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About the DORA Core Model

The DORA Core Model is a collection of capabilities, metrics, and outcomes that represent the most firmly-established findings from across the history and breadth of DORA’s research program. Core is derived from DORA's ongoing research, including the analyses presented in our annual DORA Reports.

The DORA Core Model is intended to be used as a guide in practitioner contexts: it deliberately trails the research, evolving more conservatively. The concepts and relationships shown in the DORA Core Model have been repeatedly demonstrated by our research, and have been successfully used by software engineering teams to prioritize continuous improvement. (FAQ)

DORA research archives

  • Artificial Intelligence AI is fundamentally reshaping software delivery and organizational performance. View research
  • 2025 AI acts as an amplifier, but the greatest returns come from focusing on the underlying sociotechnical systems. View research
  • 2024 Platform engineering and user-centricity drive success, while AI begins to reshape the software delivery landscape. View research
  • 2023 User-centricity predicts 40% higher performance, while quality documentation amplifies the impact of technical capabilities. View research
  • 2022 The biggest predictor of an organization’s application-development security practices is cultural, not technical. View research
  • 2021 High-quality internal documentation is foundational for successfully implementing technical capabilities. View research
  • 2020 DevOps transformations deliver significant Return on Investment (ROI) across the entire organization. View research
  • 2019 Communities of practice outperform centers of excellence, while heavyweight change approval processes negatively impact performance. View research
  • 2018 Operational performance joins the metrics, and the "Elite" cluster is introduced to define the highest level of software delivery. View research
  • 2017 Transformational leadership plays a key role in fostering a culture of high performance. View research
  • 2016 Integrating quality into every stage and adopting experimental product development drives higher performance. View research
  • 2015 High-performing IT organizations consistently outperform their counterparts in terms of four key software delivery metrics. View research
  • 2014 DevOps is a cultural shift, not just technical practices, that drives significant improvements in IT and organizational performance. View research

Additional Publications

The DORA research program and Core model are led by a global team of researchers at Google.

Meet the team