Bart Farrell: So first things first, who are you, what's your role, and where do you work?
Nathen Harvey: Hi, my name is Nathen Harvey. I lead the DORA program at Google Cloud. DORA is a research program that looks into how high-performing, technology-driven teams thrive in today's environment.
Bart Farrell: So DORA focuses on measuring how quickly and reliably teams deliver software. What are the biggest misconceptions that teams have when they try to improve those metrics?
Nathen Harvey: I think that when you try to improve those metrics, one of the biggest misconceptions that teams have is focusing on the metrics. You don't get better at, say, deployment frequency by thinking really hard about deployment frequency. DORA's research looks at the capabilities and conditions needed to allow that improvement. Things like automated testing, continuous integration, better documentation, and better processes within your organization. That's what's really important: focusing on the capabilities and conditions that will drive the metrics.
Bart Farrell: A lot of teams invest heavily in tooling and platforms, but DORA is really about outcomes. What are the most common mistakes you see when teams assume that new infrastructure will automatically improve their delivery performance?
Nathen Harvey: When teams assume that new infrastructure is automatically going to improve their delivery performance, I think it's a bit misguided. The reality is that tools are necessary but not sufficient. We need to think about adding additional infrastructure, but we also have to think about changing the processes and the way that we approach problems. If you think back to the days before Kubernetes, before we even had containers, how did we work with things? And then how has that changed over time? Containers, scheduling containers, and running them on Kubernetes changed the development approach. It changed how we interact with one another. It changed a number of different things, and observability is another one of them. We've got to think about the entire process. This idea of collaboration is super important. I like to say that you really can't separate tools and culture. The two really reinforce and amplify one another.
Bart Farrell: Metrics are often measured at a high level, so how do you make sure you're actually capturing meaningful delivery performance and not just tracking activity?
Nathen Harvey: folks often try to measure DORA at a very high level. Sometimes that looks like measuring deployment frequency across an entire organization. I have some bad news for those folks. You're doing it wrong. Look, deployment frequency and any of those software delivery performance metrics are really meant to be measured at the level of an application or service. So what is an application or service? It's something that provides real value to real users. That might be your overall platform. You could measure that and ask how it's doing with software delivery performance. Or you could measure it at maybe an application that sits on top of the platform. That might be another one. And the other problem that I see folks running into is they start doing comparisons across teams. The reality is that when you're comparing, say, an application that sits on top of a platform versus the platform, you're doing an apples-to-oranges comparison. You really want to only compare, or maybe I should say the best comparisons, are this application's software delivery performance versus that same application's software delivery performance six months ago or six months from now. Really, you're trying to improve yourself, use your own application as a baseline, and go from there.
Bart Farrell: Nathen, what's next for you?
Nathen Harvey: What's next for me? DORA is continuing to dig into and understand how AI is changing the game. We're seeing AI impact every bit of software development and, frankly, every bit of business. DORA will stay focused on software development, developer experience, delivery, and so forth. But how is AI changing how all of that works? Are there new metrics we need to think about as teams, so that we can really make sure we're using this technology to drive our businesses forward?
Bart Farrell: If people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to do that?
Nathen Harvey: The best way is probably to hop over to LinkedIn and find me there. My name is misspelled, so I'm a little easier to find. It's N-A-T-H-E-N Harvey. H-A-R-V-E-Y.
