From the team building Progress

The Progress blog

Insights on shipping software, team visibility, and getting clarity across all your tools.

August 26, 202614 min read

9 Best Engineering Analytics Platforms With a Free Trial in 2026

This guide reviews 9 engineering analytics platforms that offer a free trial in 2026, helping CTOs and engineering managers evaluate real insight quality — not just demo polish — by testing with their own repos, sprints, and team data before committing to a tool.

August 25, 202614 min read

How to Measure Developer Productivity Without Micromanaging: A Step-by-Step Guide for Engineering Leaders

Engineering leaders shouldn't have to choose between visibility and trust. This guide shows how to measure developer productivity without micromanaging — using outcome-based signals, lightweight measurement systems, and a cultural framework that lets autonomy and accountability coexist.

August 24, 202614 min read

Engineering Metrics Automation: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Get Started

Engineering metrics automation replaces the time-consuming, error-prone process of manually assembling team performance data with continuously updated, automatically interpreted signals. This guide explains what engineering metrics automation is, which metrics are worth automating, and how to get started building real-time visibility into your engineering organization.

August 23, 202615 min read

9 Best Engineering Operational Excellence Tools in 2026

This guide reviews the 9 best Engineering Operational Excellence Tools in 2026, evaluating platforms that go beyond vanity metrics to deliver actionable intelligence on delivery risk, team health, and engineering momentum. Whether you're a CTO scaling a startup or an engineering manager reducing fire-fighting, these tools help you lead with clarity instead of guesswork.

August 22, 202615 min read

Engineering Velocity Declining? Here Are the Real Reasons It Happens

Declining engineering velocity is rarely random — it's diagnosable. This guide helps technical leaders identify the real engineering velocity declining reasons behind their team's slowdown, from hidden technical debt and process friction to team health issues and organizational factors that most teams overlook.

August 21, 202616 min read

Engineering Team Health Metrics: What They Are, Why They Matter, and How to Use Them

Engineering Team Health Metrics are leading indicators that help technical leaders see beyond output data — revealing whether work is flowing, whether the team is sustaining a healthy pace, and whether risks are accumulating before they surface in delivery. This guide explains what these metrics are, why they matter more than traditional output tracking, and how to put them to work.

August 20, 202616 min read

9 Best Engineering Manager Dashboards in 2026

Engineering managers often have access to mountains of data but struggle to turn it into clear, actionable insight — the right Engineering Manager Dashboard changes that. This guide ranks the 9 best tools available in 2026, evaluating each on signal quality, integration depth, and how effectively they reduce cognitive load for startup dev teams and technical leaders.

August 19, 202615 min read

How to Set Up Automated Sprint Health Reports: A Step-by-Step Guide for Engineering Leaders

Automated Sprint Health Reports eliminate the manual effort of pulling data from tools like Jira, Linear, and GitHub, replacing stale slide decks with continuously updated signals on stalled work, deployment risk, and team momentum. This step-by-step guide shows engineering leaders exactly how to define sprint health, connect existing tools, and build a low-maintenance reporting system that drives real decisions.

August 18, 202612 min read

Work Stream Health Monitoring: What It Is and Why Your Engineering Team Needs It

Work stream health monitoring is the practice of creating a continuous visibility layer across engineering initiatives so that risk, blockers, and stalls are surfaced in real time rather than discovered at retrospectives. For lean startup dev teams with fewer people and fewer formal checkpoints, it's the difference between catching a stalled feature early and explaining a missed deadline after the fact.

August 17, 202615 min read

9 Best Developer Team Insights Platforms in 2026

A developer team insights platform bridges the gap between what engineering leaders assume is happening and what the data actually shows — surfacing stalled PRs, burnout signals, and risky deployments before they become costly. This guide evaluates nine leading platforms in 2026, helping CTOs and engineering managers choose the right tool based on depth of insight, ease of integration, and actionable decision support.

August 16, 202612 min read

Merge Volume Analysis: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Use It

Merge volume analysis examines not just whether pull requests are being merged, but when, how fast, and how clustered — revealing critical signals about engineering team health and deployment risk. This article breaks down what merge volume measures, what patterns to watch for, and how modern engineering intelligence platforms turn that raw activity into decisions you can act on.

August 15, 202617 min read

Engineering Leadership Reporting Automation: A Step-by-Step Guide for Dev Teams

Engineering Leadership Reporting Automation replaces the manual, hours-long process of piecing together data from GitHub, Linear, and Slack with pre-computed signals that surface risk, stalls, and momentum in real time. This step-by-step guide walks startup dev teams and engineering managers through building an automated reporting stack that informs decisions instead of just describing the past.