Introduction
What Is the SPACE Framework?
Who Created the SPACE Framework?
What Are the SPACE Metrics?
SPACE Framework Organizational Levels
What Is the Difference Between the SPACE Framework and DORA?
How to Calculate SPACE Productivity (Step-by-Step)
SPACE Framework: Best Practices
SPACE Framework Template
Implement the SPACE Paradigm with Axify
The SPACE framework is transforming how we evaluate developer productivity. Traditional methods focusing solely on individual outputs fail to capture the complete picture of team performance and well-being. The SPACE framework offers a more comprehensive approach, combining key metrics on different dimensions to encompass software development, team health, and output. In this article, we’ll break down the framework, show you how to use it, and explain why these multidimensional metrics help you build effective teams. The SPACE framework, introduced by GitHub and Microsoft Research researchers, redefines how we think about developer productivity. For decades, teams and organizations have grappled with measuring productivity effectively, usually relying on overly simplistic metrics like lines of code or the number of pull requests. However, the paper The SPACE of Developer Productivity explains that these approaches fail to capture the complexity of software development. This mistake can lead to unintended consequences, such as focusing on output at the expense of quality or well-being. The SPACE framework challenges several pervasive myths about developer productivity that have persisted in the industry: The SPACE framework addresses these myths by providing a multidimensional view of productivity. You won’t just focus on individual or team activity but also consider satisfaction, well-being, collaboration, and flow efficiency. This holistic perspective will help you deliver high-quality software while maintaining developer engagement. Pro tip: Axify integrates key principles of the SPACE Framework to give teams an accurate picture of their productivity. Our intuitive dashboard helps you see key metrics and set business objectives. You can also view detailed maps of all your software engineering processes. That way, you can avoid risks and prioritize your activities better. The SPACE Framework was developed in 2021 by a group of Microsoft researchers, including Margaret-Anne Storey, Nicole Forsgren, Chandra Maddila, and Thomas Zimmermann. These experts have backgrounds in software engineering and developer productivity research. They used this specialized knowledge to design a framework that captures the complexities of measuring developer performance, product quality, and overall team success. Their expertise illuminates misconceptions about developer productivity and provides tools for more comprehensively assessing software development teams. That brings us to the next section: SPACE is an acronym for the five dimensions that compose it. So, let’s review these five SPACE metrics and see some examples. Quick note: In the examples above, the metrics in blue are available as is or by proxy in Axify. The metrics marked with (*) are not metrics we recommend following as they don't provide valuable information. Some can even mislead you into bad behaviour, so you should be cautious. This metric focuses on developer happiness and overall job satisfaction. It is critical to ensure that healthy teams can sustain productivity in the long term. Example: Survey responses or feedback scores can help measure employee satisfaction by focusing on team interactions, work-life balance, burnout, or learning and growth opportunities. The point is to identify areas for improvement. Pro tip: If you want to measure your team morale, Axify offers an in-depth Well-Being Tracker. We’ll need two weeks to collect data from your team, but we’ll also send them periodic, anonymized questions about their well-being. That way, you’ll see your team's morale in terms of stress, motivation, inclusion, psychological safety, and alignment. Performance metrics typically emphasize engineering outcomes at a team level, but people can assess their individual performance using SPACE. Teams are evaluated on how effectively they ship software or complete tasks. These metrics can also be extrapolated at an organizational level. Example: Metrics like reliability and customer satisfaction offer valuable insights into team performance. Reliability can be measured using metrics like change failure rate or lead time for changes, which track the success of deployments and how quickly teams can implement updates or fixes. Additionally, customer satisfaction helps gauge the product's overall success from the user’s perspective, providing a direct measure of the impact of the software on end users. This is how Axify shows change failure rate, for example. Activity metrics track observable actions taken by software developers. These focus on the frequency and volume of work that contributes directly to the development process. That's why you'll track metrics like the number of pull requests (PRs) submitted, code commits, and issue resolutions. Example: The frequency of pull requests submitted and the speed at which they are reviewed and merged are good proxies for small batch flow of work and the team's workflow efficiency and engagement. Pro tip: Axify helps you track deployment frequency. Optimizing this metric will result in a smoother, faster software delivery pipeline. This dimension assesses effective communication and how well teams share knowledge and work together to achieve common goals. Collaboration is crucial to high-performing teams. Example: Metrics like the number of cross-team meetings, collaborative coding sessions, or perception about knowledge sharing help gauge team productivity. You can even include the number of interruptions here. Pro tip: Use Axify’s Daily Digest to see your SDLC's exact tasks, priorities, and high-risk items. This will help you better organize your daily standup rituals and keep team members aligned and clear on their tasks. Efficiency and flow metrics focus on how smoothly the software development process runs, identifying delays and bottlenecks in the engineering systems. Example: Time to review PRs or the reduction of unplanned work provides a measure of how streamlined and efficient the team is. There should be minimal delays or interruptions; team members should have good chunks of uninterrupted work to increase efficiency. Axify’s Value Stream Mapping helps you identify which phases of SDLC are longer and what slows you down. Cycle time and deployment frequency track the speed and reliability of software delivery. Flow efficiency measures the rate at which your team ticks down items during an Agile sprint. Flow distribution shows you the number of tasks or the workload for each item, like features or bugs. That way, you can see your resource allocation fast and reprioritize if needed. Remember: To get an accurate picture of your team’s performance, it’s essential to analyze DORA and flow metrics together and in the context of each project. Pro tip: Axify simplifies tracking each SPACE metric. You can easily click the left-hand tab to choose sections you want to highlight, such as Process, Technical, or Team Morale. Additionally, Axify lets you switch between Team View and Organizational View. This establishes Axify as a single source of truth, ensuring the entire organization is aligned and working toward the same goals with complete visibility. The SPACE framework can be applied across various organizational levels—individual, team, and organization—allowing you to assess developer productivity and well-being in different contexts. Each level has a unique focus on interpreting metrics and outcomes. Here’s what to consider: At the organizational level, metrics provide a more comprehensive view of the software development lifecycle, focusing on engineering outcomes, alignment with strategic business goals, and positive business outcomes. Here, you’ll need broader metrics to track the efficiency of the entire development pipeline, including product quality and developer performance across teams. Pro tip: Use Axify’s Objectives and Key Results feature to set business goals and keep your priorities in check. You can also set customizable metrics here, like your NPS score or the number of application users. Example: Organizations may track deployment frequency, CI/CD pipeline satisfaction, or overall knowledge-sharing documentation. The point is to understand how well the engineering system works and how well it supports broader objectives at the system level. At the team level, the framework focuses on team performance metrics such as effective communication, collaborative activities, and team productivity. This level examines how well teams work together and contribute to shared common goals. Example: A team might monitor the Failure Rate or efficiency in code review processes to evaluate activity. They might also monitor feedback loops and handoffs to measure how well they communicate. At the individual level, metrics focus on developer activities, satisfaction, and personal productivity measures. This includes data highlighting an individual’s contribution, like the number of code reviews completed or even the outdated lines of code (LOC) written. At Axify, we don’t promote lines of code because it’s a misleading metric, often ignoring quality, efficiency, and actual team productivity. That said, this level also includes data about job satisfaction and well-being. Example: An individual developer may track onboarding or cycle time to improve personal efficiency. You may also track their employee satisfaction or their developer focus time to ensure they have sufficient uninterrupted work periods. DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) goes beyond just the four widely recognized DORA metrics (deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, and time to recovery). It focuses on driving high-performance teams by covering various capabilities, including lean product management, team culture, and continuous delivery practices. The main difference: While both SPACE and DORA emphasize team performance, they do so from different angles. DORA is highly focused on software delivery performance and operational efficiency, encompassing technical metrics and broader team practices. On the other hand, the SPACE Framework takes a more holistic, multidimensional approach to measuring developer productivity and well-being. SPACE encourages teams to select at least three metrics across its five dimensions (Satisfaction, Performance, Activity, Collaboration, and Efficiency) for a more comprehensive view of technical and human factors. Use Cases: Regardless of which framework benefits your current goals, Axify can help you track DORA and SPACE metrics, ensuring your team has the tools to balance delivery speed with sustainability and overall team health. Determine which SPACE metrics are most relevant to your team. This might include satisfaction surveys to measure developer happiness, cycle time for performance, and collaborative activities to assess teamwork. To start, you need three metrics across three dimensions. Collect data through surveys and tools like Axify. Ensure you're gathering data on your team's three most important dimensions that reflect your business goals. Compare performance metrics with well-being scores to identify correlations. For example, a decrease in onboarding time might correlate with higher team performance and job satisfaction. Establish benchmarks tailored to your team's goals and unique context. These can serve as a baseline to track improvements over time. Use the insights gained from analyzing the data to iterate and adjust your processes. Focus on improving both engineering outcomes and developer experience for sustained productivity gains. Pro tip: Axify automates much of the data collection and analysis, making it easier to calculate and track SPACE productivity metrics. The Axify dashboard has the most relevant metrics across all five SPACE dimensions. Let’s see a SPACE Framework Template example with different metrics for each organizational level. This framework is excellent for software engineering teams because it focuses on multiple dimensions. The point is to get a more holistic view of your productivity and well-being together. Individual Level: Team Level: Organizational Level: Individual Level: Team Level: Organizational Level: Individual Level: Team Level: Organizational Level: Individual Level: Team Level: Organizational Level: Individual Level: Team Level: Organizational Level: That said, no single metric can provide a complete picture of team performance. Implementing the SPACE framework correctly means focusing on at least 3 metrics from 3 dimensions. That’s the only way to track what's truly important: delivering high-quality software as a cohesive team rather than focusing on vanity metrics that don't correlate with real-world impact. Remember: Don’t rely solely on individual performance metrics. Some KPIs, like the number of lines of code written, fail to reflect the actual value a developer brings to the team. Instead, focus on team-level efficiency and collaborative outcomes. That’s how you ensure the team is aligned and working together effectively. In Axify, a detailed SPACE Framework template can be broken down as follows: The SPACE framework isn’t just about tracking individual productivity. Implement it into your organization to foster a culture where developer satisfaction and team collaboration lead to improved engineering outcomes. Focus on key metrics across all five dimensions and continuous improvement to align your development teams with your business objectives while promoting healthier work environments. Start implementing the SPACE mindset with tools like Axify to visualize your progress and turn data into actionable insights. Book a demo today and see how Axify can help.What Is the SPACE Framework?
Who Created the SPACE Framework?
What Are the SPACE Metrics?
Satisfaction & Well-being
Performance
Activity
Collaboration & Communication
Efficiency & Flow
SPACE Framework Organizational Levels
Organizational Level
Team Level
Individual Level
What Is the Difference Between the SPACE Framework and DORA?
How to Calculate SPACE Productivity (Step-by-Step)
Step 1: Identify Key Metrics
Step 2: Collect Data
Step 3: Analyze Results
Step 4: Set Benchmarks
Step 5: Continuous Improvement
SPACE Framework: Best Practices
SPACE Framework Template
Satisfaction & Well-Being
Performance
Activity
Collaboration & Communication
Efficiency & Flow
Implement the SPACE Paradigm with Axify
