Improvement Experiments
Source: content/manual/01-dora-accelerate/chapters/04-improvement-experiments.md
Purpose and scope
Translate observed bottlenecks into small, time-boxed experiments and measure effects.
Outcomes
- Fewer stalled initiatives; clearer ROI.
- Metrics annotated with experiment context.
- Library of effective patterns.
Signals of trouble
- Big-bang programs without measurable impact.
- Multiple experiments overlapping and conflicting.
- No sunset of failed ideas.
Remediation steps
- Write a hypothesis with expected DORA movement and cost.
- Limit experiments to 6–8 weeks; assign an owner.
- Annotate dashboards and share results; standardize successful ones.
Checklists and assets
- Playbook checklists in
playbooks/*per target metric.
References
- Experiment template in the engineering handbook.