Product Management Research
Accelerate
By Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble and Gene Kim
Accelerate Summary
Accelerate explores what makes top engineering organisations deliver software quickly and reliably, using several years of rigorous DevOps research. The authors show that high performance isn’t about heroics or rigid processes, but about adopting proven technical practices and building a supportive, learning‑focused culture. A major contribution is the DORA metrics, which give teams a clear way to measure delivery speed and stability. The book highlights how practices like continuous delivery, automation, trunk‑based development, and psychological safety consistently improve outcomes. Overall, it’s a concise, evidence‑backed guide to creating teams that ship faster, break less, and drive real business impact.
Accelerate Key Concepts
Other than the DORA metrics, the key concepts in Accelerate include uncovering 24 key capabilities that drive software delivery performance (listed in Appendix A), which are grouped into five categories and all listed below:
Continuous Delivery Capabilities:
- Use version control for all production artifacts
- Automate your deployment process
- Implement continuous integration
- Use trunk-based development
- Implement test automation
- Support test data management
- Shift left on security
- Implement continuous delivery (CD)
Architecture Capabilities:
- Use a loosely coupled architecture
- Architect for empowered teams
Product and Process Capabilities:
- Gather and implement customer feedback
- Make the flow of work visible through the value stream
- Work in small batches
- Foster and enable team experimentation
Lean Management and Monitoring Capabilities:
- Have a lightweight change approval process
- Monitor acrosss application and infrastructure to inform business decisions
- Check system health proactively
- Identify processes and manage work with work-in-process (WIP) limits
- Visualize work to monitor quality and communicate throughout the team
Cultural Capabilities:
- Support a generative culture (as outlined by Westrum)
- Encourage and support learning. Is learning, in your culture, considered essential for continued progress?
- Support and facilitiate collaboration amoung teams
- Provide resources and tools that make work meaningful
- Support or embody transformational leadership
The Phoenix Project
The Phoenix Project Summary
The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win" by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford
The Phoenix Project Key Concepts
The DevOps Handbook
The DevOps Handbook Summary
The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations" by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, and John Willis