Help Others

Is the percentage of code that is replaced by an engineer other than the author within 3 weeks of merge. Changes made by the same author within 3 weeks of merge are counted under Churn.

Computation of the metric

1. The authorship of each code contribution is determined by sourcing information from version control systems like Git, which track who made each change.
2. Changes made within a 3-week window after merging are monitored by analyzing commit history.
3. The "help others" percentage represents the proportion of replaced code authored by others, calculated by comparing the lines of code changed by different authors.
4. Changes made by the same author within the 3-week timeframe are excluded from the calculation.

Dashboards where this metric is used

1. Developer Summary
2. Dev Throughput

Use cases of this metric

1. Assess the level of collaboration within the team by measuring code contributions and replacements among engineers.
2. Recognize that engineers heavily involved in helping others may have less time to focus on their own code, highlighting the need for balancing collaborative efforts with individual responsibilities.
3. Recognize that engineers heavily involved in helping others may have less time to focus on their own code, highlighting the need for balancing collaborative efforts with individual responsibilities.
4. For senior team members it is normal to have some % of “help others” as they improve, rewrite or refactor code contributed by other team members.