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How to roll out the DX Core 4 with Swarmia

Start measuring developer productivity with the help of the Core 4 framework and Swarmia, the software engineering intelligence platform that combines proven engineering metrics with developer experience surveys.
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Swarmia powers modern software organizations from startups to enterprises
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Docker
Webflow
Superhuman
Pleo
Matillion
Lovable
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Aiven
Gorgias
Trustpilot
Choco

The DX Core 4 dimensions and metrics

The DX Core 4 framework helps you measure developer productivity across four dimensions: speed, effectiveness, quality, and business impact. It works for organizations of all sizes and can be easily adapted to your company's needs.
Dimension:
Speed
Speed
Effectiveness
Quality
Impact
Key metric
Diffs per engineer* (PRs or MRs).
*Not at individual level
Developer Experience Index (DXI), measure of key engineering performance drivers
Change failure rate
Percentage of time spent on new capabilities
Secondary metrics
  • Lead time
  • Deployment frequency
  • Perceived rate of delivery
  • Time to 10th PR
  • Ease of delivery
  • Regrettable attrition at organizational level
  • Failed deployment recovery time
  • Perceived software quality
  • Operational health and security metrics
  • Initiative progress and ROI
  • Revenue per engineer at organizational level
  • R&D as percentage of revenue at organizational level

Get the complete view of DX Core 4 with Swarmia

When you integrate the DX Core 4 with Swarmia, you integrate data from developer experience surveys with engineering metrics from your issue tracker and code repository. DX, on the other hand, recommends mainly relying on surveys, which can limit the effectiveness of the framework.
See how DX and Swarmia compare→

Speed

Swarmia gives organizations a real-time view of speed metrics.

Analyze data at the organizational level, or break it down per team. To understand the “why” behind the numbers, use developer experience surveys and get concrete ideas for improvement.

Effectiveness

Measure key effectiveness metrics around issue cycle time, scope creep, flow efficiency, and bug resolution.

To better understand effectiveness, use our research-backed survey framework, or add the questions from the Developer Experience Index.
The combination of quantitative developer insights with periodic qualitative feedback from developer surveys is powerful. Swarmia allows us to pinpoint specific areas for improvement and celebrate our successes.
Dave Cumberland
CTO, Axios HQ

Quality

Swarmia tracks change failure rate, recovery rate, and other quality metrics directly from issue tracker and code repository.

To proactively avoid failed deployments and other quality issues, adopt working agreements to encourage teams to include automations and reviews in the deployment process.

Impact

Make informed decisions about engineering investments based on data you can trust. See how much time teams are spending on building new things, reducing tech debt, and improving productivity.

Software capitalization enables you to quickly and flexibly estimate and report costs. You can view the entire organization or zoom in on specific teams, epics, or bugs.
Swarmia allows us to see in real time when things are starting to slip. Instead of having to wait until a missed deadline, I can proactively communicate about changes in our timeline.
Tim Nott
CTO, FactoryFix
Start applying the DX Core 4 with Swarmia today.
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