2023 report

Key ideas

User-centricity as a predictor of organisational performance

A focus on the user helps ensure that product development and delivery teams are building the right things for their users; hopefully while building them in a sustainable way. Balanced teams do just that. They demonstrate strength across delivery, operations, and organizational performance, with a strong focus on user needs. Members of these teams benefit from a clear understanding of user needs and the ability to adjust plans based on user feedback. The results show that feature-driven teams failed to achieve top organizational performance. Such teams appear to be overly prioritizing delivery performance to the detriment of both organizational performance and the well-being of employees in the organization.

Technical capabilities that predict performance

• Teams that have loosely coupled architecture, are able to make significant changes to their systems without involving other teams
• Teams that are able to review code faster see significantly improved delivery performance

Working in small batches improves the feedback cycle, efficiency, and focus for the team. Pair programming is a practice that can reduce your code review time regardless of your current architecture and integration practices

• Those same capabilities also had a significant impact on team burnout rate, job satisfaction, and individual’s productivity

To improve your technical capabilities, provide opportunities for team experimentation and continuous improvement.