Definition
Portion of code changes that are tracked by an issue.
Calculation
Total % of PRs that can be linked back to a Jira issue. For Velocity to link a PR to a Jira issue, we require that the Jira issue key is in the PR title, the PR body, or the branch name.
Why it Matters
Traceability in software engineering describes the extent to which code can be traced back to a planned project or initiative. For our purposes, this metric indicates whether the engineering work happening on a team or within an organization is linked to an initiative tracked in a project management tracker. A high Traceability score indicates good collaboration between Product and Engineering, and that the team is working toward agreed-upon goals.
How to use it
While some amount of untraceable work is expected, a low Traceability score could indicate some underlying issues that are important to address. Low Traceability is often caused by: (1) Incidents: urgent, unplanned work that is happening often without a Jira card, (2) Unlinked work: work that is related to a Jira issue, but missing the needed link for us to connect the PR to the issue. This can often be resolved by ensuring PRs have the right Jira key so that we can associate the PR with the issue, (3) Unplanned, non-incident work: work being done by an engineer that is actually unplanned.
Use the drilldown for more information about untraceable commits so that you can help diagnose any deeper problems that might exist.
Learn more about JIRA Traceability here.