We tried Anthropic’s way of working, and here’s what happened
So what’s supposed to happen in a campfire? That was how the session opened. With a shrug, a half-shared screen, and a team of engineers…
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In large organizations, developer productivity is a change management problem
The board wants numbers, the newly hired VP read something about needing AI productivity metrics, and the CFO heard that AI tools should be…
Measuring the productivity impact of AI coding tools: A practical guide for engineering leaders
Measuring the productivity impact of AI coding tools used to be a simpler problem. When I first wrote this article at the start of 2025,…
The New Way: Building software in an agentic organization
I’ve been leading software engineering teams for 15+ years, and frankly, the playbook has stayed pretty much the same. Already back then,…
Should humans still review all your code?
In the late 90s and 2000s, the open source movement — and Linux kernel development in particular — normalized the idea that all code should…
New modes of delivering software, a new Gartner® Magic Quadrant™, and a lot of open questions
Gartner just published the first-ever Magic Quadrant™ for Developer Productivity Insight Platforms. Gartner estimates the DPIP market size…
The case for healthy engineering performance management
When capital was cheap and talent was scarce, performance management in software engineering was laser-focused on keeping people. “Below…
What boards expect from a CTO’s engineering update
At some point, a board member is going to ask you something you don’t have a clear answer to. What is the company getting from all the AI…
Five levels of AI coding agent autonomy, and why higher isn’t always better
“We’re using AI for coding” can mean a lot of things. Autocomplete in your IDE, a chat interface that knows your codebase, or an agent…
How we set product team goals and priorities at Swarmia
Every product team prioritizes work, but few can explain how they do it. Ask a team lead what their team is working on, and you’ll get a…
Is software engineering still a craft?
The craftsmen are losing their magic, and the amateurs are finally building. Nobody asked for this, but here we are — and it looks like…
Why “how long will this take?“ is the wrong question to ask
You’re in a leadership sync, and someone from the C-suite asks a straightforward question: When will the self-service product be ready? All…
20 essential engineering metrics for leaders
Most advice about engineering metrics treats them like a shopping list: pick DORA, add some SPACE dimensions, throw in some cycle time,…
Your practical guide to DORA metrics
DORA metrics have evolved since they were first introduced in 2014, but they remain the gold standard for measuring software delivery…
AI adoption for engineering teams: a four-stage approach
Right now, the gap between AI coding tool hype and reality is wide enough to drive a truck through, and LinkedIn would have you believe…
How we use Swarmia at Swarmia
When looking at a product like Swarmia, it can be hard to see how to put the theory into practice. In this post, I’ll share how we use…
How we do hackathons at Swarmia
In April, during a company offsite, Hugo pitched an idea that would improve how Swarmia links work across tools. Knowing whether a pull…
The problem with story points
If you’ve sat through estimation meetings, debated whether a task is a 3 or a 5, and then watched those numbers get used in ways that felt…
How engineering effectiveness looks at 10 vs 1000 engineers
At 10 engineers, your biggest risk is building the wrong thing. At 100, it’s teams getting in each other’s way. And at 1,000, it’s the…
What the 2025 DORA report tells us about AI readiness
The 2025 DORA report is out , and the results should worry any engineering leaders trying to adopt AI without first establishing an…
Small teams, big bets: Lessons from three Nordic AI startups
Just three years into building Inven , Ekku Jokinen’s team secured €11.2 million to scale their AI-powered deal sourcing platform. With…
So, you’d like to stack rank your developers?
Sometimes people approach using software engineering intelligence tools with the mindset of “just tell me who’s my worst developer.” If it…
A straightforward guide to improving developer experience
Understanding developer experience is vital when you want to improve the work engagement and productivity of the developers within your…
Is your software engineering intelligence platform really developer-friendly?
Many software engineering intelligence tools market themselves as “developer-friendly.” It makes sense, because developers are rightfully…
How we do product discovery at Swarmia
Product discovery in software engineering is half art, half discipline, and an entirely necessary part of building good products. When done…
Code faster, ship ... the same?
AI tools for engineering teams are changing fast — really fast. New capabilities drop weekly, and everyone from ICs to engineering leaders…
Why we don’t set deadlines at Swarmia (and why you shouldn’t either)
Setting deadlines in software engineering is like scheduling creativity. It doesn’t really work, and pretending it does might end up…
Measuring AI impact like it’s 1995
Thirty years ago or so, I spent the summer making my university newspaper’s website, previewing it in lynx where there wasn’t much…
Your developer productivity metrics might be missing the whole point
Good engineering leaders care deeply about developer productivity, but they’re often unsure about how best to measure it. They worry that…
Buyer’s guide for software engineering intelligence platforms
Your engineering team used to ship faster. You know it, your team knows it, and now you’d like to do something about it. And despite the AI…
So you’ve been tasked with software capitalization...
Congratulations! You’ve just unlocked one of the more mysterious quests in software leadership: figuring out how much of your team’s work…
We raised an $11M Series A to take software engineering intelligence mainstream
At Swarmia, we believe every level of the engineering organization deserves real visibility into how they work — from the CTO reporting to…
The hitchhiker’s guide to capitalizing software development costs
Engineering leaders don’t get into engineering leadership because they want to spend time thinking about balance sheets. However, there…
Comparing popular developer productivity frameworks: DORA, SPACE, and DX Core 4
Bright-eyed and full of optimism, your team has implemented an developer productivity framework. It’s exciting — you’re eager for results,…
A complete guide to code reviews
Code reviews are a widely accepted best practice for software development teams. In this guide, we’ll cover why the most successful teams…
The essential guide to agile team working agreements
Software development teams use working agreements to align their ways of working and improve collaboration. In this guide, we'll cover what…
Should you build or buy a software engineering intelligence platform?
“We could just build this ourselves.“ If you’ve been in engineering leadership for any length of time, you’ve heard this phrase in…
How I use Swarmia as a product manager
It’s table stakes – today’s product managers are expected to be fluent in quantitative data. You have user analytics for breakfast. You…
How to secure leadership buy-in for engineering effectiveness
Every engineer, engineering manager, and engineering leader has ideas for how to make their work more efficient, more enjoyable, and more…
How does complexity affect developer productivity?
Software complexity has long been a topic of interest for engineering teams seeking to maintain productive, sustainable codebases. The…
Fast, good, cheap: With automated testing, you can pick all three
IBM made a fascinating discovery in the 1970s: products with the lowest defect counts consistently had the shortest development schedules.…
How to run developer survey retrospectives in your team
“Our most recent survey closed quite a while ago, but I’ve yet to share the actions we’re taking based on it. We don’t want to send people…
Improving developer productivity: Different levers at different levels
When software organizations start thinking about developer productivity, they often focus on individuals and teams — examining their…
Understanding flow in software development: Economics, process, psychology
Flow is a rich concept in software development that encompasses multiple aspects of how work gets done. While we often discuss flow in…
The three pillars of effective software organizations
Call it what you want, but topics related to “ developer productivity ” and “ developer experience ” are at the top of many engineering…
Growing our product, customer base, and team — 2024 in review
In 2024, our efforts to build the most comprehensive software engineering intelligence platform continued to pay off as we welcomed a…
Complementing engineering metrics with developer experience surveys
Seeing engineering productivity data for the first time can be an eye-opening experience. You notice a high pull request cycle time, dig…
Introducing software engineering metrics to your organization
There’s increasing demand — from both senior engineering leaders and non-technical executives — to measure software engineering work more…
Engineering benchmarks: A guide to reducing change lead time
Change lead time or lead time for changes — the time between when a task is started and when the resulting code is in production — is one…
Engineering benchmarks: A guide to improving time to deploy
When you’re trying to improve the effectiveness of your software engineering organization, a handful of metrics can help you identify…