Evaluating Team Performance In Engineering

I’ve been leading SWE teams for over a decade now. As a Principal EM, I have one cardinal rule: The failures of my team are my failures. A strong engineering team doesn’t just happen, it’s built deliberately over time. To evaluate progress and level up, I focus on three core pillars that define a high-performing engineering team. Let’s break them down: 1. Delivering Value: The “Why” Behind the Work Your team exists to solve problems, ship features, and provide value. - Are we consistently delivering measurable results? - Are stakeholders confident in our output? - Does every sprint feel aligned with business goals? Value doesn’t mean just “shipping.” It means shipping the right things that move the needle for the business. 2. People Growth: Build for Today, Invest for Tomorrow Your team isn’t just delivering code, it’s a living system of people with potential. Ask yourself: - Are individuals engaged and growing? - Are we creating opportunities for junior engineers to step up? - Do team members feel empowered to share ideas and take ownership? High retention, strong morale, and skill growth are signs you’re on the right track. 3. Sustainable Quality: Long-Term Wins Over Short-Term Gains Shortcuts may feel tempting, but tech debt always comes knocking. - Are we balancing speed with quality? - Is technical debt under control? - Are we investing in processes and tools to sustain long-term success? The best teams create systems that grow with them, not against them. My role an Engineering Manager isn’t just to manage tasks. It’s to elevate the entire system—people, processes, and outcomes. When your team excels in all three pillars, you’re creating a high-performance team that can adapt, grow, and thrive. If you’re a developer, remember: Your work is more than just the lines of code you push. When you focus on delivering value, growing as a person, and maintaining quality, you’re not just leveling yourself up, you’re helping your entire team succeed. Keep asking questions. Keep learning. And most importantly, keep building.

How to compare your eng team's velocity to industry benchmarks (and increase it): Step 1: Send your eng team this 4-question survey to get a baseline on key metrics: https://lnkd.in/gQGfApx4 You can use any surveying tool to do this—Google Forms, Microsoft Forms, Typeform, etc.—just make sure you can view the responses in a spreadsheet in order to calculate averages. Important: responses must be anonymous to preserve trust, and this survey is designed for people who write code as part of their job. Step 2: Calculate your how you're doing. - For Speed, Quality, and Impact, find the average value for each question’s responses. - For Effectiveness, calculate the percent of favorable responses (also called a Top 2 Box score) across all Effectiveness responses. See the example in the template above. Step 3: Track velocity improvements over time. Once you’ve got a baseline, you can start to regularly re-run this survey to track your progress. Use a quarterly cadence to begin with. Benchmarking data, both internal and external, will help contextualize your results. Remember, speed is only relative to your competition. Below are external benchmarks for the key metrics. You can also download full benchmarking data, including segments on company size, sector, and even benchmarks for mobile engineers here: https://lnkd.in/gBJzCdTg Look at 75th percentile values for comparison initially. Being a top-quartile performer is a solid goal for any development team. Step 4: Decide which area to improve first. Look at your data and using benchmarking data as a reference point, pick which metric you believe will make the biggest impact on velocity. To make this decision about what to work on to improve product velocity, drill down to the data on a team level, and also look at qualitative data from the engineers themselves. Step 5: Link efficiency improvements to core business impact metrics Instead of presenting these CI and release improvement projects as “tech debt repayment” or “workflow improvements” without clear goals and outcomes, you can directly link efficiency projects back to core business impact metrics. Ongoing research (https://lnkd.in/grHQNtSA) continues to show a correlation between developer experience and efficiency, looking at data from 40,000 developers across 800 organizations. Improving the Effectiveness score (DXI) by one point translates to saving 13 minutes per week per developer, equivalent to 10 hours annually. With this org’s 150 engineers, improving the score by one point results in about 33 hours saved per week. For so much more, don't miss the full post: https://lnkd.in/grrpfwrK

After studying hundreds of teams across sectors, I've developed this quick assessment to help you gauge your team's current state: 𝗥𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 (𝟭-𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝟱-𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵): 🔄 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲: Team members understand and agree on the team's purpose and goals  📊 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀: The team consistently accomplishes what it sets out to achieve  🗣️ 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Conversations are balanced, productive, and include diverse perspectives  🤝 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: There are clear agreements about how decisions will be made  💪 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: Members buy into decisions without hidden reservations  ⚙️ 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Members share expertise in ways that enhance productivity  🔎 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: The team regularly evaluates its process and productivity In my research, I've found that teams often score high on purpose but low on reflection—creating a dangerous hidden spot in their development. The most significant predictor? Teams that scored highest on "interpersonal communication" consistently outperformed all others on their ultimate outcomes. Want to take the full assessment with your team? It's available in The Art of Coaching Teams. What's the single most important indicator of team effectiveness in your experience? Let's discuss. P.S. Check out my on-demand webinar for leaders: 5 High-Impact Practices for Teams in Transition https://lnkd.in/gAZEj-ZC #TeamEffectiveness #LeadershipDevelopment #TeamAssessment #OrganizationalSuccess #TeamPerformance