What are the four DORA metrics?

The four DORA metrics are deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, and mean time to recovery (MTTR). Together they measure how fast and how reliably a software team ships. The Zenflow engineering manager dashboard tracks all four automatically, with 1-week, 4-week, and 12-week trends.

What counts as a good DORA metrics score?

DORA performance is graded on four tiers: elite, high, medium, and low. An elite team deploys on demand, ships changes in under a day, and recovers from incidents in under an hour. The dashboard rates each of your four metrics against these tiers, so you can see where your team lands without interpreting the raw numbers yourself.

How do you measure PR cycle time?

PR cycle time is the total time a pull request takes from open to merge, broken into three stages: pickup time, review time, and merge time. The dashboard reports the median for each stage, per repo, across your most recently merged PRs, so you can see exactly where pull requests stall.

How is sprint velocity calculated?

Sprint velocity compares the work a team committed to in a cycle against what it actually delivered. The dashboard calculates it cycle over cycle using Linear cycles or Jira sprints, and falls back to a rolling weekly window when neither is connected, so velocity tracking works regardless of your setup.

What if we don't use Linear or Jira?

It still works. Sprint velocity falls back to a rolling weekly window when no cycle tool is connected. Any metric that needs an integration you don't have shows as a locked panel with a prompt to connect it. The rest of the dashboard renders normally.

How current are the numbers?

The skill runs on a schedule and refreshes the dashboard each time. You can also trigger it on demand with a prompt like "engineering dashboard" or "DORA metrics" whenever you want the latest read.

Zenflow for Engineering Managers

Your DORA dashboard is already in Zenflow

Cycle time, deployment frequency, and investment allocation on one live dashboard, built by a Zenflow skill from the repos and trackers you already use.

Get started Install the Dashboard

What you get

Four views into how your team is really doing

Every metric is team-level. The dashboard never reports on individuals.

DORA metrics, live and team-level

The full DORA set plus cycle time, velocity, and investment allocation, refreshed on a schedule.

Cycle Time

The time from PR creation to merge. It surfaces where work stalls: idle reviews, prototypes left open, PRs that never close.

Investment Allocation

Engineering effort sorted by issue type. Shows where the team's focus actually goes, and whether new features and bug work stay in balance.

Deployment Frequency

How often your code reaches production. The clearest signal of team velocity.

Setup

From install to live dashboard

Four steps, and the skill handles most of them.

Check prerequisites

Python 3 and the GitHub CLI, authenticated against your org. Most engineering machinesalready have both.

One time

Enable the skill

In Zenflow, open Automations -> Engineering and use the Engineering Manager Dashboard template. It installs and schedules itself.

30 SECONDS

Let it find your repos

The skill discovers repos from your Zenflow projects. Set them explicitly inorg-config.yaml if you'd rather. Missing integrations show as locked panels, nothing breaks.

AUTOMATIC

Read your dashboard

A single page, refreshed on schedule. DORA metrics, cycle time, velocity, and investmentallocation, current every time you open it.

ONGOING

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Frequently asked questions

: The four DORA metrics are deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, and mean time to recovery (MTTR). Together they measure how fast and how reliably a software team ships. The Zenflow engineering manager dashboard tracks all four automatically, with 1-week, 4-week, and 12-week trends.
: DORA performance is graded on four tiers: elite, high, medium, and low. An elite team deploys on demand, ships changes in under a day, and recovers from incidents in under an hour. The dashboard rates each of your four metrics against these tiers, so you can see where your team lands without interpreting the raw numbers yourself.
: PR cycle time is the total time a pull request takes from open to merge, broken into three stages: pickup time, review time, and merge time. The dashboard reports the median for each stage, per repo, across your most recently merged PRs, so you can see exactly where pull requests stall.
: Sprint velocity compares the work a team committed to in a cycle against what it actually delivered. The dashboard calculates it cycle over cycle using Linear cycles or Jira sprints, and falls back to a rolling weekly window when neither is connected, so velocity tracking works regardless of your setup.
: It still works. Sprint velocity falls back to a rolling weekly window when no cycle tool is connected. Any metric that needs an integration you don't have shows as a locked panel with a prompt to connect it. The rest of the dashboard renders normally.
: The skill runs on a schedule and refreshes the dashboard each time. You can also trigger it on demand with a prompt like "engineering dashboard" or "DORA metrics" whenever you want the latest read.