DORA Community - Building 10x Development Organizations.pdf

We’ll take a detailed, granular look at the barriers to productivity faced by developers today, and modern approaches for removing them. 10x developers may be a myth, but 10x organizations are very real, as proven by the influential study performed in the 1980s, ‘The Coding War Games.’

Right now, here in early 2025, we seem to be experiencing YAPP (Yet Another Productivity Philosophy), and that philosophy is converging on developer experience. It seems that with every new method we invent for the delivery of products, whether physical or virtual, we reinvent productivity philosophies to go alongside them.

But which of these approaches actually work? DORA? SPACE? DevEx? What should we invest in and create urgency behind today, so that we don’t find ourselves having the same discussion again in a decade?

1. Building 10x Development Organizations
Using Developer Experience Metrics and
Frameworks

2. Slides, Resources, and Contact Info
https://getdx.com/talk/doracommunity-march2025

3. Justin Reock
Deputy CTO, DX

Justin Reock is the Deputy CTO of DX (getdx.com),
and is an engineer, speaker, writer, and software
practice evangelist with over 20 years of
experience working in various software roles.

4. 10x Engineers

5. Every Myth has an Origin Story

6. The Results - And The Truth of the 10x Org
21% Difference in
Productivity Between
Engineers Working In
Same Organization
11.1x Difference In
Productivity Between
Highest and Lowest
Performing
Organizations
“While this productivity differential among programmers is
understandable, there is also a 10 to 1 difference in productivity
among software organizations.”

–Harlan (HD) Mills, Software Productivity in the Enterprise

7. 10x Developers are a myth…
But 10x Organizations are very real

8. The best performers are clustering in some
organizations while the worst performers are
clustering in others.

9. The best performers are clustering in some
organizations while the worst performers are
clustering in others.
Some companies are doing a lot worse than others.

10. The best performers are clustering in some
organizations while the worst performers are
clustering in others.
Some companies are doing a lot worse than others.

Something about their environment and corporate
culture is failing to attract and keep good people or is
making it impossible for even good people to work
effectively.

11. Average performance of those in the top quarter was 2.6
times better than that of those in the bottom quarter.
Though the phrase had not yet been coined, increased
productivity came down to better developer experience.

12. Encouraging flow state and
minimal context switching
matters more than
language, salary, and tenure.

13. JIT Mftg
Business
Process
Re-engineering
Change
Mgmt
Agile
Lean
DevOps
Platform
Engineering
…?
But, where’s the “Dev”?
Oh, there’s the “Dev!”
1970+ 1980+ 1990+ 2000+ 2010+ 2020+

14. The Ancient Business Wisdom
…Of the 70s and 80s

16. Cost = Organizational Cost
Inventory = Code
Throughput = Money

20. Manufacturing metrics

Lead time
Total Cycle Time
WIP Inventory/Turns
On-Time Delivery to Commit
Throughput
Yield
Capacity Utilization
Reportable Incidents
Schedule or Production Attainment
Engineering Change Order Cycle Time

Source:
Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association
Common engineering metrics

Lead time
Issue cycle time
WIPs
Deployment frequency
Pull request throughput
Pull request cycle time
Story points
Change failure rate
MTTR

22. “It’s no longer the big beating the small,
but the fast beating the slow.”
Eric Pearson, CIO, InterContinental Hotels Group

25. DevOps, DORA, etc, have still not captured all bottlenecks,
friction, and obstacles to throughput

26. DevOps, DORA, etc, have still not captured all bottlenecks,
friction, and obstacles to throughput

Many are hiding in plain sight, in the developer experience itself

27. DevOps, DORA, etc, have still not captured all bottlenecks,
friction, and obstacles to throughput

Many are hiding in plain sight, in the developer experience itself

A 10x organization should consider every aspect of the developer
value stream, internal and external

33. Most Organizations Aren’t Aligned
In a study dated April 27, 2022, between Microsoft and the University of
Victoria in British Columbia, Developers and Managers were surveyed on their
interpretation of the SPACE framework

34. When surveyed with the following questions,
Developers and Managers answered much
differently
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.04302.pdf

When thinking about your
work, how do you define
productivity?
Developers Managers
When thinking about your
team, how do you define
productivity?

35. No one knows more about
the friction in the software
development lifecycle
than developers.

36. So what if we just asked
developers…

37. Quantitative Metric Qualitative Metric
PR Cycle Time I work on small, iterative changes:

Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Very Often
Always
Commit Frequency I have uninterrupted time for deep work:

Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Very Often
Always
Time To First Review I receive code reviews in a timely manner:

Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Very Often
Always

38. Quantitative
Metrics
●Easy to measure
●Objective
●Incomplete
●Lack Context
Qualitative
Metrics
●Comprehensive
●Tells you “why”
●Difficult (design,
participation)
●High cost to
execute
Pros Cons

39. https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3595878

40. The DevEx Metrics

42. S
Satisfaction
P
Performance
A
Activity
C
Collaboration
E
Efficiency
DF
Deployment Frequency
LTFC
Lead Time for Changes
MTTR
Mean Time to Resolve
CFR
Change Failure Rate
FS
Flow State
FL
Feedback Loops

CL
Cognitive Load

43. The DX Core 4 - DORA, SPACE, and DevEx

45. The DX Core 4 - DORA, SPACE, and DevEx

46. Each one-point gain in DXI score translates to
saving 13 minutes per week per developer,
equivalent to 10 hours annually.

47. Each one-point gain in DXI score translates to
saving 13 minutes per week per developer,
equivalent to 10 hours annually.
… and yes, the math proof is available. :)

49. Knowing how to measure productivity
or even define developer productivity
has remained elusive.

50. Knowing how to measure productivity
or even define developer productivity
has remained elusive.

The Core 4 is the best possible way
available to do it.

51. Slides, Resources, and Contact Info
https://getdx.com/talk/doracommunity-march2025

52. https://getdx.com/guide/devex-survey-template/

53. https://lu.ma/kubecon-dx-happy-hour

54. Email for RSVP: [email protected]

55. Q & A