Four key metrics – workshop session

The four key metrics uncover a direct link between organisational performance and software delivery performance. These are explained and explored in the amazing book Accelerate from my friend Jez Humble and colleagues. The authors have determined that the 4 key metrics differentiate between low, medium and high performers. They are: Lead time, Deploy frequency, Mean Time to Restore (MTTR) and Change fail percentage.

Following is a workshop session activity I have used for (1) having the conversation about the current state of the four key metrics, and (2) make it visible where the team aim to get into in a given timeframe.

Let´s have conversation about the current state of the four key metrics, and then make it visible where the team aim to get into in a given timeframe.

Tell me how you measure me and I will tell you how I behave.

Step by step:

1. Share where you consider are today on each of these 4 metrics
2. Define the timeframe for the desired improvements
3. Share where you consider we should be at for each of these 4 metrics

Lead time

For the primary application or service you work on, what is your lead time for changes (that is, how long does it take to go from code committed to code successfully running in production)?

•  More than six months
• One to six months
• One week to one month
• One day to one week
• Less than one day
• Less than one hour

Deploy frequency

For the primary application or service you work on, how often does your organization deploy code to production or release it to end users?

•  Fewer than once per six months
• Between once per month and once every six months
• Between once per week and once per month
• Between once per day and once per week
• Between once per hour and once per day
• On demand (multiple deploys per day)

Mean Time to Restore (MTTR)

For the primary application or service you work on, how long does it generally take to restore service when a service incident or a defect that impacts users occurs (for example, unplanned outage, service impairment)?

• More than six months
• One month to six months
• One week to one month
• One day to one week
• Less than one day
• Less than one hour

Change fail percentage

For the primary application or service you work on, what percentage of changes to production or releases to users result in degraded service (for example, lead to service impairment or service outage) and subsequently require remediation (for example, require a hotfix, rollback, fix forward, patch)?

• 0–15%
• 16–30%
• 31–45%
• 46–60%
• 61–75%
• 76–100%

You can find this activity on the following Mural template:

• Accelerate the business workshop (Mural template)

This is part of a series of Inception activities.