5 key metrics for IT success

4. Value delivered

For organizations that deliver software, the key measure of success is the amount of value delivered to customers, says Jeremy Freeman, CTO and co-founder of engineering intelligence platform provider Allstacks. “Even if you’re an internal or service organization, you should be constantly driven by the amount of value you’re delivering to your stakeholders.”

There are a number of ways to measure value. “For SaaS companies, this may be monthly active users or customer success sentiment,” Freeman notes. “For internal organizations, this may be based on the satisfaction of the teams you’re supporting or the efficiency of the supported team.”

Focusing on the value delivered is crucial in determining IT team ROI, Freeman says. “Every business decision is based on making a sound investment, and with IT teams it’s often difficult or complex to identify the return on the actual investment,” he notes. “If you’re able to directly track the value delivered to customers, you can make very effective and focused decisions that are directly and obviously aligned with your business objectives.”

5. A combination of speed, quality, and value

When merged, speed, quality, and value metrics are essential for any organization undergoing transformation and looking to move away from traditional project management approaches, says Sheldon Monteiro, chief product officer at digital consulting firm Publicis Sapient. “This metric isn’t limited to a specific role or level within an IT organization,” he explains. “It’s relevant for everyone involved in the product development process.”

Speed, quality, and value metrics represent a shift from traditional project management metrics focused on time, scope, and cost. “Speed ensures the ability to respond swiftly to change, quality guarantees that changes are made without compromising the integrity of systems, and value ensures that the changes contribute meaningfully to both customers and the business,” Monteiro says. “This holistic approach aligns IT practices with the demands of a continuously evolving landscape.”

Focusing on speed, quality, and value provides a more nuanced understanding of an organization’s adaptability and effectiveness. “Focusing on speed, quality, and value provides insights into an organization’s ability to adapt to continuous change,” Monteiro says. “It measures how quickly ideas can be transformed into tangible results while ensuring quality and delivering value to customers and the business.”

The best way to apply this metric is by measuring the entire journey, starting from the generation of ideas, Monteiro says. “This involves understanding how fast ideas are tested through experiments, built into working software, and eventually delivered as features to customers.” The system should be developed to shine a light on each stage of the journey, making it visible and measurable across the organization. “Implementing these metrics allows the organization to become ‘dataful,’ measuring not only product success but also instrumenting and improving the work itself.”

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