Building an organization for fast flow – delivering often and with high quality

Fast flow is delivering often, with quality and hitting customer needs. How do we know that we are? Accelerate found that the so called DORA-metrics can predict 2x better results in the following areas:

1. Profitability
2. Productivity
3. Market share
4. Number of customers

The DORA-metrics are

1. Lead time
2. Deployment frequency
3. Mean time to restore
4. Change/fail percentage

So, it seems that we should measure and work to improve our ability to deliver often and with quality, because those measures predict better business outcomes.

How might we help our teams to focus on those metrics?

1. Reduce cognitive load ¹
2. Reduce handovers ²

And what would that mean in practice?

1. Organize based on domains, so that a team can solve problems end-to-end within their domain
2. Communicate direction and context often, e.g. with tools such as OKRs
3. Help teams coordinate with flight-levels, labeling teams and building APIs for the teams
4. Nurture a culture where improvement is celebrated, i.e. implement changes that help us deliver faster and with less faults³