DORA metrics are four key indicators that measure software delivery performance. CompassHQ tracks all four and surfaces them in a unified dashboard so your team can identify bottlenecks and improve over time.
The Four Metrics
Deployment Frequency
How often your team ships code to production. Higher frequency typically correlates with smaller, safer changes and faster feedback loops.
Lead Time for Changes
The elapsed time from a developer’s first commit to that code running in production. This captures your full pipeline efficiency — from code review through CI/CD to deployment.
Change Failure Rate
The percentage of deployments that cause a degradation in service, such as an incident, rollback, or hotfix. A lower rate indicates stronger testing and review practices.
Mean Time to Recovery
How quickly your team restores service after a production failure. Faster recovery reflects mature incident response processes and resilient system design.
Intent-Based Measurement
Most DORA tools grade you against industry-wide benchmarks (Elite, High, Medium, Low). CompassHQ takes a different approach. Instead of comparing your team to every other team on the planet, CompassHQ compares your actual delivery performance against the targets you set in your delivery profile.
This intent-based model answers a more useful question: Is my team delivering at the cadence we agreed on?
For example, if your team commits to deploying twice per week, CompassHQ evaluates whether you are meeting that goal — not whether you match a top-tier Silicon Valley team that deploys 50 times a day. This makes the metrics actionable for teams of every size and maturity level.
Next Steps
To start measuring, you need to define your team’s expected delivery cadence. See Delivery Profiles to configure your targets.