A method and computer program are disclosed for measuring the parallelism of an execution step. The method includes determining whether the step operates on rows whose primary index is specified. If the primary index is specified, the parallelism is measured as single. If the primary index is not specified, the method determines whether the step uses an output from a previous step. If an output is used, the number of rows in the output is compared to a specified number. If the number of rows is greater than the specified number, the parallelism is measured as total. In one implementation, the geography of the output is determined and the previous step is compared to specified types such that if the primary index is not specified, the number is rows is not greater than a specified number, the geography does not write output rows to all parallel units, and the previous step is of a specified type, then the parallelism is measured as partial.