Engineering Enablement by Abi Noda

In this week's episode, we welcome Derek DeBellis, lead researcher on Google's DORA team, for a deep dive into the science and methodology behind DORA's research. We explore Derek's background, his role at Google, and how DORA intersects with other research disciplines. Derek takes us through DORA's research process step by step, from defining outcomes and factors to survey design, analysis, and structural equation modeling.

Discussion points:
  • (3:00) Derek’s transition from Microsoft to the DORA team at Google
  • (4:28) Derek talks about his connection to surveys
  • (6:16) Derek’s journey to becoming a quantitative user experience researcher
  • (7:48) Derek simplifies DORA
  • (8:19) DORA - Philosophy vs practice
  • (11:09) Understanding desired outcomes
  • (12:45) Self reported outcomes vs objective outcomes
  • (16:16) Derek and Abi discuss the nuances of literature review
  • (19:57) Derek details survey development
  • (27:55) Pretesting issues
  • (29:30) Designing surveys for other companies
  • (35:02) Derek simplifies model analysis and validation techniques
  • (38:48) Benchmarks: Balancing data limitations with method sensitivity
Mentions and Links:

Creators & Guests

Host
Abi Noda
Abi is the founder and CEO of DX (getdx.com), which helps engineering leaders measure and improve developer experience. Abi formerly founded Pull Panda, which was acquired by GitHub.

What is Engineering Enablement by Abi Noda?

This is a weekly podcast focused on developer productivity and the teams and leaders dedicated to improving it. Topics include in-depth interviews with Platform and DevEx teams, as well as the latest research and approaches on measuring developer productivity. The EE podcast is hosted by Abi Noda, the founder and CEO of DX (getdx.com) and published researcher focused on developing measurement methods to help organizations improve developer experience and productivity.