Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps - Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations

Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps

Authors: Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim
Published: 2018

Overview

Based on four years of groundbreaking research, Accelerate presents rigorous, data-driven evidence on what drives high performance in technology organizations. The authors conducted the largest DevOps study ever, surveying over 23,000 professionals worldwide to identify the capabilities and practices that differentiate elite performers from low performers.

Key Highlights

The Four Key Metrics

• Lead Time: Time from code commit to production deployment
• Deployment Frequency: How often code is deployed to production
• Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR): Time to recover from production failures
• Change Fail Rate: Percentage of deployments causing production failures

Elite performers deploy 208x more frequently with 106x faster lead times while maintaining 7x lower change failure rates.

24 Key Capabilities Driving Performance

The research identified capabilities across five categories:

Continuous Delivery:

• Version control for everything
• Deployment automation
• Continuous integration
• Trunk-based development
• Test automation
• Test data management
• Shift-left security
• Loosely coupled architecture
• Empowered teams

Architecture:

• Microservices done right enable teams to:
  • Deploy independently without coordination
  • Test without integrated environments
  • Deploy during business hours with minimal risk

Product and Process:

• Customer feedback loops
• Value stream visualization
• Working in small batches
• Team experimentation

Lean Management:

• Lightweight change approval processes
• Monitoring and observability
• Proactive failure notification
• Work-in-progress limits

Culture:

• Westrum’s generative culture
• Learning from failures
• Job satisfaction

Transformational Leadership

Leaders must:

• Create a climate for learning
• Support and enable team experimentation
• Be visible and accessible
• Establish and communicate vision

Practical Takeaways for Principal Engineers

1. Focus on Flow Metrics: Optimize for lead time and deployment frequency, not utilization rates
2. Architectural Decisions Matter: Design systems that enable team autonomy and independent deployments
3. Automate Everything: Version control, CI/CD, testing, and deployment automation are non-negotiable
4. Psychological Safety: High-trust, generative cultures outperform command-and-control organizations
5. Continuous Improvement: Elite performers are not resting—they continue to improve year over year
6. Technical Practices Drive Business Outcomes: The research proves DevOps capabilities directly impact profitability, productivity, and market share

Why It Matters

This book replaces opinion with science. For principal engineers leading technical transformations, Accelerate provides the empirical evidence needed to justify investments in DevOps practices, continuous delivery, and architectural modernization. The research demonstrates that technical excellence is not just about engineering pride—it’s a competitive advantage that drives business success.

Quick Facts

• 23,000+ survey responses over 4 years
• Elite performers are 2.5x more likely to exceed organizational goals
• Technical practices predict organizational performance better than industry, company size, or region
• High performers have 50% lower change failure rates than low performers
• Trunk-based development correlates with higher performance
• External approvals for changes slow teams down without improving stability