Software development analytics tools are something every modern team needs. They serve a wide array of functions. On the one hand, they help teams stay on track with their work, making sure they deliver on schedule. On the other hand they help with raising the visibility of the work they do. It’s one thing for people inside your team know you deliver. It’s another for people outside to know how much you do exactly.
This holds true for engineering managers as well. It’s one thing for you to know how well your team is performing, it’s another for you to showcase how effective your team is to your peers and to the executive team.
Perhaps the most useful feature of software analytics tools is the ability to more accurately predict how long a process will take your team to complete. Often, predictions are based on little to no data; solely on a gut feeling. Needless to say, such forecasts are usually quite inaccurate.
The best aspect of all of these tools is that they all work pretty much without any manual action. You set up the integration, you set up the analytics tool, and it’s done.
Below, you will find a list of 7 tools for better visibility into your software development processes.
Code Climate Velocity is a development analytics tool that combines the data from your DevOps workflows and your issue tracking software repositories to gain insights “that drive engineering operations from standups to board meetings.” The tool allows you to refine workflows, set concrete goals, and identify development opportunities.
Crucially, one of the aspects of the tool is the better management of your distributed teams. You will be able to “track progress” and “spot bottlenecked work”, “[g]ain end-to-end visibility into your entire development pipeline”, and “enable professional development with data-driven coaching.“
Lastly, the company claims you will be able to ship software 30% faster.
LinearB is a tool for tracking your development team’s performance. It allows you to analyze the system to track your developer's performance, identify bottlenecks, and notify members of the team whether they are delivering on their goals and their commitments. The team leaders also get a hand when planning – by improving the accuracy of the process.
Interestingly, LinearB clearly outlines, that their tool is not for everyone – they even have a dedicated “Anti-FAQ.”
Crucially, it integrates with a number of tools wherever your team is already using, such as Jira, Slack, Microsoft Teams, but also GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab.
Codacy is an automated code analysis and quality tool that runs through several programming languages and multiple tools to analyze software quality comprehensively. The tool helps identify security, duplication, complexity, coverage, and code style issues.
G2.com recognized the solution as a High Perfomer in the summer of 2022.
Jellyfish is a tool designed to provide you with a complete understanding of the value your product provides. It gives you full visibility of how your engineering work aligns with your business goals, and not only that. It helps to showcase how your engineering team create value and deliver business results.
Allstacks provides insight into team performance and project status, helping prioritize development efforts. The tool offers intelligent forecasting, analyzing the whole system development life cycle (SDLC) and identifying risks. It can provide comprehensive analytics for reports, covering over 100+ engineering metrics, and also includes many shareable dashboards.
With some of the biggest companies using Haystack, you can’t go wrong with picking it. The tool is an easy one with a simple configuration. It lets your teams measure performance based on a git integration.
The tool reports on the DORA metrics:
Waydev is a tool that impresses with the number of features and use cases. It lets modern Managers to manage their teams in a modern, data-driven way. If the impressive number of features was not enough, there are constantly new ones getting added to the site: making the tool a solid recommendation from us.
Software engineering analytics, and software development analytics are serious products bringing real value. Whether you use them as an software engineering manager or as a software engineer, you are bound to get better visibility, appreciation of your work, and better estimates for the future to help keep executives’ expectations realistic.
Above, we have showcased 7 different tools, from comprehensive and pricey, to simple and cheaper. Which one are you using? Which one do you want to try? Let us know!
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