Center of Excellence
Start from the metric
Your sponsor cares about a number. Pick it below and roll out the use cases that move it first. Then measure it the way themeasurement guide describes.
PR cycle time
Measure: Median hours from pull request opened to merged.
Where to get it: Pull request data from the GitHub API or the pull request lifecycle metrics in Copilot usage metrics.
Use cases that move it (11)
- Work three tasks at once · Engineer
- Take an issue to a pull request · Engineer
- Address review comments and failing CI · Engineer
- Offload a heavy upgrade to the cloud · Engineer
- Change several repositories together · Engineer
- Split an approved plan across agents · Engineer
- Shepherd a pull request with agent merge · Engineer
- Investigate a bug before anyone writes a fix · Engineer
- Break an epic into issues you can run in parallel · Engineer
- Update site copy and preview it · Marketing
- Run a feedback-to-fix coordinator on a schedule · Engineering manager
Review turnaround
Measure: Median hours from review requested to first review, and from review comment to fix.
Where to get it: Pull request review data from the GitHub API.
Use cases that move it (5)
- Address review comments and failing CI · Engineer
- Start the day with a PR briefing · Engineer
- Shepherd a pull request with agent merge · Engineer
- Get a first pass on a teammate's pull request · Engineer
- Keep the review queue moving · Engineering manager
Time to first draft
Measure: Hours from "we need a doc, deck or post" to a draft someone else can review.
Where to get it: Self-reported in the monthly pulse survey, or a short time study on three real tasks.
Use cases that move it (23)
- Write a design doc grounded in the code · Engineer
- Bring the docs back in line with the code · Engineer
- Follow up after an incident · Engineer
- Turn a sprint into a demo deck · Engineer
- Draft a spec from raw notes · Product manager
- Pull Teams and meeting context into a spec or deck · Product manager
- Fan out a launch review · Product manager
- Build a quality presentation · Product manager
- Turn a planning meeting into issues · Product manager
- Write release notes from merged PRs · Product manager
- Write an interaction spec with the agent · Designer
- Turn shipped work into a launch brief · Marketing
- Draft a technically accurate blog post · Marketing
- Build the launch deck in the app · Marketing
- Turn notes into a memo, a deck and a tracker · Business & operations
- Pull work context into a document · Business & operations
- Create a sales presentation · Sales
- Draft follow-ups from call notes · Sales
- Break a project into issues · Engineering manager
- Write and test a code sample · DevRel & support
- Write a blog post with code that runs · DevRel & support
- Turn one release into several pieces at once · DevRel & support
- Create a video · DevRel & support
Triage time
Measure: Median hours from a new issue or feedback item to labeled, deduplicated and assigned.
Where to get it: Issue timeline events from the GitHub API.
Use cases that move it (10)
- Triage the issues in your area · Engineer
- Automate daily issue triage · Product manager
- Feedback triage · Product manager
- Fan out a launch review · Product manager
- Turn a planning meeting into issues · Product manager
- Run a feedback-to-fix coordinator on a schedule · Engineering manager
- Reproduce a bug report · DevRel & support
- Summarize social media feedback · DevRel & support
- Fix the docs page behind repeat questions · DevRel & support
- Turn community feedback into tracked issues · DevRel & support
Time to insight
Measure: Hours from a data question to an answer with a chart or table you trust.
Where to get it: Self-reported in the pulse survey, or a before and after time study.
Use cases that move it (12)
- Investigate a bug before anyone writes a fix · Engineer
- Compare options before you pick a library or approach · Engineer
- Find out where CI time goes · Engineer
- Data analysis · Product manager
- Analyze a CSV of customer reviews · Business & operations
- Build a forecast dashboard · Business & operations
- Set up a shared data-question project · Business & operations
- Query account information and opportunities · Sales
- Prepare several account briefs at once · Sales
- Review the pipeline · Sales
- Understand account feedback in Salesforce · Sales
- Send the top questions to product · DevRel & support
Time to prototype
Measure: Hours from an idea to something people can click.
Where to get it: Self-reported in the pulse survey, or a before and after time study.
Use cases that move it (3)
- Rapid prototyping · Product manager
- Build three directions side by side · Designer
- Build a demo you can record · Marketing
Issues caught before merge
Measure: Security, accessibility and design-system findings fixed before merge, against findings reported after release.
Where to get it: Code scanning alerts, review comments and your bug tracker.
Use cases that move it (10)
- Security check before you open a PR · Engineer
- Get a second opinion on a plan · Engineer
- Get a first pass on a teammate's pull request · Engineer
- Polish spacing and states on a real page · Designer
- Run an accessibility pass · Designer
- Find drift from the design system · Designer
- Run a security review before release · Security & admin
- Audit repository configurations · Security & admin
- Choose sandbox defaults per repository · Security & admin
- Narrow cloud automation tools · Security & admin
Vulnerability fix time
Measure: Median days from a vulnerable dependency alert to a merged fix.
Where to get it: Dependabot alert data from the GitHub API.
Use cases that move it (1)
- Fix vulnerable dependencies · Security & admin
Toil hours
Measure: Hours a week spent on recurring chores such as status updates, changelogs and briefings.
Where to get it: Self-reported in the pulse survey. Count the automations that replaced each chore.
Use cases that move it (10)
- Start the day with a PR briefing · Engineer
- Pair a cloud sandbox with a nightly automation · Engineer
- Follow up after an incident · Engineer
- Write your weekly update from what you shipped · Engineer
- Write release notes from merged PRs · Product manager
- Weekly status on autopilot · Product manager
- Weekly changelog draft · Marketing
- Retire one recurring chore · Engineering manager
- Draft the weekly status update · Engineering manager
- Review connector and MCP server requests · Security & admin
Onboarding time
Measure: Days from a new teammate or repository joining to their first merged pull request.
Where to get it: Pull request data from the GitHub API.
Use cases that move it (3)
- Make a repository agent-ready · Engineer
- Bring the docs back in line with the code · Engineer
- Onboard a new teammate faster · Engineering manager