DORA KPIs & SPACE
Welcome to our Dispatch!
Buckle up, tech enthusiasts, because today we're diving deep into the world of DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) metrics. These metrics are like the gold standard when it comes to measuring the performance of software development teams. We're talking about Deployment frequency, lead time for changes, mean-time-to-restore, and change fail rate - the big four, baby! But wait, there's more! In 2022, the report introduced a fifth metric: reliability.
Hold on a minute because we've got a bone to pick with these DORA metrics. While they might be the industry standard, they don't consider important factors like the well-being of developers, enterprise costs, team organization, or sustainability. So, while they might give us a snapshot of a team's performance, comparing groups and enterprises based solely on these metrics can be like comparing apples and oranges.
Here are some links we found interesting regarding this topic:
Platform: Last week, we stumbled across a repository on GitHub that monitors the four key software delivery metrics. Check this out if you want to dive deep into the calculation of it: Fourkeys.
Online Tool: If you're looking for a quick benchmark to see how you're performing with your team against the DORA metrics, look no further than this online tool: Quickcheck.
Forum: There's more! If you've got burning questions about the DORA KPIs, head on over to this Google group where you can get all the answers: DORA-community.
Report: In this monotony, another opinion is interesting. Microsoft Research Lab with Nicole Forsgren (coauthor of Accelerate) calling out the SPACE framework. It's an acronym that shows the dimensions it captures: satisfaction, performance, activity, communication, and efficiency. The SPACE of Developer Productivity.
Now, we've got a question for all you tech strategy experts out there:
What criticisms do you have of the DORA KPIs?
Where do you see these metrics falling short? And when it comes to measuring tech teams' performance, what factors do you consider beyond just the metrics?
Do you take sustainability and costs into account?
Please share your thoughts with us, and let's get the discussion around software development measurement flowing!
Regards, Florian
hoeppnerflorian@gmail.com
www.TechAccelerationAndResilience.com
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