SaMD: Metric for release frequency

[Auxilium]

Dear community, I got a task from my boss to analyse our release frequency which we intended to increase a while ago in order to reduce the time to value for our customers. A while ago, our product versions were updated every 2-3 months and we targeted to develop and release our medical device every 2-4 weeks.
We are a SaMD (stand-alone) and since the last few releases of our new product versions, indeed the release frequency has been increased and the product updates have been smaller. Definitely did we optimise the process of compiling our Technical File acc. to MDR (EU) 2017/745 and have become more efficient.
However, I just can't come up with a metric that makes sense other than "Release Date Version A => Last day of use Version A".

If anyone has a suggestion whether there could be a more sophisticated metric that makes sense or with an overall rationale how to create such a metric, I'd be really grateful.

Thank you!

 

[yodon]

What would be the purpose of collecting the data? Seems like just release frequency itself isn't all that interesting. I mean if you just determine that you make a release on average every 3.645 weeks, is that meaningful?

Why are you making releases? Bugs? New features? That might give some insight (potentially poor development process / unclear understanding of user needs, respectively).

What do your customers think of the release frequency? Updates are rarely completely painless. Maybe the frequency is too high for your customers' liking?

What's the rate of adoption for updates? (Or are users forced into the new release immediately after the release?)

What about the cost of releases? I presume there should be some amount of documentation and notification (regulatory bodies / customers). Are you losing money because of frequent releases?

 

[Auxilium]

Let's say the release frequency makes sense and it's just about tracking whether we are reaching the goals, how would you do it?

 

[John Broomfield]

Shouldn’t your organization be releasing its products at the rate they are purchased?

Determine the Takt Time and start from there.

 

[yodon]

Let's say the release frequency makes sense and it's just about tracking whether we are reaching the goals, how would you do it?

Maybe I'm missing something but seems like actual -v- target?

To be honest, without knowing why you want to measure something, it's hard to say what you should measure.

 

[milandy]

Assuming you’re using something like Jira. I would gather just one metric, but several. The more the better. This is knowing you will be refining your metrics as they evolve. There unlikely only one number that will resolve your need and comparing several metrics with each other is always more informative.
1. Epics released / year
2. Cost / epic released
3. Releases / year
4. Cost / release
5. Medium priority bugs resolved / reported