This is an interesting point. I wonder if it might be easier at larger companies, since you can use metrics like "we are receiving fewer complaints that our sys

This is an interesting point. I wonder if it might be easier at larger companies, since you can use metrics like "we are receiving fewer complaints that our system is hard to integrate with or understand". You might improve on some measure of "velocity", but on a small dev team that's so noisy as to be nearly meaningless. I guess you could track employee frustration as a primary target.