Gene Kim

Jez Humble

Nicole Forsgren

Does technology actually matter? And how can we apply technology to drive business value?For years, we¿ve been told that the performance of software delivery teams doesn¿t matter¿that it can¿t provide a competitive advantage to our companies. Through four years of groundbreaking research, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance¿and what drives it¿using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research.Readers will discover how to measure the performance of their teams, and what capabilities they should invest in to drive higher performance.

The Science Behind DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations

Accelerate

This book is a key component of modern software engineering organizational design. So much of our industry is driven thoughtlessly using ad-hoc techniques that often prove to be ineffective and at worst actively harmful. This book provides scientifically proven advice to engineering leadership on the techniques that lead to high performance and good outcomes for the organization and its customers.

Appendix A is a clear, succinct distillation of the findings of their research. If nothing else, skimming these findings and becoming familiar with them will be a good start to improving your approach as an engineering leader.

The format of the book did strike me as a bit dry, though. Hard to get all the way through.

The DORA Google site, the SPACE framework paper, and the Engineering Enablement podcast are all great up-to-date resources (in 2023) that build on the work in this book. Check them out!

Chad McElligott

This book is a key component of modern software engineering organizational design. So much of our industry is driven thoughtlessly using ad-hoc techniques that often prove to be ineffective and at worst actively harmful. This book provides scientifically proven advice to engineering leadership on the techniques that lead to high performance and good outcomes for the organization and its customers.

Appendix A is a clear, succinct distillation of the findings of their research. If nothing else, skimming these findings and becoming familiar with them will be a good start to improving your approach as an engineering leader.

The format of the book did strike me as a bit dry, though. Hard to get all the way through.

The DORA Google site, the SPACE framework paper, and the Engineering Enablement podcast are all great up-to-date resources (in 2023) that build on the work in this book. Check them out!

Jowanza Joseph

I really liked the DevOps substance of the book but I was disappointed in the time spent explaining how different research and data collection techniques worked.

Ivan Zarea

On the surface, it seems to be an easy-to-read book that advocates lean practices and backs them up with data. Unfortunately, it doesn't deliver in implementation. It's an amalgamation of the excellent, yet difficult to read Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale or any of Gene Kim's keynotes from the DevOps Enterprise Summit.

Don't get me wrong, there are good things in this book. This is a great book to give to a non-tech exec who wants to be in the loop with the DevOps movement. It even tells us how to ship faster! Most of it, though, goes through the results of the State of DevOps survey, even dedicating a couple of dozen pages describing how a survey works (Interesting, but not relevant to the subtitle of the book).
If you need to be convinced on the what is a high performer and what makes them a high performer, get this book. 

But if you know the what and are looking for the how, you can easily substitute it with the DOES videos. Unfortunately for me, I have already seen them.

Lance Willett

Basic takeaway for me is that technical results are based on investing in leadership, and in your teams and people around you.

Drivers of trust and high performing teams:

1. Vision
2. Intellectual stimulation
3. Inspirational communication
4. Supportive leadership
5. Personal recognition

(Read on Kindle. Found via Camille Fournier on Twitter. Heard it also via an A16Z podcast in March 2018 about DevOps.)

Accelerate The Science Behind DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations

Reviews