1 min lesson
Turn "we're slow" into a number
Take "Turn 'we're slow' into a number" step by step, then finish with the result that proves it worked.
Step 1 of 2
Turn "we're slow" into a number
"We're slow" is not a deal. The same sentence, quantified, is a business case the champion can carry to finance. Pick a metric the team already tracks and anchor the conversation there.
- 1Find the unit. Hours per engineer per week on toil, PR cycle time, ramp time for new hires or PRs merged per sprint - use whatever they already measure.
- 2Get a current baseline. "Roughly how many hours a week does a dev lose to boilerplate and context-gathering?" Make them say a number out loud.
- 3Size the team. Multiply by the headcount in scope. Forty engineers times three reclaimed hours a week is a number worth a procurement cycle.
- 4Translate to money or roadmap. Convert to fully-loaded cost or to features shipped. Leaders fund headcount-equivalent savings and faster roadmaps, not abstract productivity.
Say it like this
"So if I'm hearing you right: forty engineers, each losing about three hours a week to boilerplate and hunting through the codebase. That's roughly 120 hours a week - three full engineers' worth of capacity - going to work the tool already does. Is that the number we should be trying to move?"