February 29, 2024
Product Metrics: What Do They Mean?
Good data is the foundation for good decisions. Let's break down the 13 most commonly used product metrics today and how to use them.
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In the last 100 years, we’ve had an absolute productivity explosion. People attribute this increase to many different factors, but you will see in this article there is really only one - better tools.
Tools enable exponential productivity growth. Because the best thing about tools is they are also used to make better tools, which are in turn used to build even better tools, and so on…
When it comes to software development, low-code tools are the best way to reduce development time.
But even more importantly, you will learn why every other method doesn't even come close to the productivity increases enabled by better tools.
Here is a list of commonly recommended productivity hacks that do not reduce development time significantly:
You will notice these are frequently mentioned on the internet as the best productivity hacks. However, compared to improving your tool set, their impact is negligible. And here is why…
Imagine you were a project manager of a perfectly optimized software project using all the methods described above. You had 20 people working on it, competing against a single developer.
But there is one catch - you must use tools from 50-60 years ago. We are talking about super slow computers and programming on punched cards. And the (single) competing developer can use a regular modern-day laptop.
Who do you think would win?
The answer should be pretty clear, and our lone unoptimized developer would outcompete a perfectly organized 20-person team. And the secret to his success is no secret at all - superior tools beat all other optimizations.
So if you want to reduce development time, the only (real) option is to look for an edge when choosing the tools your development team will use.
When it comes to software development, low-code technology is the best tool currently in the market.
Why?
First of all, it increases development effectiveness by 3-5X.
And as more and more projects use this technology, any company using traditional programming will simply be unable to compete. Because when it comes to low-code vs. programming - low-code is a clear winner (by a huge margin).
And how is a regular project going to compete against it? Scrum? Kanban? Pair programming?
When every developer using low-code technology is 3-5X more effective, the cheap productivity hacks on a regular project stand no chance.
Every developer can have the same effectiveness as a small team.. Because we're in the middle of a technological shift - some call it a low-code movement - that is comparable to the personal computer revolution.
Just as PCs allowed more people to develop software (and not just the ones with mainframe computer access), the same is currently happening with low-code.
Why?
Because increased productivity and effectiveness are not the only benefits of low-code tools.
In the past, to successfully launch a production-ready project, you needed all these skills in a single (or multiple) developer(s):
However, with low-code, this is no longer the case. The frontend is easily handled with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that is simple to use directly in your browser. No installation is required.
The backend work comes down to defining a data model. The most commonly used API endpoints are automatically created for you. This means you can save a lot of development time when you don't have to spend it on creating boilerplate code.
And on top of that, both the frontend and backend are immediately live and ready to use.
When it comes to DevOps, it's basically non-existent. Why? Because every project or app built with low-code technology is automatically scalable. You can go from one to a million users (and beyond) without making any changes to your app.
TEAM BENEFITS
Not only are developers more productive, and you can do more with a smaller team, but a smaller team is ultimately easier to manage.
This makes low-code development more cost-effective than any other alternative. And this will inevitably cause accelerated innovation. Because now you need fewer resources than ever to successfully launch and test new ideas on the market.
You might expect that this additional productivity comes at the cost of flexibility and reduced ability to customize your project (which is often the case with no-code tools).
However, low-code tools have no such constraints.
You can use pre-built components and automatically generated API endpoints to get very close to your desired outcome. And then, you can do any customization necessary to make your app look and feel exactly how you want it.
WHAT ABOUT THE REQUIRED SKILLS?
Another concern might be the time required to master a new tool, language, or framework. But a low-code technology is immediately usable by 17+ million JavaScript developers.
Since it's built on top of already familiar technologies like JS, MySQL, GraphQL, and AWS - there is only a slight learning curve.
There is not much to learn because the development interface is intuitive to use, and millions of software developers already know the underlying technology. And this is great news when it comes to onboarding and expanding your team.
The best way to reduce development time is to use better tools. The productivity increase gained through using more efficient tools vastly outweighs any performance boost achieved through commonly recommended techniques.
Currently, low-code is the state-of-the-art technology when it comes to software development. This means any project not using low-code will be at a disadvantage in the marketplace.
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