{"id":20636,"date":"2021-07-01T04:33:16","date_gmt":"2021-07-01T09:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/dora-metrics-and-flow-metrics-use-the-whole-ruler-not-just-two-inches\/"},"modified":"2021-07-01T04:33:16","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T09:33:16","slug":"dora-metrics-and-flow-metrics-use-the-whole-ruler-not-just-two-inches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/dora-metrics-and-flow-metrics-use-the-whole-ruler-not-just-two-inches\/","title":{"rendered":"DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) Standards, Metrics and Flow Metrics: Use the Whole Ruler, Not Just Two Inches"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"DevOps<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Software delivery<\/a> is all about delivering more customer value faster to remain competitive in the digital-first world. And like any process, you need meaningful data insights to understand how fast you’re delivering, what’s slowing you down and what you can do to improve. While <\/span>DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) standards and metrics<\/span><\/a> help you deliver more quickly, Flow Metrics<\/a>—as defined by Dr. Mik Kersten as part of his pioneering <\/span>Value Stream Management<\/span><\/a> paradigm<\/span> the Flow Framework®<\/span><\/a>—help you <\/span>deliver the <\/span>right<\/span><\/i> things more quickly at the right quality and cost and with the necessary team engagement.<\/span> In this blog, you’ll learn the difference between DORA and Flow Metrics and how they complement each other. <\/span><\/p>\n

DORA Metrics: Gold Standard for Releasing Code<\/b><\/h3>\n

DORA metrics are a key set of acceleration metrics for software delivery, helping you to streamline and automate activities from development to deployment:<\/span><\/p>\n

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  • Deployment Frequency<\/b>—How often an organization successfully releases to production<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Lead Time for Changes<\/b>—The amount of time it takes a code commit to get into production<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Change Failure Rate<\/b>—The percentage of deployments causing a failure in production<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Time to Restore Service<\/b>—How long it takes an organization to recover from a failure in production<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) metrics set the gold standard for operational efficiency for releasing code rapidly, securely and confidently. They get us off the ground and are valuable for measuring and optimizing development to release. However, they don’t measure and optimize the entire journey from customer request to release (and back through the customer feedback loop to continuously improve value delivery). Nor are they aligned against defined business outcomes (such as revenue, customer responsiveness, customer retention, product team turnover and so on). <\/span>This is significant because, for many organizations, most time and money is wasted <\/a><\/span>before<\/span><\/i> work even hits a development team’s backlog:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"Timeline
    A real-life example of total end-to-end lead time (Flow Time) from a leading U.S. insurance company<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    If you’re proficient at DORA standards and metrics and still failing to see the needle move for the business, then it’s probably time to start thinking about end-to-end Flow Metrics.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Value Stream Management and Flow Metrics: Measure The Whole System<\/b><\/h3>\n
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    “Measuring only one area of the value stream is like only using two inches of a 12-inch ruler.” <\/span>John Willis, Senior Director of the Global Transformation Office at Red Hat, co-author of <\/b>The DevOps Handbook<\/i><\/b>, Mik+One: Project to Product Podcast, Episode 17<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    The <\/span>2020 <\/span>State of DevOps<\/span><\/i> report<\/span><\/a> found that 79% of respondents are mid-level on the DevOps evolution scale (16% high, 5% low). Meaning that in the circles where you compete, everyone is likely to become a DORA high performer in short order. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Your organization, therefore, will remain competitive only if it can deliver business value—not code changes—at an ever-increasing clip. DORA metrics are the first-stage booster rocket that will get you off the ground and into orbit, but they are not enough to get you to the moon.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The meteoric rise of <\/span>Value Stream Management<\/span><\/a> (VSM) in software delivery reflects the pressing need for end-to-end visibility across the whole value stream. While Agile gets products built and DevOps accelerates delivery, that’s only part of the story. VSM looks at the whole story and Flow Metrics help you to understand the storytellers and the chapters as the story evolves.<\/span><\/p>\n