DORA metrics explained: the four measures of software delivery

The four measures

• Deployment frequency: how often you deploy to production.
• Lead time for changes: how long a change takes from commit to production.
• Change failure rate: the share of deployments that cause a failure needing a fix.
• Time to restore service: how long it takes to recover from a failure.

What they tell you

Speed and stability tend to move together in strong teams, which is why small, frequent, well-tested changes work. The measures show where the pipeline is slow or fragile.

Using them well

• Measure per service or team to find bottlenecks, not to compare people.
• Look at trends, not single readings.
• Pair them with how the team feels about its work.
• Beware gaming: a number made into a target stops measuring what it did.

Improving them

Shorten feedback loops, automate tests and deployment, keep changes small and practise recovery. See speed and stability are not a trade-off.

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