5 engineering metrics that can help the CTO build a business case for engineering spend
The one question CTOs don’t ask other CXOs & departments, but they should (because it would help them show the business value engineering adds):
“What metric are you measuring that engineering can help you improve?”
Here are 5 engineering metrics that can help you build a business case for engineering spend:
Cycle Time
CTOs can link this to the engineering teams’ ability to change according to business needs quickly. Allows Customer Success to get engineering help faster, customer found defects can be fixed faster, avoiding customer loss.
Tech Debt Ratio
If the ratio of dev time spent fixing bugs vs time spent building new features is too high. CTO can pitch to CSuite/Board:
“We are spending 60% of our engineering budget fixing bugs, to truly add business value, we need to reduce this to 30%. Reducing it would take 20% of our budget for te next 6 months.”
Customer Raised Unique Defects
A high number indicates that your product shipped with a large number of bugs. You are not spending enough time on quality.
Match this with customer complaints and customer churn to get business impact.
