Foreword
You cannot buy high performance. You have to build it.
DORA has been researching the capabilities and conditions of high-performing software development teams for over a decade. We have seen tools evolve from new kids on the block to established norms across the industry.
One lesson keeps repeating: success rarely comes down to which tools a team adopts. What matters far more is how they use them. We saw this with cloud adoption, where simply moving workloads to the cloud was no guarantee of success. We saw this with security practices, with the best predictor of stronger security practices in an organization being the culture of the organization, not the specific tools in place. We are now seeing this with AI across the software delivery lifecycle, too.
In Build: Elements of an Effective Software Organization, Rebecca Murphey and Otto Hilska help illustrate that “building software” is actually shorthand for “building teams that build software.” They’ve lived this, and they help teams realize it every day, using metrics and insights to improve coordination, communication, culture, and — yes — tooling.
Generative AI is making its way into every aspect of the software development lifecycle. DORA has found that AI acts as an amplifier, accelerating the value that high-functioning teams deliver and making the pains of disconnected teams and processes even more acute. Localized bursts of AI-driven coding speed are at risk of hitting downstream bottlenecks or creating chaos in production. This book provides the outcome-based focus needed to ensure that speed doesn’t come at the cost of stability.
We found that “the greatest returns on AI investment come not from the tools themselves, but from a strategic focus on the underlying organizational system…” — DORA State of AI-assisted Software Development. This book provides a blueprint for those foundational systems. It shows you how to leverage organizational practices and sturdy guardrails while treating your developers as users, ensuring that the tools you build actually solve their problems.
The faster our industry moves, the more the fundamentals matter. These principles help the people — and the agents — in your organization do their best work. What separates the strongest organizations from the rest is a habit they never outgrow: they get better at getting better.
Enjoy the insights of this book as you seek to improve your own organization.