How Visibility Helps Devs Focus on Innovation – DevOps.com

As software engineering leaders adjust to a future defined by remote and hybrid work models, they are shifting priorities in the organization of work to compensate for the lack of in-person collaboration. According to a recent study conducted by Jellyfish, the top priority for engineering leaders is ensuring that each member of their team is focused on the highest-priority work for as much time as possible. To achieve this goal, these leaders are using real-time visibility and data-driven decision-making to guide more effective management.

Earlier this year, Jellyfish analyzed the work of more than 23,000 engineers and surveyed hundreds of leaders to better understand the current state of engineering management. The research revealed that engineering leaders are shifting resources away from reactive work—such as responding to customer-reported bugs—to the type of work that directly impacts top-line revenue. Additionally, engineering teams are emphasizing growth and innovation, developing the type of infrastructure that will enable their teams and their software to scale long-term.

Prioritizing Visibility

To shift from reactive to proactive work, engineering leaders must first have visibility into what their teams are doing. How can you allocate your time and resources more effectively if you don’t know how they’re being allocated today? Before work can be prioritized effectively, leaders must understand how much bandwidth their teams have to take on new projects. Additionally, they need data-backed insights in order to align the priorities of the engineering team with those of the company at large.

Visibility is also key to avoiding work that wasn’t part of the plan. According to the study, teams spent 22% of their time on unplanned work in 2021, a 15% increase year-over-year. This trend indicates that engineering leaders may not realize when certain types of work are taking attention away from mission-critical initiatives. When asked to name their biggest challenge heading into 2022, 45% of leaders (by far the largest group) selected “making sure everyone is focused on the highest priority work.”

To gain visibility into their operations, some engineering teams are doubling down on data aggregation and analysis. According to the report, while all organizations tend to devote similar amounts of time to “keeping the lights on” and customer support activities, those that invest in a more robust data organization are able to spend 29% more time on innovation and 48% less time on unplanned work.

Building Through Data and Metrics

The report also found that engineering leaders who’ve embraced data-driven decision-making are seeing more productive, healthy and focused teams. These organizations tend to release code more quickly and foster higher collaboration than their peers. Conversely, organizations that don’t prioritize data-driven decision-making are more likely to experience burnout, decreased productivity and less focus on innovative work.