What does visibility really mean for engineering teams?

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Himanshu spoke to over 200 engineering leaders to understand what visibility means to them.

The concept of visibility in software engineering leadership isn’t one-size-fits-all – it shifts dramatically depending on who you talk to.

From daily stand-ups to strategic reviews, everyone views visibility differently. Some see it as a dashboard of real-time data, helping them keep their fingers on the pulse of current projects. Others consider it a broader tool, essential for aligning long-term goals with everyday tasks. But regardless of the perspective, one thing is clear: understanding the layers of visibility is crucial for anyone looking to steer their team toward success.

It’s not just about keeping an eye on things – it’s about understanding how everything your team does fits together and affects your projects. 

What is visibility?

Visibility is not micromanagement. While visibility involves providing clear, accessible, and timely information, micromanagement dives into overseeing every little detail personally, often stifling creativity and innovation.

Imagine a dev team working on a new feature. If a manager has good visibility, they would know the current status of the project, who is working on what, and if there are any major blockers. This level of oversight ensures the manager can guide and support the team effectively without needing to control each line of code they write.

On the other hand, if the same manager were micromanaging, they might require developers to report every small task they complete, review every single line of code as soon as it’s written, or make decisions that the team members are well-equipped to make themselves. This slows down the process and demoralizes the team, as they feel their autonomy and professional judgment are not trusted.

It’s about setting clear goals, providing the tools and information necessary to achieve them, and then trusting the team to execute. This empowers engineers to solve problems independently and managers to focus on removing roadblocks rather than controlling every step of the project execution.

Visibility should enhance efficiency and foster a culture of trust and responsibility. This approach leads to more innovative and agile teams and aligns with the broader goal of driving the company forward.

What does visibility mean for engineering managers and team leads

If you’re managing a team, visibility means knowing what everyone is up to, what’s getting stuck, and how the team is doing in real-time. It’s all about catching issues fast, keeping projects on track, and making sure everyone’s pulling in the same direction.

Here are some things you should be in the know about:

• Project updates: keep an eye on task completion rates. Track the percentage of tasks completed versus those started within a sprint, providing insights into team efficiency.
• Incident alerts: you’ll want to know about bug and issue resolution times.  Measure the average time taken to resolve issues, and that should highlight the team’s responsiveness.
• Team health: monitor how each team member is doing. Cross-reference that with the operational status of development environments and production systems. This should ensure that technical resources are always available for the team.

If you’re able to balance all these aspects, you’ll fix problems quickly, keep things moving smoothly, and get the most out of your team.

Project and product managers

If you’re a leader juggling multiple projects or products, you need the 411 on how they line up with the business goals and how they’re progressing. Visibility for you means seeing where resources are going, how projects are shaping up against deadlines, and what customers are saying.

Here are some things you should be in the know about:

• Who’s working on what: use sprint burndown charts to help you.  Use available tools to visualize the amount of work completed in a sprint versus what remains, helping managers gauge if the project is on track.
• Balancing KTLO and project work: regularly evaluate the time spent on keeping the lights on (KTLO) tasks versus active project work to ensure operational stability without delaying new feature delivery.
• Feedback from users: customer satisfaction scores gauge customer reactions to new updates or features, providing direct feedback on product impact.

This information lets you shift resources quickly, tweak plans on the fly, and manage everyone’s expectations – inside and outside your team.

What does visibility look like for executives?

If you’re a senior leader, like a CTO or VP, you’ll want to understand how all the engineering efforts are helping (or not helping) the company hit its big-picture goals. It’s about connecting the techy stuff with business performance and making decisions that’ll impact the future.

Here are some things you should be in the know about:

• Trends in how projects and teams are doing over time: what is the ROI on engineering initiatives? Calculate the financial return on investments in new tools, technologies, or processes, helping justify or reassess such investments.
• How does tech impact business success: assess how engineering efforts contribute to broader business success, such as market expansion and revenue growth, using market share and growth metrics.
• Tech innovation: measure the rate of innovation within the team, such as the deployment of new technologies or practices, indicating the team’s ability to stay ahead of the curve.  

These insights guide big strategic decisions, ensuring that the engineering department’s work is really driving the company forward.

How to ensure visibility as an IC

On the ground, visibility is all about nitty-gritty details like code issues, system bugs, and instant alerts.

If you’re a developer or a member of the technical staff, look out for these things:

• Code quality metrics: complexity scores, maintainability indices, and static analysis results will help maintain high standards of code health.
• Performance benchmarks: this includes processing times, memory usage, and other system performance indicators that impact user experience.
• Deployment success rates: tracks the percentage of successful versus failed deployments. This is a direct indicator of development health and process efficiency.

Up at the top, it’s more about zooming out for a broader view of how everything’s working together and where the company’s headed. Senior ICs or staff members will be looking at different indicators: 

• Team engagement and retention rates: this provides insight into team morale and turnover, which are critical for assessing organizational health and operational stability.
• Strategic alignment scores: evaluates how well projects align with strategic business objectives, ensuring that engineering efforts are not in silos but integrated with company goals.
• Competitive benchmarking: compare key performance metrics against industry standards or direct competitors, helping leaders understand their position in the market.

How can your systems help ?

Implementing visibility in software engineering means making sure all the parts of your tech stack – like your code repository, CI tools, and deployment systems – can talk to each other and make their interactions clear. For example, when someone commits code, your CI tool will know to start testing it. If there’s an issue, it immediately reports back to the team so they can fix it. This kind of setup turns your tech tools into a team that communicates well, letting everyone stay informed and react quickly.

To boost this communication, you can use software engineering intelligence platforms. These platforms are like smart assistants that analyze everything happening across your projects. They use data from your whole tech stack to predict issues before they happen, show which changes are affecting performance, and even suggest how to better allocate your resources. This way, your data isn’t just a bunch of numbers, but a source of valuable insights that help you make smarter decisions.

In short, good visibility in software engineering is about giving your projects a voice so they can tell you exactly what they need and when they need it. This will ultimately help your teams work smarter and react faster to changes.

Final thoughts 

Visibility is fundamental to success in engineering. When you can see the entire system – the interdependencies, the bottlenecks, the opportunities – you can make smarter decisions and solve problems more efficiently.

By focusing on clear, actionable insights, we can align everyone with the mission and ensure that every effort contributes to our overarching goals. In essence, visibility is about unlocking potential – both for the individual and the organization – and pushing us to achieve our highest objectives.