news, but what this truly means is that your software development KPIs need to be built to serve your product, your customers and your team; simply adhering to a common set of KPIs won’t cut it.

This may mean tracking a certain metric that has never been tracked before – the goal isn’t to stick to ‘acceptable’ KPIs, but those which (even if novel or rudimentary at first) can truly help move the needle in your software development project.

So in this article, we highlight the key areas where KPIs need to be established. We’ve also listed certain useful metrics that can be integrated, while guiding your teams to determine what else can be monitored, by asking the right questions.

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1.   Time based KPIs

For all software development companies in Sri Lanka (and in general), understanding how long something takes is one of the biggest areas they are evaluated in, by their clientele. Tasks and bugs, once built and fixed respectively, need to be shipped in good time. Delays can cause setbacks, seeping through budgets as well as frustrating customers.

Key questions to ask for determining time based KPIs

• What is the expected turnaround time for shipping new features and bug fixes? Note that the clock shouldn’t begin when development work on said feature or bug begins – it needs to begin from the moment the new feature or bug is identified, and mutually decided by the team to undertake.
• How will constraints such as the number of resources and budgets impact turnaround times for your project? Long turnaround times are justified if the task is critical, but resources are minimal. Conversely, this may also justify stretching budgets to ensure a necessary feature or fix has been incorporated.
• How fast are high-priority features and fixes released? Typically in software development, tasks are triaged based on importance and need. So what will the average turnaround time of high-priority tasks be, compared to tasks that are not as urgent?

The best software development companies in Sri Lanka will not just deliver basic time based metrics for your review, but they will also deliver the context that surrounds their turnaround times to help you understand whether they’re progressing as expected, or need to improve in terms of timing.

2.   Improvement/enhancement based KPIs

Improvement/enhancement based KPIs are some of the most crucial, as they directly indicate the health of your product. These KPIs will influence all other KPIs, so it’s essential to ensure these are always prioritised on by your team members.

Areas/components of your product to monitor, for improvement/enhancement

• Product functionality: Is every feature on your product working as expected? Does the user get guided, sans any confusion, with every click they make?
• Speed: Page and component load times may vary depending on device type and browser, among other factors. Has your product been optimised accordingly, to mitigate bounce/churn?
• UI/UX: This ties in with product functionality. Is your product easy and quick to navigate? Or are users either getting hung up somewhere, or folding all together?
• Customer satisfaction: This is the end result of building and managing all the areas listed above. What are customers saying about your product? Are they happy enough to recommend your services to a friend or family member? Why so, if not?

The exact KPIs will ultimately depend on the answers that your team provides, to the above questions. Also, expect competent software companies in Sri Lanka to build custom reports following such discussions, as they will then have the clarity needed to track the right metrics.

3.   Code and resource based KPIs

Your software or mobile application always starts with good quality code. Therefore, writing code in an organised manner, and with hygiene in mind is imperative especially for the long term, as code changes hands between developers.

Subsequently, clean code equals better resource optimisation. Ensuring cloud compute, storage and other forms of infrastructure aren’t being used in fragments and are being billed as per the most cost-efficient price model can literally make or break software engineering budgets.

Questions to ask for determining code and resource based KPIs

• What is the error rate within your code? This can be measured in multiple ways. For example, per a set number of lines of code, or depending on the number of requests made to run the code. The definition of an ‘error’ varies across differing software projects, so it is first advisable to define your errors, and then determine relevant metrics to measure it.
• Are all the cloud resources you’ve paid for, being used to their fullest capacity? If there is an over or under utilisation of resources, can a pay-as-you-go model be incorporated to optimise usage? Inversely, it may be worthwhile to use a fixed model in some cases. Your cloud service provider can help you measure relevant metrics, so your team can make the right decision.

 

Code hygiene and resource optimisation become even more indispensable for AI development – something that the best AI development companies in Sri Lanka know and will tell you, during the earliest stages itself. This is especially necessary if code has been written by AI, as security gaps are highly likely in AI-generated code. Which brings us to our next point.

4.   Security based KPIs

For tracking the security quotient of your software or mobile app, a team of cyber security experts are needed to monitor every area of your project, starting as early as the information gathering phase. Most major software and AI development companies in Sri Lanka now either partner with cyber security service providers or directly offer in-house cyber security services to deliver a security-first approach when building, running and maintaining software.

Key areas to monitor for establishing security based KPIs

• All known attack vectors and endpoints: It’s recommended to build your security KPIs around these two variables. How long it takes to detect and respond to a threat i.e. Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR), the rate of threats across a certain period of time, as well as the ratio of critical vs. non-critical threats – these are some out of many metrics that your cyber security partner will monitor, among others they feel is prudent.
• A grip on the latest breaches and scams: So your team can assess risk levels across your product, and compare whether it is strong enough to mitigate these. Educating customers is also part of this process.

5.   Legal/compliance based KPIs

As organisations get placed under strict regulations both from industry and regional standpoints, their software systems and digital platforms also need to abide by the rules. Strategic and operational guidance from a legal team is required for this, especially if your business is centred around a heavily regulated industry such as healthcare or financial services.

Key variables to monitor for legal/compliance based KPIs

• Risk: Very broad-scoped, yet highly essential. Calculating risk scores and making safe predictions throughout your software’s legal framework can help determine which mechanisms to set in place for risk mitigation.
• Third-party exposure: Your vendors and suppliers have access to confidential data. This needs to be governed and secured to ensure no compromise happens.
• Health and safety: Applicable across select industries that involve manpower within factories and field services.
• Environmental: To minimise carbon footprints, and also improve CSR scores.
• Other specific regulatory requirements (as applicable): For adhering to regulations such as GDPR.

While you don’t need to necessarily be partnered with the best offshore software company in Sri Lanka, you do need to have a partner who can walk with you on legal/compliance requirements for your enterprise applications – and implement them accordingly. This needs to then be followed with stringent, regular monitoring, to ensure all compliance is on track.

In conclusion…

KPIs are numerous, and it is easy to find a list of tried-and-tested metrics that others have used in the past for monitoring the success of their own software development projects. However, the best KPIs are the ones that are attuned to the specificities of your project.

Whether you are looking for the best IT company in Sri Lanka or elsewhere to partner with for your software or AI development requirements, they need to be cognisant of monitoring KPIs that meet your project’s custom requirements – and determine these through careful assessment, from the initial stage itself.