Measuring developer productivity with Bryan Finster

09/27/23 • 28 min

Bryan Finster is a Distinguished Engineer at Defense Unicorns and a relentless searcher for better ways of working – not by following prescribed frameworks but by gaining situational awareness and recognizing specific contextual improvements. We discussed a topic that stirred an otherwise dull summer – McKinsey’s report on measuring developer productivity.
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This interview is featured in 0800-DEVOPS #53 - Measuring developer productivity with Bryan Finster.
[Check out podcast chapters if available on your podcast platform or use links below]
(0:00)
Introduction
(2:40)
McKinsey report on measuring developer productivity
(9:25)
DORA metrics
(11:44)
Using and abusing DORA metrics
(16:14)
Abusing metrics
(17:40)
Improving the organization
(23:30)
Tips on taking metrics
(26:10)
Following recommendations

Text me what you think.

Text me what you think.

Previous Episode

Learning organizations with Jennifer Petoff

Jennifer Petoff is the director of Google Cloud Platform & Technical Infrastructure Education, and a co-editor of a super popular book "Site Reliability Engineering".

I met Jennifer at the DevOps Enterprise Summit 2023 conference, where she talked about how each engineer's training needs vary depending on several factors. The talk caught my attention because, let's be honest, who can say that their learning program is so good that they have nothing to learn from Google?
People are different and in different stages of their personal and organizational journey, so they also need different kinds of support. Jennifer likes to address these differences with a 2x2 matrix considering industry experience and familiarity with your organization.
Sometimes, organizations try to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to all quadrants and wonder why the result is missing. The truth is that each quadrant requires a different learning approach.
Listen to my conversation with Dr. J. and learn more about specific techniques for each quadrant.
Please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform or Podchaser, and subscribe to 0800-DEVOPS newsletter here.
This interview is featured in 0800-DEVOPS #52 - Learning organizations with Jennifer Petoff.
[Check out podcast chapters if available on your podcast platform or use links below]
(00:00)
Introduction
(2:57)
What are learning organizations
(6:06)
Prerequisites for learning organizations
(9:07)
Getting a management buy-in
(13:25)
Experience-Familiarity matrix
(19:20)
Designing a learning program
(26:08)
Recommendations

Text me what you think.

Next Episode

2023 State of DevOps Report with Nathen Harvey

This episode is a special one for me since, for the first time, I have a reappearance in the show – my friend Nathen Harvey, the godfather of the DORA community! We talked about the community, the inaugural DORA Summit, and the freshly published 2023 State of DevOps Report. Nathen touched upon a couple of very interesting insights and shared a ton of advice!

An interesting insight is about trunk-based development influencing burnout. Community is working hard to explain this so feel free to join the DORA community trunk-based development discussion that is scheduled for Thursday, December 7 at 6PM UTC. Join the DORA Community of Practice for details and an invitation to the discussion.
Please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform or Podchaser, and subscribe to 0800-DEVOPS newsletter here.
This interview is featured in 0800-DEVOPS #54 - 2023 State of DevOps Report with Nathen Harvey.
[Check out podcast chapters if available on your podcast platform or use links below]
(0:00)
Introduction
(1:18)
DORA community
(6:49)
2023 State of DevOps Report
(28:25)
DORA research and service organizations
(31:21)
Accelerate, second edition
(34:36)
Follow recommendations