DORA 2024 image

Background

You should download the 2024 Accelerate State of DevOps Report from Google Cloud’s DORA team and read it in full. This is just a small window into the report, focusing on the things that we, at Firmamentum, have been advocating and teaching in the people and development space. It is vindicative to have DORA scientifically confirm that our approach to creating more secure, robust, and efficient software is indeed a right one.

Users at the Core

“Software doesn’t build itself. Even when assisted by AI, people build software, and their experiences at work are a foundational component of successful organisations.”

Data suggests that organisations that focus on users’ needs, challenges, and feedback, make better software products. While this might be obvious, it is not. Too many companies focus on what they think the users wants, not what they actually do want and need. Clearly, users do change their minds, explain things badly, or sometimes do not even understand what they actually need. This is where feedback comes in.

DORA, like ourselves, find that the best way to support a user centric approach to both reduce burn out and foster engagement are:

  • Increase cross-functional collaboration.
  • Break out of silos.
  • Seek alignment.
  • Foster teamwork and learn from others.

These are all goals of the DevOps and DevSecOps Shift Left paradigm. At Firmamentum, we have been advocating for this approach.

Culture of Documentation

“The combination of good docs and a user-centred approach to software development is a powerful one.”

This goes counter to the Agile manifesto’s “working software over comprehensive documentation”. Although, comprehensive documentation might be a reference to the unhealthy practices of over bureaucratic cultures.

We do not understand something until we can teach it. Documentation is a close second. It enhances the team’s understanding of the product, enhances collaboration, and sharply brings into focus what matters. However, good documentation might be due to good planning and processes leaving time to craft useful documentation. Whether a cause or a effect, documentation is a vital part of good software.

At the risk of repeating ourselves, Firmamentum has been promoting sufficient and useful documentation within the software life cycle.

The Perils of Ever Shifting Priorities

Unclear expectations decreases employees’ sense of control and increase workload leading to burn out. This is regardless of strong leadership, user-centric approach to development, and good documentation. Change is unavoidable and it is a good practice to adapt. The frequency of changes is what matters most: the more changes, more dissatisfaction grows.

Therefore, the goal of leadership should be to stabilise their priorities and shield employees from the impact of constant shifting priorities.

At Firmamentum, we call this drama free leadership leading to a smooth path forwards where obstacles are avoided instead of managed.

Transformative Leadership

DORA find that high performing teams are the ones that

  • Prioritise stability.
  • Focus on their users.
  • Have good leaders.
  • Craft quality documentation.

Transformative leaders adopting these principles improve not just productivity but also

  • Decease employees’ burn out.
  • Increase job satisfaction and team performance.
  • improve organisation and product performance.

DORA research clearly shows that companies that use continuous improvement see the highest levels of success. This is something that Firmamentum has been encouraging and it is great to see science backing our recommendations.

Conclusion

For over ten years, DORA has been offering science based analysis of what works, what does not work, and how to improve. Their yearly reports have been vital to leadership and employees in understanding how to increase job satisfaction, organisation, team, and product performance as well as reducing burn out.

Applying these principles to your development process is what we do. We are always open to hearing from you as to how we can help transform your development process to build more secure, robust, and efficient software.