DORA's Four Keys to Leading Transformations

And delaying your transformation by over-planning is not one of them...

Transformation shouldn’t be looked at as an event that happens in the (distant?) future. I believe the biggest challenge preventing organizations from undergoing transformation is leaders delaying the decision to start working in a new way. This is much more of a mindset shift that needs to be adopted at a leadership level than anything else. Unfortunately, enterprise organizations tend to treat transformation as a “project” or something that has a start AND end date. I think it may have a beginning but it certainly shouldn’t end.?

If you're saying it's so easy, where do we start?

Almost burying the lead, in addition to the great actionable data on platform engineering, AI enablement, and developer experience, the 2024 DORA Report shares 4 pillars to begin leading successful transformations:

• Transformational Leadership
• Be Relentlessly User-Centric
• Become a Data-Informed Organization
• Be All-In on Cloud or Commit to Your Data Center?

While long-term success requires excellence in all pillars, a decade of DORA research has pointed us to four specific, impactful ways to get started on driving transformation in your own organization.

Expanding on these key pillars, I'll share high-level thoughts on how we start shifting focus from “planning” to “doing”:

1?? Transformational Leadership

Okay. It's no surprise that your transformation requires transformational leadership. You don’t need perfect plans but you do need leaders who inspire action and set the pace. (Also, this is where you say you're one of those leaders...?? ). Start by empowering your teams with clear direction and immediate opportunities to experiment and iterate. Transformation occurs when leaders stop waiting for permission and start creating change.

The DORA report shares some tenets of transformational leadership:

Transformational leadership doesn't require an extensive project plan but it does require leaders who are bought in on what transformation means for the organization.

2?? Be Relentlessly User-Centric

The second pillar is to put your users or customers (both internal and external) at the heart of everything. Don’t just talk about understanding user needs; make it actionable. Start running workshops, conducting feedback sessions, and delivering small but impactful changes that show users they’re the priority. This is driving everyone toward having a product mindset.

Internally this may be things like building platforms (IDPs, etc.) as true self-service products. In many cases the most impactful change is getting your teams closer to their users through more frequent changes and a better understanding of how their changes are impacting users day-to-day.

Waiting for a perfect plan here only delays progress and building important relationships with your customers. Will you need to work toward wider directional alignment here? Maybe, but starting small with a pilot team or product will help you refine a strategy and provide visibility into results rather than delay learning.

From the report: "The ultimate goal is for users to love the products we create."

3?? Become a Data-Informed Organization

Data provides the necessary fuel for leading transformation. It's important to begin tracking actionable metrics that align with your goals - like deployment frequency or lead time for changes. Don’t wait for perfect dashboards but absolutely get some visuals going - the first pass doesn't have to be pretty as long as it surfaces the data.

I wouldn't believe it if someone tells you they can't get the data - it is something that should be able to be surfaced with little effort. Start making decisions based on what you know now, and refine as you go.

(For example, our team built an open source Backstage from Spotify plugin to track DORA metrics)

4?? Be All-In on Cloud or Commit to Your Data Center

Hesitating between cloud migration or staying on-prem is probably just a decision to stand still. This may be the only pillar that is controversial or requires expanded buy-in. The chances are your org made this decision years ago and just need to commit. Evaluate your workloads and pick one low-risk application to act on. Migrate it or modernize it (I think it's a perfect time to modernize) but do something.

Don't let the few edge scenarios make the case for all of your products. Cloud or data center, the choice doesn’t matter nearly as much as starting the work with a goal in mind.

Transformation is a journey, not a destination. If you’re waiting for a “perfect moment,” it’ll never come. The work begins when you decide to work differently, not when everything is ready. So when you finally make the decision to start leading and working transformationally, you're probably already well on your way.

Excerpts taken from the 2024 DORA Report

Dashboard image from the Liatrio Backstage DORA Metrics Plugin

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