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Module 5: Measuring DevOps

Question 1: What does “rewarding for ‘A’ while hoping for ‘B’” mean?

  • Ranking people against each other results in improved behavior.
  • Measuring lines of code will create quality code.
  • If you want people to be social, measure the number of company-sponsored social gatherings.
  • People will seek to do the activities that are rewarded, so measure what matters.

Answer: People will seek to do the activities that are rewarded, so measure what matters.

Explanation: This statement means that people will focus on the behavior that is being rewarded. If you reward certain actions, even unintentionally, people will optimize for those actions, even if the actual goal is different. So, it’s important to reward what you truly want to encourage.

Question 2: Which one of these is an effective DevOps objective?

  • Server downtime
  • Mean time to failure
  • Defect correction rate
  • Mean time to recovery

Answer: Mean time to recovery

Explanation: “Mean time to recovery” (MTTR) is a key DevOps metric that measures how quickly a system or service can recover from a failure. The faster the recovery, the better the system’s resilience and availability, which is a core focus of DevOps.

Question 3: Select the correct statement regarding vanity metrics.

  • Vanity metrics are valuable to customers.
  • Reduce the time to market is an example of a vanity metric.
  • Vanity metrics are good for taking action.
  • Vanity metrics look impressive but are not meaningful or actionable.

Answer: Vanity metrics look impressive but are not meaningful or actionable.

Explanation: Vanity metrics are metrics that may look good on paper but do not provide real value for decision-making or improvement. They often focus on numbers that are easy to measure but don’t provide meaningful insights or actionable data.

Question 4: Which one of the following describes mean time to recovery?

  • How long it takes to recover from failure.
  • How long it takes for a new feature to fail.
  • How often new releases fail.
  • Introducing new features when the product fails to be available to customers.

Answer: How long it takes to recover from failure.

Explanation: Mean time to recovery (MTTR) is the average time taken to restore a system or service to normal operation after a failure occurs. It is a key metric in DevOps, focusing on minimizing downtime and improving system resilience.

Question 5: Which of the following is NOT consistent with “Failures are learning opportunities?”

  • It is the system that fails, not the person.
  • Messengers are not punished.
  • Punishment for failures.
  • Foster a culture of experimentation.

Answer: Punishment for failures.

Explanation: A culture where “failures are learning opportunities” encourages learning from mistakes rather than punishing individuals for failure. Punishing failures can discourage experimentation, which goes against the idea of using failures as chances for growth and improvement.