Real Metrics for Real Work!

We were trying to find a tool to capture the work being completed, how it was getting done, and by whom. On one hand there was a strict efficiency element to it- praise the rockstars, root out the stinkers. But there was another aspect- what are the trends on a team and individual level? And how do we foster the appropriate development and assignments for those teams and individuals based on their output, their languages, their trends, etc. The value of GitPrime grows exponentially as we get more data from it.

Pros

We can finally understand what the dev teams are doing, not as a function of closed Jira tickets but as actual work actually completed. GitPrime measures the actual work completed, showing patterns, language analysis (like angular vs react), and visualizes what is going in a less abstract way- because story points can only be so accurate. Basically, we are learning who is deploying, who is working, how they're being so successful, and identifying the weak links. When you have a collaborative team full of selfless introverts, it can be very hard to identify who isn't contributing and even harder to identify who your rockstars are. GitPrime solves all of that, and visualizes the trends and the metrics.

Cons

Price. It can definitely be a little expensive especially when you consider the suite of tools already being used for dev teams (security management, work ticketing, internal wikis, etc.). It does require ongoing management to get the most out of it, it would be more convenient if there were notifications/alerts or something similar.

Increases my ability to make confident performance decisions. A must have to data driven teams.

Data. Period. Data that I can use to operate my teams.

Pros

GitPrime increases my ability to make confident decisions about performance, and it allows me to do so much more quickly. I no longer have to rely on larger more abstract mechanisms or my gut only, now I can validate or invalidate it with data. The ability to drive after goals using team based data and/or individual based data allows me to customize how I want to use it across my teams. I also love how it easily and readily gives me coaching opportunities to take to a 1:1 with a team member.

Cons

It's impossible to include all business context into the algorithms GitPrime uses and I'd love a way to have a "journal" of sorts both for individuals and teams that allow documentation of that context over time. Additionally, goals coupled with notifications and updates on goals would be a great improvement.

Hard to drive adoption to engineering teams

Pros

GitPrime offers helpful visualizations that add transparency to the development process.

Cons

GitPrime's designed for management, so it's hard to convince actual developers to use it.

Great Developer Insights

I'm trying to get better insight into what my developers are doing on a daily basis in order to make changes to reduce waste.

Pros

I like their overall approach to quantifying developer productivity. They measure activity, how many commits per day, what areas those commits are in and how long it takes for PRs to be reviewed. This gives granular visibility into each developer and the team as a whole.

Cons

Pricing needed to be addressed. Their pricing out of the gate is from 1 to 25 developers at a fixed price. I have fewer than 25 developers so this put their solution out of reach compared to a competitor that prices per developer. I ended up evaluating both products. GitPrime won on feature and functionality but not on price. The other product was good but incomplete (I wanted Jira integration) but the price was about a third of the cost of GitPrime. At the end of the eval I negotiated on price to something my budget would allow.

New Relic for An Engineering Team

Data and metrics on engineering team performance that aid in efforts to ramp up, develop, and retain engineering talent.

Pros

GitPrime peels back the curtain and exposes a wealth of metrics around the productivity and behavior of your engineering team. This allows everything from getting a great 10,000 ft view to diving into a specific team member. We've effectively used the tool to evaluate the impact (or lack of impact) of process/cultural changes, check in on team member performance and evaluate how new team members onboard and ramp up.

Cons

The metrics and charts only provide part of the picture. The software is best used in conjunction with your own intuition. For example, there may be non-alarming explanations for decreases in productivity (e.g. increase of PTO in the summer). Also I wish some of the charts had the ability to graph longer time periods.

Loved the features, but had to leave because inflexible with high price tag for our small team

Great other than after they were bought by Plural Sight, and then sales people were inflexible.

Pros

The features were great, I could see what everyone was doing. Very powerful feature set.

Cons

We are a small team of developers, and they were inflexible on the price. that is the only issue. And it's why we left after a year. when pluralsight bought them, there was no more flex in the price.

Fantastic tool for understanding you developer team's work

Pros

At my previous startup we were early users of GitPrime and it's fantastic to watch this product evolve. Although we were only a small team of 2-3, we got a lot of value from GitPrime's stats and analysis. It really helped us to see where we were spending our time and assess the effects some of our decisions had on our code base. We found it to be great for management and for personal development and analysis of our work patterns. The team at GitPrime were always super responsive to any feedback we had and even sought to understand how some of the product colours looked to me being colour blind..

Cons

I would like to use the product in some smaller projects as the stats are quite interesting and useful to assess how I'm working as a developer, but unfortunately the pricing isn't catered to this at the moment - hopefully soon!

Great tool for highlighting best engineering practices and setting goals on getting there.

Although expensive for small groups, fact-based conversations that result in better engineering is worth a lot.

Pros

It is all about focus. Choosing just 3 metrics to track (there's hundreds) fosters conversations focused on fixing work processes and doing the right things. It is hard to argue with facts. After a few cycles, select 3 new metrics. Take gitprime up on data walkthroughs, really helps navigate through the metrics.

Cons

Finding and tailoring 3 metrics for the team to track is sometimes challenging. Hard to benchmark against outside projects (apples vs oranges). Gitprime is awesome listening to new ideas though, and letting you know what's on the roadmap.

Great product for effective collaboration!

Pros

GitPrime has been very effective for our team. It's easy to use and very powerful and has increased efficiency!