DORA metrics are quite popular in the industry. However, working with them is extremely difficult. Let’s take a look at how your company can measure DORA Metrics to gain complete visibility into complex DevOps pipelines.
What is DORA?
DORA, short for DevOps Research and Assessment, is a framework that aims to help software engineering teams improve their development and delivery processes. The DORA metrics definition encompasses four key performance indicators that are critical for understanding and enhancing software delivery capabilities.
Why are DORA Metrics so important to track for the industry
As software engineering organizations scale, fundamental software development and delivery processes become more and more complex. The number of tools used in the software delivery life cycle (SDLC) increases as processes become more sophisticated. Different teams within the company set up and run various delivery pipelines. During this process, visibility into the software development and delivery cycles is significantly reduced.
DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment) sought to find a solution to this complexity and invisibility problem:
- How do you identify your organization’s elite performers?
- What should low-performing teams focus on?
Once you begin to define and measure the metrics of the software delivery process, you will be able to improve them. Based on significant scientific research, DORA metrics empower engineering teams and leaders to improve their software development and delivery processes.
The DORA study’s approach attracted the interest of all engineering teams, from large-scale enterprises to small teams. Many engineering teams have tried to measure their DORA metrics by developing in-house tools since the beginning of the study. Because they could not adjust quickly enough to the changing and diversifying tools and methodologies within the company, in-house tools developed for specific processes have usually gone into junk. Many companies trying to measure DORA metrics with a ready-to-use product, on the other hand, struggled to locate a product that could fit their delivery pipeline and easily track accurate DORA metrics.
Let’s talk about what are DORA Metrics basically and how you can track them accurately.
What are DORA Metrics?
DORA metrics, also known as Accelerate Metrics or the Four Key Metrics, are pivotal in assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of DevOps practices. These metrics include Lead Time for Changes, Deployment Frequency, Change Failure Rate, and Time to Restore Service. By tracking these metrics, organizations can gain insights into their DevOps performance, identifying areas for improvement.
DORA Metrics (A.K.A. Accelerate Metrics & Four Key Metrics)
- Lead Time For Changes: The amount of time it takes a commit to get into production.
- Deployment Frequency: How often an organization successfully releases to production. High-performing software teams release often and in small batches.
- Change Failure Rate: The percentage of deployments causing a failure in production.
- Time to Restore Service: How long it takes an organization to recover from a failure in production.
How to Calculate DORA Metrics?
To accurately calculate DORA metrics, organizations must gather data from various stages of their development and delivery pipeline. This involves integrating tools for source control, continuous integration (CI), continuous deployment (CD), application performance monitoring (APM), and incident management. Tools like Oobeya simplify this process by offering a centralized platform for tracking and analyzing these metrics across different tools and platforms, thereby providing a comprehensive view of the DevOps performance.
You can set your own goals for these steps in Oobeya. By establishing specific goals for each of the DORA metrics core objectives, teams can systematically address inefficiencies and strive for continuous improvement. Setting benchmarks for lead time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, and time to restore service enables teams to measure progress and identify areas for optimization.
In conclusion, enhancing your DevOps processes with a clear understanding and measurement of DORA metrics is crucial for improving software delivery performance. By leveraging tools like Oobeya, organizations can gain invaluable insights into their development and delivery processes, enabling them to make informed decisions to optimize their operations. Remember, the journey towards DevOps excellence is ongoing, and continuously measuring and improving DORA metrics is key to achieving operational agility and excellence.
Incorporating the provided keywords and subheadings into the content not only broadens the article's scope but also enhances its visibility and utility for readers interested in DevOps practices, particularly in relation to DORA metrics.
Calculating DORA metrics involves analyzing various stages of the software development process. For instance, the 'Lead Time for Changes' metric is calculated from the moment a commit is made until it is successfully deployed in production. Similarly, 'Deployment Frequency' measures how often an organization successfully releases to production, while 'Change Failure Rate' and 'Time to Restore Service' focus on the reliability and resilience of the deployment process.
How Much Does It Cost To Measure DORA Metrics?
The cost of implementing DORA metrics can vary widely depending on the organization's existing infrastructure and tools. However, utilizing platforms like Oobeya for tracking these metrics can significantly reduce the overhead associated with custom tool development and maintenance, offering a cost-effective solution for organizations seeking to enhance their DevOps capabilities.
How to Improve DORA Metrics
Improving DORA metrics requires a strategic approach that involves optimizing various aspects of the software development and delivery processes. Enhancements in automation, continuous integration, and deployment (CI/CD) practices, and fostering a culture of collaboration between development and operations (DevOps) can lead to significant improvements in these metrics. Specifically, focusing on reducing lead time and deployment frequency, while minimizing change failure rates and time to restore service, are key areas for improvement.
Tracking DORA Metrics with Oobeya
Oobeya Deployment Analytics is an easy-to-use tool that delivers accurate DORA metric results for all software development and DevOps teams. It analyzes the entire software development and delivery pipeline and calculates DORA metrics by connecting to various tools within the organization. You can connect Source Control, CI/CD, APM, Incident Management, and Issue Tracking tools to track and measure accurate DORA metrics with Oobeya Deployment Analytics.
No matter how you built your delivery cycle. It is easy to set up.
- GitLab x GitLab CI
- GitHub x Jenkins
- GitHub x GitHub Actions
- GitHub x AzureDevOps Releases
- GitLab x Jenkins
- Azure Repos x AzureDevOps Releases
- Azure Repos x Jenkins
- Bitbucket Server/Cloud x Jenkins
- and more… on the way… View all integrations here at https://oobeya.io/integrations
Oobeya analyzes all commits, pull requests, and deployment pipelines and generates detailed historical reports of DORA metrics. Oobeya Deployment Analytics (DORA) Report includes the following features and more:
- Lead Time For Changes (average time & breakdown & DORA badge)
- Deployment Frequency (average & chart & DORA badge)
- Change Failure Rate (average & DORA badge)
- Time to Restore Service / Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR) (average time & DORA badge)
- List of deployments during the selected period (breakdown, lead time, contributors…)
- Deploy size for each deployment (small, medium, large, gigantic)
The “Lead Time For Changes” breakdown includes four significant steps such as coding time, code review time, waiting for deploy time, and deployment time. Visualizing these steps helps you pinpoint bottlenecks in your software development and delivery cycle.
Measure DORA Metrics with Oobeya
Beyond DORA Metrics, Explore the Oobeya Platform
Furthermore, rather than just metric tracking, Oobeya (means large room in Japanese) offers various features and modules (team health/symptoms, custom dashboards, git analytics, agile analytics…) that aim to provide complete visibility into software development and delivery processes. Learn more about the Oobeya Engineering Management Platform.
Additional Resources
- Oobeya website: https://oobeya.io/
- Oobeya DORA Metrics — Fill out the form for Free Edition: https://oobeya.io/dora-metrics/
- DORA research program: https://dora.dev/
- DORA DevOps Quick Check: https://www.devops-research.com/quickcheck.html
- State of DevOps: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/announcing-dora-2021-accelerate-state-of-devops-report
- Accelerate. Authors: Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim: https://itrevolution.com/book/accelerate/
- Oobeya website: https://oobeya.io/
