Product Management Intro
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Key Concepts
DORA Metrics
stands for DevOps Research and Assessment, a long‑running research initiative originally formed to understand what makes software teams high‑performing. It is now part of Google Cloud, continuing to publish the annual . DORA’s research spans more than a decade and includes data from tens of thousands of engineering professionals worldwide. The program identified four key software delivery performance metrics (the “DORA metrics”):
| Metric | What It Measures | Why It Matters | Elite Benchmarks (2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deployment Frequency | How often code is deployed to production | Indicates delivery velocity | On-demand (multiple/day) |
| Lead Time for Changes | Time from code commit to production | Process efficiency | < 1 hour |
| Change Failure Rate | % of deployments causing failures | Release quality, stability | 0 – 15% |
| Time to Restore Service | Time to recover from production failure | Incident response effectiveness | < 1 hour |
These metrics measure both speed (throughput) and stability, showing that elite teams excel at both. DORA’s findings link strong engineering practices and healthy team culture to better organizational performance, including profitability, productivity, and customer satisfaction. The metrics are widely used across the industry as a standard framework for assessing DevOps maturity and guiding continuous improvement.
Prioritization Frameworks
With limited resources and endless feature requests, structured prioritization is essential. The most effective frameworks include:
| Framework | When to Use | Key Components | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RICE | Feature-level prioritization with quantifiable metrics | Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort | Data-driven, objective | Can be time-consuming, subjective estimates |
| MoSCoW | Sprint planning, stakeholder communication | Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, Won't-have | Simple, aligns teams | Can be vague, subjective |
| Cost-of-Delay | Strategic decisions, opportunity cost analysis | Business value × Urgency | Focuses on value, urgency | Requires accurate value estimation |
Suggested PM Tool Stack
| Concept/Area | Essential Tools/Technologies | Why It Matters for PMs |
|---|---|---|
| Operating System | Linux (Ubuntu) | Most workloads run on Linux; basic fluency is critical. |
| Version Control | Git (GitHub) | Foundation for code, infrastructure, and config changes. |
| Scripting/Automation | Bash, Python | Enables automation, rapid prototyping, and debugging. |
| Infrastructure as Code (IaC) | Terraform | Standard for provisioning cloud infrastructure. |
| Configuration Management | Ansible | Ensures consistent, repeatable server configuration. |
| Containers | Docker | Standard for packaging and deploying applications. |
| Container Orchestration | Kubernetes | Industry standard for scaling and managing containers. |
| Package Management | Helm, Kustomize | Simplifies Kubernetes app deployment and customization. |
| Continuous Integration & Deployment (CI/CD) | GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Argo CD | Automates build, test, and deployment pipelines. |
| Observability & Monitoring | Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK, OpenTelemetry | Enables proactive monitoring, troubleshooting, and improvement. |
| Cloud Platforms | AWS, Azure, GCP (pick one to master) | Deep expertise in one cloud is more valuable than shallow knowledge of many. |
| Security / DevSecOps | Snyk, Trivy, Checkov, OPA | Integrates security into the pipeline ("shift left"). |