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Did you know that top performing software development teams have 106x times faster lead times from commit to deploy? This was discovered by Google, who created DORA to improve developer productivity.
But what is DORA? And how does that compare to other frameworks like SPACE?
In this post, we'll explore DORA and SPACE and how you use them to unlock new levels of developer productivity and satisfaction.
Sections:
DORA metrics, when first introduced by Google, focused on 4 key metrics (”the four keys”) that are strong indicators of software delivery performance. This evolved over time, with updates to metrics and introduction of a 5th:
DORA metrics focus on performance aspects, which have correlations with customer value and financial performance of companies.
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Lead Time measures the time it takes to go from code committed to code successfully running in production. This metric is helpful because it shows the efficiency of your software delivery pipeline, from development to deployment. It also shows how quickly you can get features into the hands of customers, which is when value is truly delivered.
By reducing your Lead Time, you can deliver value to your customers faster and more frequently. Teams can improve this by:
Deployment Frequency tracks how often an organization deploys code to production or releases it to end users. This metric is a key indicator of your team's ability to deliver value continuously, and more importantly, it shows how often our customers get new value from our development work.
Google found that high-performing teams deploy code at least once per week, enabling them to quickly respond to customer needs and rapidly iterate on their products.
To increase your Deployment Frequency, consider:
Failed Deployment Recovery Time measures average time it takes to restore service when a software change causes an outage or service failure in production. It’s important because it shows how long your customers are unable to experience the full value of the app because of incidents.
More recent research have highlighted issues with incidents data, such as high data variability, making it an unreliable metric at times. At Multitudes, we believe there are also other dimensions to better understand incidents such as Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA) as an example — which measures how long it takes an organization to acknowledge a new incident in production.
By minimizing your Failed Deployment Recovery Time, you can reduce the impact of failures on your customers and maintain a high level of service reliability. Teams can improve this metric by:
Change Failure Rate represents the percentage of changes that result in degraded service or require remediation (e.g., lead to service impairment or outage, require a hotfix, rollback, fix forward, or patch). This metric reveals how often teams can’t deliver new value for customers due to a failure, and indicates the quality of your software delivery process.
A high Change Failure Rate suggests that your team is introducing a high number of issues into production, which can erode customer trust and satisfaction. To reduce your Change Failure Rate, consider:
Reliability is the fifth and newer DORA metric. It aims to assess operational performance, including availability, latency, performance, and scalability. Although Reliability doesn't have a standard quantifiable target like the other four metrics, it has a significant impact on customer retention and success.
To improve Reliability, organizations can set checks and targets for all of the software they create. Some examples include:
By tracking DORA metrics, teams can identify areas for improvement in their development process and work towards becoming top performers.
The SPACE framework takes a big picture view of developer productivity by considering 5 key dimensions:
By integrating these dimensions into consideration, the SPACE framework gives managers a holistic view of engineering team performance that enables them to make better decisions. At Multitudes, we like the SPACE framework because it encapsulates the performance aspects of the DORA framework while also acknowledging the importance of a psychologically-safe and trust-based working environment.
The authors of the SPACE framework suggest not only considering metrics at the individual level, but also at the team level. Below is table of example metrics along each dimension from their research:
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Satisfaction and Well-being measures the overall satisfaction, fulfillment, and well-being of developers, both at work and in their personal lives. This dimension recognizes that a developer's happiness and work-life balance significantly impact their productivity and performance.
By prioritizing developer satisfaction and well-being, teams can foster a positive work environment that encourages motivation, creativity, and long-term success. To improve this dimension, organizations can:
Performance focuses on the outcomes that the organization aims to achieve and the value created for customers and stakeholders. This dimension emphasizes the importance of aligning developer efforts with business objectives and delivering measurable results.
High-performing teams consistently meet or exceed their performance targets, contributing to the overall success of the organization. To improve this dimension, teams should:
Activity combines outputs that are countable, discrete tasks, and the time it takes to complete them. This dimension recognizes that developer productivity is not just about the quantity of work completed but also the efficiency and timeliness of task completion.
By tracking and optimizing activity metrics, teams can identify bottlenecks, streamline processes, and ensure that developers are working efficiently. To improve this dimension, teams can:
Communication and Collaboration represent the interactions, discussions, and other acts of collaboration that take place within teams. This dimension acknowledges that effective communication and collaboration are essential for efficient problem-solving, knowledge sharing, and overall team productivity.
High-performing teams foster open communication, encourage knowledge sharing, and promote a culture of collaboration. To improve this dimension, teams can:
Efficiency and Flow focus on the ability of a developer to complete work or make progress on it. This dimension recognizes that developer productivity is influenced by factors such as interruptions, context switching, and the availability of necessary resources and information.
By optimizing efficiency and flow, teams can minimize distractions, reduce waste, and enable developers to focus on high-value work. To improve this dimension, teams can:
Multitudes provides a unique measure which compares % time spent in meetings vs. % focus time to provide deeper insight into this dimension.
The SPACE framework gives us a fuller picture of how developers live and breathe. It doesn't just look at the mechanics of coding – it also considers the human side of things. By keeping an eye on these different aspects and fine-tuning them, teams can build a work environment that's not only more productive but also more satisfying for everyone involved.
The result? Happier developers, better performance, and thriving teams.
Think of DORA and SPACE as the dynamic duo of developer productivity frameworks. They're both geared towards driving better and faster business results by helping us measure and boost how developers work. But here's the thing: they're not competing frameworks. In fact, Nicole Forsgren, a key mind behind both, suggests we think of DORA as a practical application of the SPACE framework.
DORA's strength lies in its metrics that promote both performance and team psychological safety. But it doesn't quite capture the full picture of how individuals are faring. That's where SPACE comes in, bringing more human-focused metrics to the table. It looks at things like developer well-being, giving us a more rounded view of productivity.
The below illustrates how DORA maps to the SPACE framework:
At Multitudes, we've always believed that wellbeing and collaboration are crucial alongside the hard performance metrics. So when SPACE came along, we were thrilled to see a framework that brought all these elements together.
We're big advocates for using aspects of DORA and SPACE together. Why? Because while DORA focuses on outcomes and impact, SPACE considers effort, output, and human factors. Together, they offer a balanced and effective way to measure and improve how your team works.
Remember, though: these frameworks aren't a one-and-done deal. The real magic happens when you use them as part of an ongoing improvement process. By regularly checking in on your chosen metrics, you can spot areas that need work, try out new approaches, and keep refining your processes.
Our end goal help create work environments that aren't just more productive, but also more fulfilling for developers.
Ready to try DORA and SPACE with your team?
Before jumping in, remember that a high-trust environment needs to be created first. Without trust, these metrics can be gamed and misused, leading to fear and uncertainty among team members.
Picture this: developers splitting their work into smaller, more frequent deployments just to improve their DORA scores. It’s Goodhart’s law in action: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”
So how can we implement DORA and SPACE in thoughtful way? Here's 6 step approach:
From there, it's rinse and repeat for steps 4-6. Choose one area to improve, then run an experiment, track progress and iterate.
This approach will help build a culture of continuous improvement and blameless experimentation. Getting into a habit of experimentation lowers the barriers for teams to change their ways of working, and builds the muscle of tackling new challenges and shifting priorities.
By using both DORA and SPACE metrics, teams can gain a full view of their performance and identify areas for improvement. This can lead to:
By properly implementing DORA and SPACE metrics, teams are better equipped to consistently delivers high-quality features to users, while maintaining a healthy work-life balance and a strong sense of belonging within the team.
Our product that tracks all dimensions of SPACE metrics, and our clients ship 25% faster while maintaining code quality and team wellbeing. If you're interested to see this in action, join our beta today.
While DORA and SPACE provide a solid foundation for measuring developer productivity, another important framework to consider is the Developer Experience (DevEx) framework. DevEx focuses on the lived experience of developers and the points of friction they encounter in their everyday work.
It encompasses three key dimensions:
By tuning into both what developers say and how they actually work, you can unlock some pretty amazing insights into how to improve developer productivity, satisfaction, and retention.
Below is table of example metrics along each dimension from their research:
To effectively track and analyze DORA and SPACE metrics, teams can use Multitudes, which is an engineering insights platform for sustainable delivery.
Multitudes integrates with your existing development tools, such as GitHub and Jira, to provide insights into your team's productivity and collaboration patterns.
With Multitudes, you can:
By leveraging Multitudes, teams can spend more time acting on insights to improve their productivity and satisfaction.
Ready to unlock happier, higher-performing teams?
