Data-based dialogue
Congrats! You've set up Flow and launched it to your teams. You've even done enablement. And now it's time to take the next step.
Have your teams look at their data.
That's it. Look at the data and talk about it. It may sound simple, but it's crucial for success with Flow.
It can be tempting at this point to go all-in on using Flow—to talk about all of the reports and all of the metrics to get the full benefit. But while that can feel productive in the short-term, it will slow you down in the long run. Flow can be overwhelming if you look at everything at once, so let's start slow to maximize the value. Make sure you understand where you are today so you can make the best plans for the future.
Don't forget this may be the first time your teams are seeing their data this way, and it may be insight-generating or overwhelming. Just having access to data can unlock many new insights. Encourage them to start slow and find value in having visibility into the core parts of their work—coding.
Note: We're not ignoring the strategic directions you've already set—we just want to help you build a solid foundation to achieve your goals.
Get started with Coding days
For most teams, we recommend starting with Coding days. Why? It's an accessible metric that applies to most users and teams, and we've discovered that it's a great predictor of other team behaviors, like how long it takes to complete your tickets.
Note: It's possible Coding days doesn't make as much sense to start with for your teams. If you're sure that's the case, we recommend selecting a different coding or PR-based metric and following the general principles outlined here. Start simple and we'll explore other metrics as we go.
Start in Team health insights for a high-level picture of your Coding days. Look at your team's Coding days for the last month, the last quarter, and the trailing year. Get a sense of your averages and trends over those time periods.
Tip: Use the edit metrics dropdown in Team health insights to deselect other metrics so you just see Coding days. It's quick to change later when you want to see more metrics, and helps keep you focused on Coding days right now.
Once you're comfortable with Team health insights, move over to Work log. Unlike Team health insights, Work log helps you drill down into specifics and see visual representations of the work your team is doing. Armed with the knowledge of your team's averages and trends, select your team in Work log and take a look at the pattern of coding work being done. Are there certain days where more or less code is committed? What patterns do you see? This report is designed for a detailed view you can look at daily to keep an eye on patterns.
Between these two reports, you should soon have a much better understanding of your Coding days. So it's time to ask and answer some questions:
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What patterns can you see that you weren't expecting?
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What patterns can you see that match what you were expecting?
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What story is the data telling?
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What questions do you have about what you're seeing?
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What information don't you see that's important context for your work?
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Is this number where we want it to be?
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What can we do to improve?
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What does this data tell us about how we code?
Note your answers to these questions—they'll be useful as you keep digging into the data.
Note: This is also the time to notice if anything about your data looks odd. Is any data missing? Are the right people on the right teams? If you see anything suspicious, make sure your integrations are processing, your users are merged, and your teams are set up,
What's next?
Transforming your organization with Flow is a marathon, not a sprint. Through enablement, you've provided your teams with direction so they know what you're hoping to accomplish. And now they've started having data-driven conversations to get comfortable with Flow and their coding patterns. Next, it's time to dig in and really engage with your team's insights.