Accelerate (book)

Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations is a software engineering book co-authored by Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble and Gene Kim.[3] The book explores how software development teams using Lean Software and DevOps can measure their performance and the performance of software engineering teams impacts the overall performance of an organization.[4][5]

Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations
Cover
AuthorNicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectDevOps
PublisherIT Revolution
Publication date
2018
Pages156 (paperback)
AwardsShingo Prize[1][2]
ISBN9781942788331
OCLC1035781633

24 Key Capabilities

The authors outline 24 practices to improve software delivery which they refer to as “key capabilities” and group them into five categories.[6]

Continuous Delivery
  • Use Version Control for all Production Artifacts
  • Automate Your Deployment Process
  • Implement Continuous Integration
  • Use Trunk-Based Development Methods
  • Implement Test Automation
  • Support Test Data Management
  • Shift Left on Security
  • Implement Continuous Delivery (CD)

Architecture
  • Use a Loosely Coupled Architecture
  • Architect for Empowered Teams

Product and Process
  • Gather and Implement Customer Feedback
  • Make the Flow of Work Visible through the Value Stream
  • Work in Small Batches
  • Foster and Enable Team Experimentation

Lean Management and Monitoring
  • Have a Lightweight Change Approval Processes
  • Monitor across Application and Infrastructure to Inform Business Decisions
  • Check System Health Proactively
  • Improve Processes and Manage Work with Work-In-Process (WIP) Limits
  • Visualize Work to Monitor Quality and Communicate throughout the Team

Cultural
  • Support a Generative Culture
  • Encourage and Support Learning
  • Support and Facilitate Collaboration among Teams
  • Provide Resources and Tools that Make Work Meaningful
  • Support or Embody Transformational Leadership

Four Key Metrics

The authors examine 23,000 data points from a variety of companies of various different sizes (from start-up to enterprises), for-profit and not-for-profit and both those with legacy systems and those with modern systems.[7][8][9]

DevOps research conducted by the authors and summarized in Accelerate demonstrates four key metrics that are indicators of software delivery performance, leading to higher rates of profitability, market share and customer satisfaction for their respective companies. The authors identified that “highest performers are twice as likely to meet or exceed their organizational performance goals.”

The four metrics identified are as follows:[10][11]

  • Change Lead Time - Time to implement, test, and deliver code for a feature (measured from first commit to deployment)
  • Deployment Frequency - Number of deployments in a given duration of time
  • Change Failure Rate - Percentage of failed changes over all changes (regardless of success)
  • Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR) - Time it takes to restore service after production failure

The authors further measure how various technical practices (like outsourcing) and risk factors impact performance metrics for an engineering team.[12][13] These metrics can be crudely measured using psychometrics[14] or using commercial services.

References
  1. "IT Revolution Announces 'Accelerate' Book Wins Shingo Publication Award". markets.businessinsider.com. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  2. "Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performance Technology by Nicole Forsgren, PhD, Jez Humble, Gene Kim, Steve Bell, and Karen Whitley Bell Receives Shingo Publication Award". Shingo Institute. 4 February 2020. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  3. "The 2018 InfoQ Editors' Recommended Reading List: Part One". InfoQ. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  4. Bloomberg, Jason. "Digital Influencer Nicole Forsgren: Bringing Science to DevOps". Forbes. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  5. Drugeot, Constance (30 March 2021). "Why is a DevOps assessment important, and how to do it right?". DevOps Online. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  6. "24 Key Capabilities to Drive Improvement in Software Delivery".
  7. Overby, Stephanie. "7 takeaways to "Accelerate" your DevOps". TechBeacon. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  8. Linders, Ben; Humble, Jez. "Q&A on the Book Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performance Technology Organizations". InfoQ. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  9. Mangot, Dave (17 March 2021). "Get good at delivering software". CIO. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  10. "Are you an Elite DevOps performer? Find out with the Four Keys Project". Google Cloud Blog. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  11. Drugeot, Constance (30 March 2021). "Why is a DevOps assessment important, and how to do it right?". DevOps Online. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  12. Johnson, Emily. "Study: DevOps Outsourcing Can Cost You". InformationWeek. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  13. Doddi, Lakshmi (1 April 2021). "Book Summary: Accelerate — by Nicole Forsgren, Gene Kim, Jez Humble". Medium. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  14. Linders, Ben; Humble, Jez. "Q&A on the Book Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performance Technology Organizations". InfoQ. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
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