Engineering benchmarks: A guide to improving time to deploy

Improving the effectiveness of a software engineering organization hinges on several key metrics, with "time to deploy" being crucial for identifying opportunities for enhancement. This metric encompasses the duration from development approval to production deployment, including manual QA, and directly impacts a team's deployment frequency and incident recovery time. Successful teams deploy multiple times daily, often in under 15 minutes without manual intervention. Addressing common challenges involves strategies like implementing CI/CD pipelines, automating tests, utilizing feature flags, and fostering a DevOps culture where teams take ownership of their deployment processes. Breaking larger tasks into smaller, manageable pieces, standardizing development environments to mirror production, and leveraging tools such as Infrastructure as Code can significantly streamline deployments. Adopting practices like selective test execution, blue/green deployments, and merge queues can further enhance efficiency and reduce deployment times, ensuring continuous improvement and faster feedback loops.