While working on the requested dashboard, we realized something important: the basic DORA metrics tell you what is happening, but they don't tell you why or how to fix it.
As someone who had worked in CI/CD environments before becoming a designer, we knew what questions managers would ask after seeing these metrics:
Which teams are struggling and which are excelling?
What's causing the bottlenecks - is it people, processes, or tools?
Where should I focus our improvement efforts?
How do we drill down from high-level metrics to actionable insights?
My advantage
Before transitioning to design, we had extensive experience working in CI/CD environments. we understood the daily frustrations of development teams and the strategic challenges that managers face. When you've been on both sides - implementing deployments and managing team performance - you know exactly what information people actually need to make decisions.
As ones who had lived this workflow, we knew what questions managers would ask after seeing these metrics:
Which teams are struggling and which are excelling?
What's causing the bottlenecks - is it people, processes, or tools?
Where should I focus my improvement efforts?
How do I drill down from high-level metrics to actionable insights?
The gap I identified
Aggregated DORA metrics are great for reporting, but not good enough for decision-making.
