Glossary of Terms
This glossary provides definitions for key terms and metrics used throughout the Engineering Metrics Playbook.
CD (Continuous Delivery)
A software engineering approach in which teams produce software in short cycles, ensuring that the software can be reliably released at any time. It aims at building, testing, and releasing software with greater speed and frequency.
CFR (Change Failure Rate)
The percentage of deployments to production that result in a failure requiring remediation (e.g., a hotfix, rollback, patch, or incident).
CI (Continuous Integration)
A software development practice where members of a team frequently integrate their work, usually each person integrates at least daily - leading to multiple integrations per day. Each integration is verified by an automated build (including test) to detect integration errors as quickly as possible.
Code Coverage
A measure used to describe the degree to which the source code of a program is executed when a particular test suite runs. Higher code coverage can indicate more thorough testing but does not guarantee test effectiveness.
Cycle Time
The time it takes for a work item to progress from the moment work actively begins on it (e.g., "In Progress" status) to the moment it is considered complete (e.g., deployed to production).
Defect Escape Rate
The percentage (or count) of defects that are found in production (or by end-users) after a release, as opposed to being caught by testing phases before release.
Deployment Frequency
How often code is successfully deployed to production.
Avesta Technologies
A placeholder name used in this playbook to represent the product development engineering company (us).
DORA Metrics
A set of four key metrics identified by the DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) program as indicators of high-performing software development teams. They are: Lead Time for Changes, Deployment Frequency, Change Failure Rate, and Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR).
Feature Usage Rate
A measure of how often or by how many users specific features of a product are being used over a given period.
Kaizen
A Japanese term meaning "change for the better" or "continuous improvement." It is a philosophy that focuses on making small, ongoing positive changes that can reap major improvements over time.
Kanban
A method for managing knowledge work with an emphasis on just-in-time delivery while not overloading the team members. In this approach, work is visualized on a Kanban board, allowing teams to optimize flow.
Lead Time for Changes
The total time it takes for a committed code change to go from code committed to successfully running in production.
MTTR (Mean Time to Recovery / Mean Time to Restore)
The average time it takes to restore service after a production failure or incident occurs.
NPS (Net Promoter Score)
A metric used to measure customer loyalty and willingness to recommend a product, calculated based on responses to a single question: "On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend [View Product] to a friend or colleague?"
Psychological Safety
A shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. It means that team members feel comfortable expressing their ideas, concerns, and mistakes without fear of punishment or humiliation.
Pull Request (PR)
A proposed change to a codebase submitted by a developer for review by other team members before it is merged into a main branch.
Task Completion Rate (TCR)
The percentage of users who successfully complete a specific, defined task or user flow within a product.
Technical Debt
The implied cost of rework caused by choosing an easy (limited) solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer. Technical debt can slow down future development if not managed.
Throughput
The number of completed work items (e.g., user stories, tasks, bug fixes) delivered in a given time period.
User Adoption Rate
The percentage of new users who actively start using a product or a specific new feature within a defined period after it becomes available or after they sign up.
XP (Extreme Programming)
An agile software development framework that aims to produce higher quality software and higher quality of life for the development team. XP emphasizes values like communication, simplicity, feedback, courage, and respect, and practices such as pair programming, test-driven development, and continuous integration.