How DevOps teams are using - and abusing - DORA metrics

Using DORA metrics for the wrong reasons will result in poor outcomes. Here's why - and what you can do about it.

Bryan Finster

Sep 15, 2021 • 6 min read

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DevOps

Continuous Delivery

OKRs

Metrics

Delivery Management

Takeaways

A brief reading of Accelerate yields, not four, but more than 14 measurable indicators of organizational and delivery health. All of them are important for understanding the complex interactions of people, processes, and products required to continuously deliver value to the end user.
DORA metrics are wrongly being used as goals and this makes them ineffective. High-performing organizations do not excel by focusing on metric goals, but on the customer and how to more efficiently, effectively, and sustainably deliver value. The metrics are the outcome.
DORA stands for DevOps Research and Assessment, an information technology and services firm founded by Gene Kim and Nicole Forsgren. Since the metrics were introduced, they have grown in popularity as a way to measure software development. However, they have also been used for the wrong reasons, resulting in poor outcomes.
The DORA metrics are the indicator of how software delivery efforts are progressing but when applied to anything involving people, the DORA metrics are complex and require constant vigilance and adjustment to prevent adverse side effects.