Author: acquaintsofttech

Introduction

In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, remote work has become an automatically adopted practice for most organizations. Major benefits include flexibility and the potential for a global talent pool; however, the gap between promises and realities is vast. Quality delivery and satisfaction within the team are mostly at stake if the gap is not understood.

The article details these many different types of expectations, personal, team, management, client, and organizational, and their realities in remote work settings.

Types of Expectations and Their Realities

1. Individual Expectations

Definition: Individual expectations refer to the expectations workers have concerning their own performance, personal abilities, and value added to their teams.

Reality:

• Overestimated Productivity: Regarding remote workers, many expect that they are going to be able or even more productive outside of an office environment. However, distractions at home – for instance, taking care of family members or doing chores – cause people to actually be less productive.
• Work-Life Balance Challenges: People are used to thinking that telecommuting will leave them enough time management. In practice, however, vagueness will fade the line between professional and personal life, which is often an occasion of longer working hours with a big risk of burnout.

2. Team Expectations

Definition: A perception of teamwork arises as a result of team members’ communication on what collaboration, communication, and support mean.

Reality:

• Miscommunication Risks: The members will assume that they will communicate and collaborate seamlessly. There is a high dependence on the electronic tools, which is a major miscommunication and delay risk for the project to move ahead.
• Differing Levels of Engagement: There will be some committed members who are ready to fully participate and contribute while others experience isolation or feeling of non-belonging; this contributes to differing levels of participation and contribution.

3. Expectations of Management

Definition: Management expectations encompass goals, deadlines, and performance standards assigned to the team by leaders.

Reality:

• Unrealism: Management might have expectations regarding a project’s completion in a timeframe that seems ordinary by working in a centralized location while ignoring most difficulties distributed workers face, such as time zones or personal issues.
• Lack of Visibility: Managers are often quite accountable, but it can be challenging to keep a tab on the visibility of performance in a remote setup. Thus, there could be a lack of trust between management and the team.

4. Client Expectations

Definition: Clients have a certain expectation for the service they want delivered. This includes frequency of communication, results of the project, and other general project outcomes.

Reality:

• Communication Gaps: It is expected that response times will be very prompt and regular updates will occur. But where work hours vary, so do communication tools and communication protocols between teams.
• Quality Assurance Issues: Customers would probably expect that their services are delivered in the same way as they were for in-person services. But remote work and remote teams does indeed raise a number of challenges to help maintain those same standards that the employee would be without direct supervision.

5. Organizational Expectations

Definition: Organizational expectations refer to the general expectations that the organization clearly lays out, in terms of culture, values, and operational procedures, in a remote setting.

Reality:

• Cultural Disconnections: Remote work arrangements might call for organizations to visualize an integrated culture whereby distance is not an issue; however, the reality is that such employees who work outside of the office can feel disconnected, deprived of spontaneous relationships that would bloom in an in-office context.
• Policy Compliance Barriers: Organizations have policies for remote work arrangements or security protocols. However, employees’ compliance with the policies might vary greatly since understanding or commitment may be at varied levels.

Overcoming the Expectation-Reality Gap

This would require proactive approaches on the part of the organization at these levels:

• Identify Gaps Early : Performance feedback would be taken to match expectations with actual performance in order to find the skill scarcity gaps in order to fix them early on.
• Educate Stakeholders : People should know about actual work in remote environments so they can prepare for some problems.
• Promote a Culture of Transparency : Members in the team should be encouraged to be honest about their capabilities and limitations.

Strategies for Effective Management

Clear Communication

Open lines of communication, with various means of communication available (emails, video calls), to ensure that every individual knows what they are working on.

Asking for feedback to guarantee the comfort of team members in sharing their opinions.

Regular Check-ins

Have very frequent meetings (daily stand-ups) to track the progress and problems arising.Weekly reviews to track progress toward objectives set and changes needed in plans

Feasible Objectives

Based on SMART standards- Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Be adaptable in your goal setting if circumstances change or when the team asks for a change.

The Leader’s Impact to Manage Expectations

Leadership has an imperative part in shaping how expectations are managed with remote teams:

Modeling Behaviors

• Serve as a role model. Leaders need to lead by example. Be transparent, and be inclined towards realistic goal setting.
• Be able to admit mistakes-this creates a culture where others feel encouraged to do the same.

Empower Teams

• Empower autonomy while giving suitable support. Allow team members to autonomously decide on issues concerning their work and provide all support necessary to succeed.

Reward Efforts

• Publicly recognize individual effort so that it can motivate.
• Provide constructive feedback that is focused on improvement while at the same time rewarding efforts.

Expectation vs. Reality in Remote Work

Importance of Feedback Loops

Feedback loops are an important aspect for running effective expectations in virtual teams:

Continuous Improvement

• The teams can identify points to be improved quickly.
• It is because the feedback promotes a learning culture that views mistakes as an opportunity rather than a failure.

Alignment with Organizational Goals

• Feedback ensures that the individual efforts channeled are aligned with the organizational goals.
• It allows the managers to make a rebalancing of expectations with real-time performances.

Employee Engagement

• Actively seeking feedback indicates that involving employees in the decision-making process is part of leadership.
• This builds the morale of team members and enhances their overall job satisfaction.

Constructive Feedback Mechanisms

• Surveys: Anonymity in such surveys or polls may be involved in data collection by the team about what it feels working remotely.
• One-to-One meetings: A timetable should be developed for one-to-one sessions between managers and employees to have an open discussion regarding their performance.
• Team Retrospectives: Conduct retrospectives after the project deliverables to reflect on what was done well and on what may need improvement in the future.

Expectations for Remote Working Going Forward

The increasing prevalence of remote working brings with it an evolution of expectations in their wake:

Hybrid Models: The New Normal

• Companies will adjust hybrid models to have both remote work and office attendance.
• Such a measure would introduce a new set of expectations around flexibility, held within accountability.

Mental Health Resource

• Growing awareness of mental health, companies will place value on employees’ well-being much on a par with output metrics.
• Success Metrics will need to redefine success metrics that go beyond traditional output metrics.

More Tech

• The advancing technology will aid in how teams can communicate and collaborate outside the confines of a brick-and-mortar office setup.
• To make it work, there is a need for continuous flexibility while operating within changing expectations.

How can Acquaint Softtech help?

Acquaint Softtech is an international IT outsourcing company. It offers two major services: software development outsourcing and IT staff augmentation. We are proud developers of new applications under the framework of Laravel because we recently joined as an official Laravel partner.

We are the best option for you to avail a remote development team that will work on your application. Our accelerated onboarding procedure aptly allows you to join the existing team of yours in as less as 48 hours.

Plus, alongside that, we also come under one of the best for any outsourced software development work because of our $15 hourly fee. If you require some specialist development to cater to your needs, then we can assist you to hire remote developers who can develop work remotely for you, hire MEAN stack developers, hire MERN stack developers, and outsourced development services. Now let’s join and grow your company to new heights.

Besides all these, Acquaint softtech also deals with Custom Software Development services and On-demand app development services.

Conclusion

To successfully navigate the vagaries of expectation management in remote environments, any organization aspiring to be successful must go further than knowing what kinds of expectations there are,personal, team, management, client, and organizational-and be able to work with their realities that then translate into better communication, realistic goal settings, and higher productivity.

The difference between expectation and reality then becomes a bridging stone to better operational efficiency but also forms the bedrock toward improved employee satisfaction and retention in today’s increasingly digital workplace.

Introduction

The world of software development has increasingly embraced remote work. Laravel is a robust PHP framework and is becoming one of the leading technologies for remote teams.

There are many advantages of outsourcing Laravel software requirements. This includes access to a global talent pool and flexible work arrangements. But at the same time it also presents unique challenges, particularly around collaboration, communication, and overcoming issues related to code inflexibility.

Bridging the gap in remote Laravel teams and overcoming code inflexibility is critical to fostering collaboration, enhancing productivity, and ensuring the maintainability of a Laravel-based project.

In this article, we will explore how to bridge the gap in remote Laravel teams and tackle the challenge of code inflexibility. We will discuss strategies to enhance communication, collaboration, and productivity while ensuring the code remains flexible, scalable, and maintainable.

Challenges in Remote Laravel Teams

Before diving into solutions, it is essential to understand the key challenges that remote Laravel teams face.

Compared to traditional in-office teams, remote teams often encounter specific issues that can hinder productivity and cohesion. However, this is nothing a professional and well-experienced software development outsourcing company cannot handle.

Acquaint Softtech is one such Laravel development company with the expertise to ensure the delivery of top-notch software. We have over 10 years of experience.

Here are some of the common challenges:

Communication Breakdowns:

One of the biggest challenges for remote teams is communication. Face-to-face interactions are limited, and real-time collaboration becomes more difficult. In a Laravel development environment, this can lead to misunderstandings, missed context, or even mistakes in the codebase, which could snowball into more significant issues.

Time Zone Differences:

Remote teams are often spread across multiple time zones, making it challenging to align schedules for meetings or collaborative work. In Laravel development, this asynchronous communication can lead to delays in code review, deployment, or resolving issues.

Collaborative Code Development:

Working on the same project from different locations can lead to difficulties in managing code consistency, ensuring smooth workflows, and maintaining a high-quality codebase. Laravel teams may struggle with keeping their development practices uniform, leading to code that is difficult to maintain and scale.

Code Inflexibility:

Code inflexibility is a common problem in software development, especially in Laravel projects. Rigid code that is difficult to modify or scale can significantly hamper a remote team’s ability to iterate quickly, introduce new features, and adapt to changing requirements.

Difficulty in Building Personal Connections:

Building rapport and personal connections is more difficult when team members don’t interact in person. Remote Laravel teams often focus strictly on work-related discussions, leading to a lack of camaraderie. This can result in lower morale, reduced team cohesion, and a lack of empathy, making it harder to foster a collaborative and supportive team culture.

Managing Cultural Differences:

Remote Laravel teams are often geographically diverse, meaning that team members might come from different cultural backgrounds. Misunderstandings can arise from different communication styles, work ethics, and expectations. This can hinder team alignment and create friction if not properly managed.

Code inflexibility can arise from poor coding practices, lack of adherence to SOLID principles, tight coupling between components, or insufficient use of Laravel’s advanced features like service containers, middleware, and event handling.

Bridging the Communication Gap in Remote Laravel Teams

Effective communication is the backbone of any successful remote team. For Laravel developers, communication should be clear, consistent, and supported by appropriate tools and processes to minimize misunderstandings and ensure that everyone stays on the same page.

Utilizing Collaboration Tools:

Leveraging the right collaboration tools can help remote Laravel teams bridge the communication gap. There are several tools specifically designed for remote development teams that allow for better code collaboration, project management, and communication.

Trello and Asana:

These tools allow teams to organize tasks, set deadlines, and monitor project progress in real-time, ensuring that everyone knows what they need to work on.

Jira:

For more complex projects, Jira helps with bug tracking, sprint management, and tracking development stages.

Slack:

Slack provides real-time chat capabilities, channel-based communication, and integrations with other tools. It is one of the most popular communication platforms for remote teams.

Zoom and Microsoft Teams:

For virtual meetings, video calls, and screen sharing, these tools facilitate face-to-face communication, even when working remotely.

GitHub and GitLab:

These platforms allow for code versioning, pull requests, and code reviews, which are crucial for maintaining quality and consistency in the codebase.

Laravel Forge: For deploying and managing Laravel applications, Laravel Forge simplifies remote collaboration by offering a streamlined solution for continuous integration and deployment.

Use Detailed Documentation:

Laravel teams should prioritize documentation for every aspect of their codebase, including the architecture, dependencies, and use cases. This allows developers in different time zones to quickly get up to speed on project requirements.

Scheduled Standups:

Instead of live standup meetings, remote Laravel teams can use asynchronous tools like Slack or Jira to log daily standups. Team members can share their progress, blockers, and plans without requiring everyone to be online simultaneously.

Recorded Demos and Meetings:

Record important demos and meetings so that team members who are unavailable due to time zone differences can watch the recording and stay updated.

Given the nature of remote work, asynchronous communication can often be more effective than trying to align schedules across different time zones. Laravel teams should adopt asynchronous practices for tasks like code review, feedback, and documentation.

Overcoming Code Inflexibility in Laravel

Code inflexibility can be a significant hindrance in Laravel projects, especially when working in a remote environment where collaboration and scalability are key. Writing flexible, maintainable, and scalable code is crucial to keeping the development process smooth and ensuring that the application can adapt to new requirements.

Hire remote developers from Acquaint Softtech to avoid code inflexibility issues. We have already delivered over 5,000 projects worldwide.

Agile Practices:

Implementing Agile methodologies can help remote Laravel teams stay responsive to change. Short sprints, iterative development, and continuous feedback loops allow teams to adapt quickly and efficiently to new requirements or obstacles.

Building Team Cohesion:

Creating a sense of community is vital for remote teams. Virtual coffee chats, social events, and team-building activities foster camaraderie and a supportive environment, crucial for long-term project success.

Adhering to Laravel’s Best Practices:

Laravel is a feature-rich framework that provides developers with numerous tools and conventions to create flexible, maintainable code. Adhering to Laravel’s best practices is essential to ensuring the flexibility of your codebase.

Use Laravel’s Service Container:

Laravel’s service container is a powerful tool for dependency injection. It allows you to bind interfaces to implementations, enabling developers to write loosely coupled, flexible code. By relying on contracts (interfaces) instead of concrete implementations, you can easily swap implementations without affecting the entire codebase.

php

Copy code

interface PaymentGateway {

public function charge($amount);

}

class StripeGateway implements PaymentGateway {

public function charge($amount) {

// Charge via Stripe

}

}

class PayPalGateway implements PaymentGateway {

public function charge($amount) {

// Charge via PayPal

}

}

app()->bind(PaymentGateway::class, StripeGateway::class);

Use Eloquent ORM Properly:

While Eloquent ORM is a powerful tool for working with databases, improper use of Eloquent can lead to code inflexibility, especially when the relationships between models are not well-structured. Follow best practices for creating relationships between models and using query scopes to keep the codebase clean and maintainable.

Keep Controllers Slim:

Laravel promotes the MVC architecture, but controllers can become bloated if too much logic is placed inside them. Instead, make use of service classes, form requests, and observers to extract business logic from the controller layer, making the code more maintainable.

Follow SOLID Principles:

Following SOLID (Single Responsibility, Open-Closed, Liskov Substitution, Interface Segregation, Dependency Inversion) principles helps ensure that your code is flexible and maintainable. In Laravel, this can be achieved by keeping classes focused on a single responsibility, using polymorphism to extend functionality, and relying on dependency injection.

Using Laravel’s Modular Features:

Laravel offers various modular features that allow for better organization and scalability of the codebase. Using these features ensures that different components of the application remain decoupled and can evolve independently.

Middleware:

Middleware is a powerful feature in Laravel that allows you to filter HTTP requests before they reach your controller. By placing common logic like authentication, logging, or throttling in middleware, you keep your controllers slim and your application logic modular.

Service Providers:

Laravel’s service providers are essential for bootstrapping application services. If your application has different service layers or external dependencies, organizing them in service providers ensures they can be easily modified or replaced without affecting the entire application.

Implementing Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD):

Automating testing, deployment, and code quality checks can significantly improve the flexibility of your code and reduce the risk of issues arising from human error. Implementing Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) ensures that code changes are regularly tested, making it easier to catch bugs and maintain high-quality code in a remote team setting.

GitHub Actions:

GitHub Actions allows for automation of workflows like testing, building, and deploying code directly from your GitHub repository.

Laravel Envoyer:

Envoyer is a zero-downtime deployment service built for Laravel applications. It allows you to seamlessly deploy your Laravel app without downtime, making remote team collaboration more efficient.

Version Control and Code Review Practices:

One of the primary methods for overcoming code inflexibility and ensuring a consistent codebase in remote teams is to enforce strict version control and code review practices. Version control systems like Git, when used effectively, allow multiple developers to work on the same codebase without causing conflicts.

Best Practices for Git:

Encourage developers to work on separate feature branches instead of committing directly to the main branch. This helps isolate changes and prevents conflicts.

Code Reviews:

Implement a strict code review process where senior team members or peers review the code for consistency, adherence to best practices, and potential issues.

Merge Strategies:

Use strategies like “squash and merge” or “rebase and merge” to keep the Git history clean and concise.

Automated Testing:

Automated testing is crucial for ensuring that code remains flexible and maintainable. By writing unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests for your Laravel application, you can easily refactor code without fear of breaking existing functionality.

Testing Tools for Laravel:

• PHPUnit: Laravel uses PHPUnit, which allows you to write and run unit tests to verify that individual components of your application are functioning as expected. Furthermore, Laravel 11 ships with PEST, although it continues to support PHPUnit.
• Laravel Dusk: Dusk provides browser automation testing for Laravel applications. It is beneficial for testing the UI/UX of your application.
• Refactoring and Code Reviews: Code refactoring should be a regular part of the development process to ensure that the code remains flexible, scalable, and easy to modify. Regular code reviews and refactoring sessions help remove technical debt and improve the overall quality of the codebase.

Encourage remote Laravel teams to dedicate time to refactoring and improving parts of the code that are inflexible or difficult to work with. Use automated tools like PHPStan and Laravel Shift to identify code smells and areas that need improvement.

Fostering Collaboration in Remote Laravel Teams

Fostering collaboration is essential to the success of remote Laravel teams. Teams need to be empowered with the right tools, practices, and mindset to work together effectively, regardless of their physical location.

When you hire Lavavel developers to build your robust solution, it is vital that you ensure the firm has the ability to foster collaboration as well. Here are some of the standard techniques for collaboration with remote laravel teams:

Establish Coding Standards:

Coding standards help maintain consistency across the codebase, making it easier for remote teams to collaborate. Laravel teams should agree on specific coding standards, such as PSR-12, and use tools like PHP CodeSniffer to enforce them.

Conduct Regular Code Reviews:

Regular code reviews help catch potential issues early and ensure that the code remains clean, flexible, and scalable. Use GitHub or GitLab pull requests for code review and encourage developers to provide constructive feedback to one another.

Businesses  can benefit from the outsourcing services offered by the experts at Acquaint Softtech. We also provide IT staff augmentation services for those looking for more flexibility.

Conclusion

Bridging the gap in remote Laravel teams and overcoming code inflexibility are two major challenges faced by modern software development teams. However, with the right strategies, tools, and practices, these challenges can be effectively addressed.

By focusing on communication, collaboration, and adherence to Laravel’s best practices, remote teams can create flexible, scalable, and maintainable codebases that thrive in the dynamic environment of modern web development.

From leveraging communication tools and adopting asynchronous work practices to implementing modular architecture and continuous integration, Laravel teams can overcome the hurdles of remote collaboration and create successful, robust applications.

With a focus on fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and technical excellence, remote Laravel teams can overcome code inflexibility and stay ahead in today’s fast-paced software development landscape.

Introduction

Evaluating the overall productivity of your team should always be on top of your list if you are a project manager. This article will talk about the key software development metrics and KPIs to identify the potential scope for improvement.

Thanks to the agile methods, the importance of measuring the overall productivity of a software team has increased slightly. Businesses are now keen to adopt software development metrics and have also started monitoring different KPIs to manage the quality gaps within the software product.

A software metrics is a key way of measuring quantifiable and countable characteristics of any software. The main aim here is to determine the quality of the current product or the process, plan work iterations and identify any potential areas for improvement.

Read this article to learn how you can measure essential aspects of your software development process. This article will talk about the basics of software metrics and would determine the important ones at length.

Let’s begin with understanding What are Software metrics?

What are Software Metrics?

A software metrics is a standard of measure which comprises various activities to estimate a software’s testing effort quality, progress and health. For example, the UX, process, formal code, functional, test metrics, etc will be helpful in setting clear business objectives and track software performance.

The right metrics here will allow you to measure the code complexity and productivity to streamline the project management. As a result, you can understand when your development team does best of their work, identify the bottlenecks in the project, reduce the risk elements and eliminate any forthcoming failure.

You can combine your management activities with software metrics to plan an impactful procedure, keep your production team informed, make an effective software maintenance plan and ultimately simplify development projects.

Now, further let us understand why you should track software metrics?

Why should you track software metrics?

By implementing an actionable data strategy across the complete software development life cycle is a sure shot method to innovate and improve the software. As a product owner, you need to look at the baseline data of your development team to experiment with the existing process and workflow.

Below are a few reasons for tracking software development metrics

• To evaluate the quality, health and progress of software testing
• To analyze the associated risks and flow efficiency
• To reduce frequent code changes and ensure a better stability in code.
• To understand whether the expected software quality was achieved or not?
• To improve team collaboration within a healthy work environment
• To plan allocation for resources and reduce the workload of team

Now, moving next let’s learn about how we can track software metrics?

How to track software metrics?

Tracking software development metrics is important for all tech leaders as it enables them to achieve insights about their team’s performance and drive improvement. Below we’ve mentioned everything you need to have in order to track software development metrics:

• Identify specific areas you wish to improve, such as productivity, quality or delivery time. This clarity will help you in proper metric selection and analysis.
• Choose metrics which align with your goals and offer meaningful insights. We have discussed various metrics to choose from the forthcoming sections of this article.
• Integrate your code repository, project management tools and CI/CD pipelines to collect accurate and real-time data. This will help you minimize manual efforts and ensure data consistency.
• Build benchmarks or set targets for each metric based on the past historical data, industry standards or project-specific requirements. This will enable you to compare current performance against the desired goals and identify the areas for improvement.
• Watch for trends, patterns, or significant changes in the metrics. Identify the areas where the performance is lacking or where the improvement in required Regular analysis would enable timely decision making and corrective actions.
• Conduct and plan retrospective meetings to reflect on the metrics and identify actionable insights. Discuss about success, challenges and room for improvements.

Now, further let’s see a few examples of software metrics.

Software development metrics – Examples

A wide range of software development metrics are available for tracking and measuring different components of the process.

Software metrics include, but are not limited to, developer, operational, test, and agile metrics. Operational metrics concentrate on system performance and dependability, while developer metrics are particular statistics used to evaluate the effectiveness, productivity, and quality of individual developers or development teams.

We’ll dive into each metric category in detail as well as explore certain software metrics and their significance for software development in the sections that follow.

Let’s finally begin the discussion about different types of software development metrics.

Developer productivity metrics

This type of metrics is a measurement of a software team’s ability to efficiently design high-quality programs which are performed well and are easier to maintain. This refers to a developer’s productivity during a specific time or criteria.

Below are a few popular developer productivity metrics which you can use –

Work log

Based on information from code commits, open/closed PRs, merging commits, and PR comments, the work log provides insightful information. It facilitates the visualization of labor patterns and interpersonal dynamics. By assisting you in locating bottlenecks, it also makes delivery quicker and with greater vigor.

Intense days

Days that a software engineer or coder contributed code to the development project are indicated as active days.

Churning of codes

Code that is changed or removed soon after it is written is referred to as code churn. It’s a measure that shows how frequently a specific section of code is edited. When an engineer finds it difficult to write a particular piece of code, code churn is unavoidable. This is typically caused by a lack of expertise or inadequate team communication.

Now, further let us talk about the operational metrics in software development process

Operational metrics

These metrics are key indicators that will enable you to track your business activities in real time. You can use them to improve your efficiency and reflect on the outcomes of software development.

Apart from this, the operational metrics also show how well a company is able to execute its day-to-day operations.

Below are some popular operational metrics to track your operational efficiency.

Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)

MTBF metrics determine the average time between repairable failures of any software. The longer the time between unexpected outages, the more reliable the software developed. These metrics will help developers understand how frequent incidents occur and how they can resolve it faster.

For calculating MTBF, you need to divide the total of operational hours in a day with the number of failures which arose. Typically, MTBF metrics are calculated in hours.

Take for an example, if the software product operated for 1500 hours in a particular year. Throughout the year there would have been some 10 unexpected outages in the software. So this would be the MTBF you will get –

1500 / 10 = 150 hours

Mean Time to Recover (MTTR)

A MTTR metric highlights the measurement of the meantime required to troubleshoot and repair the failed software component. It computes the time between the start of the incident and when the system goes into production. MTTR highlights how faster an organization would react to and repair accidental breakdowns.

Below is the formula to calculate MTTR –

Let us understand this with an example. Imagine you spent 100 unplanned hours on troubleshooting software which breaks down into ten times a year. So, your MTTR in this scenario would be –

100 / 10 = 10 hours

Now, the third type of metrics is Test Metrics

Test metrics

These metrics are important for testers, agile teams and QA engineers who wish to advance their testing. The best method to enhance your testing is by opting for a relevant test statistic, setting up a baseline and then tracking your actual performance over the following few days, months or years.

Let’s understand a few types of Test metrics in the forthcoming section

Defect distribution

This metric shows what part of your software is most susceptible to defects. In this type of metrics defects can be categorized based on type, severity, root cause, module, etc.

You can make use of defect distribution charts to understand the distribution and identify the areas for maximum defect removals by using histograms, pie or Pareto charts to help you track where your software efforts should go.

Test economics metrics

Each testing budget consists of people, time, efforts and testing tools. Testing projects have certain limitations when it comes to allocating resources. Therefore, understanding how much time you desire to spend and how much actually got utilized is important.

Schedule variance, cost per bug resolve, Budget variance are a few test economics metrics which offer important insights into budget planning. Moreover, test economics metrics would help you plan a budget for your testing activities and evaluate the overall ROI of testing.

For an example, if your budget is 10000 dollars and consists of ten requirements, then the overall cost of testing one requirement would be –

10000/10 = 1000 USD

The last type of metrics here is “Test team metrics”

Test team metrics

The test team metrics measures outputs and testing work allocation. It is a method of tracking the progress of units within the development. Test team metrics consist of distribution of discovered defects, test cases allocated per team member and defects returned per team member.

Now, further let us understand the fourth type of metrics which is known as “Usability metrics”

Usability metrics

Suppose you developed a robust software, and many people signed up for it. However, they didn’t respond after the initial usage or consider this, your application downloads were higher after a few days of its launch, thanks to spot-on marketing. But the user never bothered to use it, or even worse they uninstalled the app within a week.

Identifying initial conversions are more manageable if you use a good promotional and marketing strategy. But keeping your users engaged and loyal to your software or app requires more than just marketing, as user experience becomes more important.

You can get accurate data about the interaction of end users with the product by understanding how you can measure the user experience. Moreover, you can also adjust your marketing and branding efforts to generate better results by understanding more about user experience.

Below are a few metrics which can help you in analyzing user experience.

User error rate

User error rate metrics helps you in knowing the number of times a user makes a wrong input, for e.g. the number of error opportunities. The user error rate implies improvement within your website or software’s UI/UX design. The higher the error rate the higher the number of usability issues will be.

For example, users often make errors while typing an email id ad without email verification, it will result in an error. Image ten out of every hundred users types an incorrect email address, then the user error rate will be

10 / 100 * 100 = 10%

The solution here could be to implement a proper validation and show an error message by asking them to re-enter the password.

Conversion rate

The conversion rate tells you the number of visitors that have completed various tasks like making a purchase and filling out a contact form, etc.

For example, if 1000 new people are visiting your website but only some 100 of them are completing the signup process, then there is a room for improvement within the product/service offering.

PULSE metric

This metric is more focused on measuring the business performance of the enterprise-grade software. This metric highlights technical or business aspects of the performance. The acronym PULSE stands for Page views, Uptime, latency, seven-day active users, and earnings.

Let us understand about what these terms exactly mean –

• The page view shows the number of visitors on your website.
• Uptime highlights the number of times a server is up and running.
• Latency shows the performance of the infrastructure of your website.
• Seven-day users shows the ability of the product to get repeat users within the initial seven days.
• Earnings show that your product is able to work or not.

Now, moving further let us talk about the agile metrics that can be a game changer.

Agile metrics

Agile metrics are the metrics that will help you identify flaws, understand the workflows in a better way and boost up the project delivery time so that your team focuses on satisfying customers through continuous value delivery.

The most basic agile metrics consist of – open/close rates, throughput, code coverages, lead and cycle time. These metrics enable you to prioritize and focus on a particular business goal without any upcoming distractions.

Agile metrics can break down the entire software project into smaller manageable pieces. As a result, it becomes easy for the software developers to manage every aspect of the process smoothly. Apart from this, agile metrics evaluate various parts of the software development process.

Below are a few important agile metrics which can help you minimize the time to turn an idea into a final product –

Lead and Cycle time

Lead and cycle time is important for agile project metrics which shows how long work items are used in any particular process. Lead time shows the overall time spent in the process – from when requested to the till when delivered.

Whereas, cycle time measures the time the development team would take to work on the request.

Below is the formula to calculate lead time –

LT + Od – Or

Where Lt stands for Lead time, Od stands for Order delivered date and Or stands for Order received date.

Assume for the moment that a consumer orders something on May 15, 2022, and gets it on June 5, 2021.

The lead time is then calculated as follows:

Alternatively, Lt = 21 days, 0 months, 0 years; or Lt = 05.15.2022 – 06.05.2021

Throughput

This metric measures the number of tasks, subtasks, features, bugs, etc. that developers complete within a specific given time in software development. This metric enables project managers to evaluate the work of their team members and understand the workload precisely.

Below is the formula for calculating Throughput –

R = I / T

Here R indicates Throughput rate, I indicates the amount of work and T shows the time.

Let us understand how we can calculate the Throughput rate with an example. Let’s assume your software development team has delivered 144 features within 12 hours of time, then your throughput rate would be –

R = 144 / 12 = 12 features

Net Promoter Score

In 2003, management consultant Fred Reichheld developed the Net Promoter Score, a customer loyalty indicator. It calculates an unambiguous and precise customer satisfaction rate that is comparable across many industries.

Furthermore, the Net Promoter Score evaluates the degree to which a participant would suggest a certain business, item, or service to their family members.

For example, you have released the MVP of your new program. You now wish to ascertain its performance. You then ask 200 users at random to assign a 1 to 10 rating to your software.

The users can be divided into three categories: promoters, detractors, and passives. Respondents who score nine or ten are considered promoters. Detractors provide ratings between 0 and 6, whereas passives award ratings between 7 and 8.

Code coverage

It makes it easier for software engineers to maintain the quality of their code. Additionally, it exposes developers to poor code on a constant basis, which finally maintains higher product quality.

The following formula can be used to determine code coverage:

(Total lines of code in a system component / Number of lines of code performed by a testing methodology) * 100

Let’s use an example to help make code coverage more clear.

For example, suppose you have 200 lines of code in your software testing, and 100 of those lines have been validated.

Code coverage will therefore be equal to 100 / 200 * 100 = 50%.

Now, say you are a FinTech based business and you want to outsource software development from a reputed outsourced software development company, then make sure you evaluate all the above mentioned metrics thoroughly to achieve a successful software development project execution.

But, how to do that?

Partnering with an Outsourced Software Development Company

If you want to outsource software development for your Fintech business, it is important to evaluate the key metrics that align with your project goals.

Start by establishing clear and focused Key Performance Indicators which are SMART, i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-specific. For example, if your goal is to enhance user engagement in a  mobile app, then you might track metrics like user adoption rates and session duration.

Choose metrics that are most important for your objective, avoid unnecessary data that can complicate decision-making. Engage in regular assessments of Agile metrics like cycle time and team velocity to make sure your development process remains efficient.

Partnering with an outsourced software development company can help you implement software development processes in a smoother manner.

Now, let’s understand how Acquaint Softtech can help you in achieving a successful software development outsourcing,

How can Acquaint Softtech help?

Mr. Mukesh Ram’s ambition of starting an IT outsourcing business came true in 2013. An Indian company called Acquaint Softtech focuses on IT staff augmentation and software development outsourcing.

At Acquaint Softtech, we specialize in helping business owners and entrepreneurs hire remote developers with the right skills to address skill scarcity in their IT departments.

As an official Laravel partner, we also provide MERN stack development and MEAN stack development services. It’s recommended that your organization hire remote developers if it’s having problems locating reasonably priced personnel for your in-house team.

Acquaint Softtech provides remote developers for as little as $15 per hour, whether you’re looking to hire MEAN stack developers or hire MERN stack developers.

Wrapping up!

Whether you are opting for in-house software development or even if you’re opting for an outsourced software development focusing on software development metrics is essential to improve the quality of your product delivery.

In this article we covered everything that you should analyze before and after the launch of the product to achieve better results and business growth. So, if you’ve a software development idea in mind and if you want to turn the idea into a workable solution to grow your business then opting for an outsourced software development company should be your go-to idea.

Reach out to Acquaint softtech to fulfill your software development needs. Contact us today for any software development requirements or custom web app development requirements our team is always ready to help you!