Effectiveness Index Self Assessment

How Effective Is Your Software Organization?

Ready to see how excellent your software delivery really is? Take the 35-minute self-assessment and get your Software Effectiveness Score — your blueprint for leveling up.

Please read this before continuing

Our Software Excellence Self-Assessment is a deep, structured review designed to give you an objective view of how effectively your organization builds and delivers software. You’ll go through 35 key areas spanning all phases of the software development lifecycle: analysis, design, implementation, testing, release and maintenance — each represented by a focused question. Completing it properly takes 30 to 60 minutes, depending on how many team members you involve. We recommend bringing in input from leaders or specialists across development, QA, DevOps, and product to ensure a complete picture.

Once your responses are submitted, our team analyzes the data across all dimensions of software excellence. Within a few hours, you’ll receive a comprehensive report that includes your Software Effectiveness Score, detailed insights for each area, and targeted recommendations to improve performance and alignment. The result is a practical, data-driven baseline your team can immediately act on.

How mature is your team in software requirements?

We’re building what we think the customer wants… until they tell us we got it wrong. We know we should document things better, but we’re too busy coding. We write stories in Jira, but no one’s checking if they’re clear or complete. We’re tracking how many bugs stem from bad or missing requirements. We track changes, who approved them, and why. Everyone knows when something shifts. We catch requirement issues before they even reach dev. Our QA finds fewer requirement bugs now. We can show how every requirement map to a feature, a test, and a design element—and how long it took to approve. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in non-functional requirements?

We delivered the features, but users complain the app times out, crashes, or is slow. No one thought of those things up front. We know there’s such a thing as NFRs. We just haven’t figured out how to define or track them. Our product owner said the app should load in under two seconds, but we’re not measuring it. We’re tracking how many NFR issues made it through to production. Performance regression? That’s logged as an escape. Every release must show traceability for performance and security tests linked back to NFRs. No link? It’s not Done. We caught a performance regression in staging, not production. That’s because NFR checks run early and automatically. Our dashboard shows which NFRs passed their tests this sprint and which are trending toward instability. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in software architecture?

Why did we pick microservices? No idea, it just… happened. We should draw a diagram or something. This is getting complex. We’ve got a diagram now, and we refer to it—though it’s not always up to date. We’re measuring how often our architecture causes real problems downstream. Turns out, more than we thought. Every feature starts with a lightweight design review. We stop issues before they hit implementation. We rejected the proposed integration because it would have violated layering. The fix was easy—because we caught it early. We saw a spike in architectural changes last sprint. It aligned with tech debt cleanup. The data helps us predict delivery impacts. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in software design?

We usually just dive into the code. It works for now, and we’ll clean it up later… probably. I think this could’ve been a Strategy pattern. Next time, let’s try to model it better. We’re sketching out high-level designs before jumping into code—usually in Miro or a whiteboard session. We found 3 bugs this sprint that came from unclear responsibilities between services. We logged them as design escapes. We can show that our updated service design reduced post-release defects by 30%. We’re doing something right. We used to need late-stage refactors. Now, we catch those problems in design reviews. It’s saving us weeks. Last quarter, our design escape rate dropped by half after enforcing testability in design review. That’s visible in our dashboards. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in documentation process?

We usually write documentation at the end… if we remember. We should probably write things down. Documentation is important, right? We’ve started documenting features as we go, but there’s no consistency. We track whether documentation was written, but not whether it’s correct. Every doc is reviewed. If it’s not accurate, we don’t ship. If docs are wrong, we fix them before releasing the feature. We track how often our documentation is updated and how well we follow our plan. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in configuration management?

We just create repos and branches whenever we need to. Everyone has their own way. We know we should manage branches and repos better. We have a basic CM plan now. It’s on the wiki. We track whether new branches and repos follow the plan. CM plan compliance is part of every sprint retro. It’s improving. We don’t create branches or repos unless they’re in the CM plan. We monitor branching and repo sprawl across teams, and it’s under control. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in quality assurance?

QA? Isn’t that just running tests once in a while? We know QA is important—we need a better process. We’ve started reviewing work products against a QA checklist. We track QA compliance as a percentage of the plan followed. We trend QA compliance over time. If something falls short, it’s called out. Issues raised in QA are fixed before the next iteration. We don’t defer. We track both QA compliance and how often we improve our QA process. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in review process?

We don’t really do reviews—if something’s wrong, someone usually spots it during development. We know reviews are important, but we haven’t figured out how to make time for them. We’ve started doing reviews for big features or major decisions. We now document issues raised in reviews and measure how many are resolved. We’ve started trending how well we resolve risks. Fewer surprises, fewer rollbacks. If we flag something in a review, it’s fixed by the next sprint—no exceptions. We know not just how many risks we resolve—but how completely we follow our review plans. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in audit process?

Audits? We’ve never had one. If something’s wrong, we usually just find out during delivery or a customer call. We know audits are supposed to help with compliance, but we haven’t had the bandwidth to think about them yet. We asked someone from another team to review our last delivery plan and give feedback. We’ve had our first official internal audit. We’re now tracking how many issues we resolve. Audit findings now come with deadlines, and we monitor if they’re trending down over time. If the audit finds a problem, we resolve it before the next sprint starts—no delays. We’re not just resolving audit issues—we’re measuring how well we execute our audit plan. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in reuse asset creation process?

If someone built something similar before, we just ask around or rebuild it. We’ve talked about standardizing components, but it’s still tribal knowledge. We’ve started saving a few components into a shared repo, but there’s no process yet. We’re tracking how many assets get added each sprint. It’s our first step toward building a reuse culture. Our component library is growing steadily. We maintain it, and we’ve set standards for contributions. We don’t add a new asset unless it fits the domain model. If a problem appears, it’s fixed right away. We’re tracking not just how many assets we have, but how well they’re maintained and used. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in reuse asset management process?

Wait, what’s an asset repository? We just copy stuff from the last project if we remember where it is. We should probably start organizing the reusable stuff we’ve built. We’ve created a shared repo and asked folks to start uploading reusable code. We’re tracking how often assets are being updated and reused. It’s a start. We log all asset changes and notify users of issues or updates. Things are getting more stable. If there’s a bug in a reusable asset, it’s fixed before the next sprint. We don’t let broken assets linger. We track how well our assets are maintained and used. Maintenance KPIs are as important as new feature metrics. Not applicable to this product or team.

Compiler Warnings

What are all those yellow lines in the terminal? Meh, it built fine. I noticed we have like 400 warnings now. Maybe we should start doing something about that? We cleaned up the warnings in the new module, but old code still builds with hundreds of them. We’re now tracking warning counts by module. The core API service has 70% of them. Our CI flags builds that increase warning counts. No one’s allowed to silently introduce new ones anymore. We use -Werror in new modules and have merge gates that fail if new warnings are introduced. We track resolution times by warning type. Our turnaround for high-priority warnings is under 2 days. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in generated code?

The code works most of the time, but we don’t touch the generated stuff. It’s kind of a black box. I think those crashes came from the XML parser generator… but we’re not sure. We now have a list of generator output files that need attention after every run. We’re measuring how many bugs in each sprint came from code generators, and we’re watching the warning trend per iteration. No release goes out without generator QA passing. Warnings can’t increase without a written justification. Any new warnings from generated files fail the build. Period. We also block releases if generator-based test coverage drops. We now know it takes 1.3 days to fix a generator warning. We can even show which components have the worst output quality. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in static analysis?

We occasionally catch weird issues in QA or worse—in the field—but nobody knows what 'static analysis' means. We’ve seen some blog posts about static code. They seem useful, but we’re not sure how they would fit in our current dev process. Yeah, we’ve run the analyzer. It gave us thousands of issues. It’s hard to know where to start. We’ve got a dashboard now. It shows how many issues we have, and we try not to make it worse. No one’s allowed to check in code that adds warnings. We have a policy and trend graphs to prove it. Every new warning is a red flag. We fix it or justify it. Our CI won’t let it in otherwise. We fix almost everything quickly. We even track how long issues linger. Static analysis helps guide our refactoring work. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in code maintainability?

We just try not to touch certain modules—they’re scary and we don’t really understand them. I noticed we have the same block of code copied in three places. Might be worth cleaning that up at some point. I cleaned up a bunch of if-else nesting today—it was getting ridiculous. Our maintainability score dropped last sprint—looks like that new module is overly complex. We’ve added a complexity threshold to the CI pipeline. If it’s over 15, the build fails. Our CI won’t let you merge code with complexity above the threshold unless you have a signed-off reason from architecture. We cut complexity in the authentication module by 45%. The onboarding time for new developers dropped by two days. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in code reviews?

Why should someone else read my code? It works, doesn’t it? I read that teams using code reviews catch 60% of bugs earlier—maybe we should try that? Can someone just approve this? I need to deploy in 5 mins. Two bugs this sprint were traced to unchecked null handling. Let’s add that to our checklist. Escapes have dropped for three straight sprints. Looks like enforcing checklist adherence is working. Every time we see a missed bug, we ask: why didn’t the review catch this? We noticed most security-related defects come from the auth service—let’s assign those to the platform team going forward. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in integrating 3rd party products?

We install the library and hope it works. If it doesn’t, we roll back or search Stack Overflow. We should probably test what these external tools are doing before we ship. We’ve written some manual test cases to validate the third-party tool’s core functionality. Every time the third-party updates, we run tests and record results. We block merges if the third-party product fails validation. Failures from third-party products are fixed immediately or reported before integration proceeds. Our acceptance tests evolve as vendors change. We track both functionality and stability over time. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in integrating 3rd party code?

It builds and runs. Good enough, right? We should really be checking what this library actually does before we use it. We wrote a few manual test cases to make sure the third-party stuff behaves. We now run tests on third-party code and track when something fails. We block merges if a third-party library breaks its contract. We treat third-party test failures like our own. Fix immediately or report and block We track how stable third-party integrations are over time, and how often they break us. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in integrating open-source products?

We just grabbed it from GitHub and dropped it in. It seemed to work. We know we should be checking licenses and compatibility, but we haven’t started yet. We’ve started writing basic tests for open-source dependencies that touch core features. We now track when a bug in an open-source library escapes to production. We won’t merge anything if our open-source tests or vulnerability scans fail. If an open-source component fails validation, it gets fixed or removed immediately. We measure not just if open-source works, but how reliably it evolves with us. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in integrating open-source code?

We just drop in the open-source library and hope for the best. We know open-source components can be risky. We should start reviewing them properly. We’ve started running the open-source tests manually when we update the package. We track when an open-source bug makes it to production. If tests for an open-source library fail, the merge is blocked. We fix issues with open-source libraries as soon as they happen—no excuses We track everything—from test passes to security scans. It’s part of our engineering DNA. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in reuse program management process?

We don’t really think about reuse. If someone’s built it before, great—otherwise, we just start from scratch. We’ve talked about building a reuse program, but we haven’t done anything about it yet. We’ve kicked off a pilot. One team is trying to map out reusable components in their space. We’ve got a strategy doc and we’re tracking how well we’re executing it. We evaluate reuse proposals methodically now, and our reuse strategy shows signs of improvement. If we find an issue in our reuse strategy or its execution, we resolve it before the next cycle. We refine and adapt our strategy based on data—not assumptions. Not applicable to this product or team.

Unit Testing

Unit what? I’ve heard of unit testing before… maybe we should look into it? I wrote a few unit tests for this module... just to check if it works. Every change must include some unit tests now. Let’s start tracking coverage. Coverage must not drop, and we review test results every day. Failures and coverage drops are fixed before the code can land. Let’s improve test depth, not just coverage percentage. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in dynamic analysis?

We test features, not how they behave at runtime. We know our system can slow down—but we don’t yet track it during dev. Let’s run performance tests manually before major releases. Every build triggers a performance test. We’ve started logging CPU & latency metrics. If latency increases or memory spikes, we catch it before merging. Our pre-merge check stops regressions. Most issues are fixed before they hit staging. We go beyond latency—how does CPU usage vary by function, and how does network I/O trend over time? Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in continuous integration?

Our developers commit code, but it’s anyone’s guess if it works with the rest of the system. We’ve heard of CI. Jenkins maybe? We know we should integrate more often. We’ve set up a CI job to run builds on push. Every branch triggers a pipeline that compiles and runs basic tests. If a test fails, someone’s on it. Our dashboards show if we’re improving. We don’t allow broken pipelines. Failures block merges and are fixed ASAP. We track pipeline completeness and infrastructure health—across all layers. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in smoke sanity testing?

We click around after a build and hope nothing’s broken. That’s smoke testing, right? We know what smoke tests are, and we should probably automate them. We built a basic smoke test suite. It runs manually or when someone triggers it. Smoke tests now run on every merge to main. We track if they pass or fail. If a smoke test fails, we don’t merge. Period. Smoke test failures are fixed at the moment of failure. Broken builds don’t linger. Our smoke suite evolves with the product. It’s rich, fast, and always reflects current requirements. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in integration testing?

We assume if the individual features work, they’ll work together too. We’ve talked about integration testing in retros. It’s probably time to do something about it. We wrote a few integration tests. They run… sometimes. Integration tests run in CI. We know which ones passed or failed. Merges stop when integration tests fail. Trends are reviewed weekly. We fix integration test failures the moment they happen. CI must stay green. We continuously improve how we test integrations—smarter, faster, deeper. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in qualification testing?

We check the app once before release to make sure it launches. That’s qualification, right? We know we need full-system tests to validate releases—maybe something more structured before launch. We wrote a few qualification tests that cover our major flows. They run on demand. We now run our qualification suite after every iteration. We track what passed and failed. Qualification tests now block releases. We watch the trend across sprints. Failures in qualification are fixed the same iteration they’re found. Nothing escapes. Our qualification suite evolves with the product. We measure performance and coverage as part of every release. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in verification process?

We write code, and if it compiles, we assume it works. We know we’re supposed to verify things—but we haven’t figured out how yet. We’ve started doing basic reviews and tests to check if things meet requirements. We track how many defects we find during verification. We trend our defect density and analyze where most issues originate. We fix verification findings before moving on. Nothing rolls forward unfixed. We track how thoroughly we execute the verification plan, and how often we update it. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in validation process?

If the customer doesn’t complain, it must be working. We know we should validate features—but we don’t have a process yet. We ask the product owner to sign off on features now. We track how many problems are found in validation before we release. Validation results are reviewed every sprint, and we trend our defect density. No story is marked done unless all validation issues are resolved. We validate the right things, at the right time, and track how completely we do it. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in continuous deployment?

We still do manual deployments when someone remembers. It usually works unless something breaks. We know we should automate our deployments. Right now, it’s too risky. We built a basic deployment pipeline. It works for some services. Deployments are automated and we track when they break. We monitor deployment issues across sprints. We block broken deployments automatically. Any deployment failure is fixed before the next release. Pipelines stop until it’s green. Our deployment tests evolve as our product does. We test what matters every time we deploy. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in delivering code to 3rd parties for integration?

We hand over a zip file and wait for their email if something breaks. We know we should be testing against their environment. We just haven’t figured out how. We’ve started validating against customer requirements before shipping. We track every bug the customer sends back to us. We deliver tested code. And we know if it’s improving or not. If something breaks for a customer, we know within hours—and fix it fast. We know what each customer expects, test for it, and measure how we’re doing. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in problem resolution?

Problems? You mean bugs? We just fix what crashes right away and ignore the rest. We know we should be tracking problems and root causes better, but it’s not a priority right now. We started logging defects in a shared board and loosely tagging them by severity. We’ve started measuring defect volumes by sprint. It helps us plan better. We review problem trends regularly, and recurring issues are flagged for deeper analysis. We don’t just track issues—we fix them before they snowball. And we trace each one back to its source. We track problem trendlines and how well we’re executing our resolution strategy. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in software customer support process?

We just get random emails and Slack messages from customers when something breaks. We try to fix things when we remember. We know we need a ticketing system. Right now, it’s just spreadsheets and inbox folders. We created a support board in our project tool and started logging incoming tickets. We’re tracking how many customer issues we get—and how many we close. Support tickets are trended and reviewed regularly. If issues are growing, we adjust our backlog. Every customer issue is owned, prioritized, and fixed—or addressed—before the next iteration ends. We experiment with live chat support, AI ticket triage, and auto-suggestions. We’re always trying to make it better. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in maintenance?

We don’t really have a maintenance process. If something breaks in production, we scramble to fix it. We know we should be tracking patches and planning upgrades—but it always gets deprioritized. We started logging patches and hotfixes into our issue tracker and deliver them on a best-effort basis. We now track how many hotfixes go out and how fast we respond to critical issues. We review maintenance metrics every release. Our upgrade path is standardized. Critical defects are patched immediately and deployed within hours. We don’t let fixes wait. We track not just how often we patch, but how quickly fixes are delivered and how many deployments are current. Not applicable to this product or team.

How mature is your team in end of life process?

We don’t really retire software. It just kind of stops being used. We’ve talked about deprecating old versions, but we don’t have a process yet. We’ve begun applying our EOL policy to one or two older systems. We’re tracking support tickets related to retired systems, and it’s becoming clear where the policy is weak. For every EOL event, we now review the escape trend and improve communication and records. Every escape leads to an immediate update to the EOL policy. We don’t repeat past mistakes. We monitor both customer escapes and how rigorously each EOL process followed policy. Not applicable to this product or team.

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Success stories

How Can the BetterSoftware Framework Help with Agile?

By leveraging the BetterSoftware Framework alongside Agile methodologies, you can maximize efficiency and solve numerous problems.

Regulatory Compliance

BetterSoftware's framework can ensure Agile practices meet stringent regulatory requirements through quantifiable assessments and benchmarking, ensuring compliance is maintained across all iterations.

Cultural Resistance

BetterSoftware's data-driven approach can help demonstrate the benefits of Agile, facilitating cultural change and overcoming resistance by showing clear, measurable improvements in overall project outcomes.

Legacy Systems and Processes

BetterSoftware can identify inefficiencies in legacy systems and processes, providing tailored improvement plans to streamline and modernize workflows, making them more adaptable to Agile methodologies.

Documentation Requirements

BetterSoftware ensures that necessary documentation is maintained while adhering to Agile principles, balancing the need for comprehensive documentation with Agile’s focus on efficiency.

Change Management

BetterSoftware's personalized roadmaps can guide organizations through the transition to Agile, addressing specific pain points and ensuring a smoother change management process.

Performance Measurement

BetterSoftware's benchmarking capabilities provide clear performance metrics aligned with Agile practices, enabling continuous improvement and effective measurement of success.

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How Effective Is Your Software Organization?

Please read this before continuing

How it works?

Success stories

How Can the BetterSoftware Framework Help with Agile?

Regulatory Compliance

Cultural Resistance

Legacy Systems and Processes

Documentation Requirements

Change Management

Performance Measurement

Claim your free initial team
effectiveness scan

Your benefits:

What happens next?

Request Your Free Scan

Partner with us for software excellence success

BetterSoftware

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for a complex world.

Platform partnerships

BetterSoftware Framework™

Assesment

Customized Improvement Plan

Iterative Coaching & Implementation

Ongoing Monitoring

Methodology

Enhance Competitiveneess

Improve Quality & Satisfaction

Reduce Defect-related Costs

Boost Retention & Motivation

How effective are your teams? Do they ...

How Effective Is Your Software Organization?

Please read this before continuing

How it works?

Success stories

How Can the BetterSoftware Framework Help with Agile?

Regulatory Compliance

Cultural Resistance

Legacy Systems and Processes

Documentation Requirements

Change Management

Performance Measurement

Claim your free initial team effectiveness scan

Your benefits:

What happens next?

Request Your Free Scan

Partner with us for software excellence success

Simplifying IT for a complex world.

Platform partnerships

BetterSoftware Framework™

Assesment

Customized Improvement Plan

Iterative Coaching & Implementation

Ongoing Monitoring

Methodology

Enhance Competitiveneess

Improve Quality & Satisfaction

Reduce Defect-related Costs

Boost Retention & Motivation

How effective are your teams? Do they ...

Claim your free initial team
effectiveness scan

Simplifying IT
for a complex world.