You’re Reading DORA Backwards

📰 Medium · DevOps

Don't confuse DORA metrics with a playbook for improvement - focus on building a strong engineering foundation to achieve better outcomes

intermediate Published 12 Apr 2026

Action Steps

Read the DORA research with a critical eye to understand the outcomes, not the playbook
Focus on building a strong engineering foundation to improve deployment frequency, not just deploying more often
Analyze your team's change failure rate and mean time to recovery to identify areas for improvement, rather than just trying to reduce failures
Implement changes that address the root causes of issues, rather than just treating symptoms
Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of changes to ensure they are leading to better outcomes

Who Needs to Know This

Engineering leaders and teams can benefit from understanding the correct interpretation of DORA metrics to improve their deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, and mean time to recovery

Key Insight

💡 DORA metrics are outcomes, not a playbook for improvement - focus on building a strong engineering foundation to achieve better outcomes

Key Takeaways

Don't confuse DORA metrics with a playbook for improvement - focus on building a strong engineering foundation to achieve better outcomes

Full Article

Title: You’re Reading DORA Backwards

URL Source: https://medium.com/@seancooper/youre-reading-dora-backwards-c58804022e08?source=rss------devops-5

Published Time: 2026-04-12T00:56:14Z

Markdown Content:
# You’re Reading DORA Backwards. Let me save you six months of pain: you… | by Sean Cooper | Apr, 2026 | Medium

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# You’re Reading DORA Backwards

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[Sean Cooper](https://medium.com/@seancooper?source=post_page---byline--c58804022e08---------------------------------------)

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Let me save you six months of pain: **you don’t get better by shipping faster. You ship faster by getting better.**

I know that sounds obvious. But I’ve watched team after team, company after company, read the DORA research and walk away with exactly the wrong conclusion. They see that elite performers deploy multiple times per day, and they think, “We need to deploy more often.” They see that elite performers have a change failure rate under 5%, and they think, “We need fewer failures.”

No kidding. That’s like reading that Olympic swimmers have low body fat and deciding the path to a gold medal is to stop eating.

DORA metrics are **outcomes**. They are the scoreboard. They are not the playbook. And treating the scoreboard like a playbook is one of the most expensive mistakes an engineering leader can make.

## The Four Metrics, Backwards

Let’s walk through each one, because every single DORA metric has the same problem when read wrong.

## Deployment Frequency

**What the research says:** Elite teams deploy on demand, o

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