Look, we know the software development process is not an easy one to measure and manage, particularly as it becomes more complex and more decentralized. In many companies, there are multiple teams working on smaller parts of a big project — and these teams are spread all over the world. So it’s challenging to tell who is doing what and when, where the blockers are, and the waste that causes delays to the process. Essentially, it’s nearly impossible to see how each piece of the application development process puzzle fits together. DORA metrics can help shed light on how your teams are performing in DevOps.
What are the DORA metrics? Well, they’re not metrics that engineering and DevOps leaders came up with and started to ask for. DORA metrics are a result of six years worth of surveys conducted by the DevOps Research and Assessments (DORA) team, that, among other data points, specifically measure Deployment Frequency (DF), Mean Lead Time for changes (MLT), Mean Time To Recover (MTTR) and Change Failure Rate (CFR). These metrics guide determine how successful a company is at DevOps – ranging from elite performers to low performers. The DORA research results and data have become a standard of measurement for those people in organizations who are responsible for tracking DevOps performance. For this reason, engineering and DevOps leaders want to get these metrics.
Why are the DORA metrics so important to track from a DevOps performance perspective? Simple, it helps DevOps and engineering leaders measure software delivery throughput (velocity) and stability (quality). These metrics show how well development teams deliver better software, faster to their customers. It gives these leaders a gauge using concrete data so they can report to executives on the organization’s DevOps performance and make recommendations for improvements.
As a market leader, CloudBees’ DevOptics provides better visibility and actionable insights into the software delivery process. It provides key DORA metrics and other analytics that engineering and DevOps leaders can use to track development team efficiency, where to implement improvements, leverage best practices among the teams and identify blockages or bottlenecks to reduce waste. CloudBees DevOptics has been helping these folks provide an answer to the question: Are we doing DevOps better now than we were a year ago?
Recently, there have been a number of tool providers that offer some or all of the DORA metrics. CloudBees has had a solution on the market for almost two years now that tracks DORA metrics (DF, MLT, MTTR, and CFR), plus time and efficiency analytics, along with actual value stream modeling so engineer managers can visualize the entire software delivery process from idea to production. So, welcome to our club.
To learn where your company might land on the scale, what to do about it, and how to leverage metrics provided by DevOptics and DORA, join myself and Deepro at DevOps World | Jenkins World in Lisbon and hear our talk on “Value Stream Management.