What continuous delivery metrics and feedback should you track for effective system development?

1 Deployment frequency

Deployment frequency is the number of times you deploy your software to a production or user-facing environment. It indicates how often you deliver value to your users and how agile you are in responding to their needs and feedback. You should aim to increase your deployment frequency as much as possible, without compromising quality or stability. To track this metric, you can use tools like version control, release management, or monitoring systems that record your deployment events and timestamps.

2 Lead time

Lead time is the amount of time it takes from the moment a code change is committed to the moment it is deployed to production. It measures how fast you can move your software changes from development to delivery. It reflects how efficient your CD pipeline is and how well you eliminate waste and bottlenecks. You should aim to reduce your lead time as much as possible, without sacrificing quality or reliability. To track this metric, you can use tools like version control, release management, or monitoring systems that capture your commit and deployment timestamps.

3 Change failure rate

Change failure rate is the percentage of deployments that result in a failure, such as a bug, an outage, a rollback, or a negative user feedback. It measures how reliable your software changes are and how well you test and verify them before deployment. It also indicates how resilient your system is and how quickly you can recover from failures. You should aim to minimize your change failure rate as much as possible, without slowing down your delivery. To track this metric, you can use tools like bug tracking, incident management, or monitoring systems that detect and report your failures and their root causes.

4 Mean time to recovery

Mean time to recovery (MTTR) is the average amount of time it takes to restore your system to normal after a failure. It measures how effective your recovery procedures are and how well you handle failures when they occur. It also impacts your availability, performance, and user satisfaction. You should aim to shorten your MTTR as much as possible, without compromising quality or security. To track this metric, you can use tools like incident management, monitoring, or alerting systems that record your failure and recovery events and durations.

5 User feedback

User feedback is the input you receive from your users about your software changes. It can be positive or negative, explicit or implicit, qualitative or quantitative. It can include metrics like user satisfaction, retention, engagement, conversion, revenue, or ratings. It can also include comments, reviews, surveys, interviews, or observations. User feedback measures how well you meet your users' needs and expectations and how much value you deliver to them. You should aim to collect and analyze user feedback as frequently and as accurately as possible, without biasing or ignoring it. To track this metric, you can use tools like analytics, feedback platforms, or user research methods that capture and measure your user feedback.