💡 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮-𝗗𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗗𝗛𝗟
When I joined DHL eCommerce Nederland just over two years ago, I became part of an organization that experienced significant growth in its digital capabilities during the COVID years, expanding from 20 to 86 engineers. As a newcomer, I talked to as many people as possible to understand the organization better. Through these conversations, people shared numerous stories and concerns that were not only technical but also organizational, process-related, and cultural.
Determined to address these challenges, I began exploring potential solutions. Although engaging with everyone regularly would be both social and enjoyable, it wasn’t feasible and could introduce bias. Having read "Accelerate" and noting the rise of SaaS platforms facilitating DORA metrics tracking, I considered this approach. However, DORA focuses on DevOps performance and doesn’t systematically capture the other aspects of engineering team performance. It provides outcomes like deployment frequency, but the underlying causes need further exploration.
The SPACE framework, introduced later, addressed this gap. It offers a comprehensive assessment of team productivity across five dimensions, including satisfaction, wellbeing, communication, and collaboration, in addition to what DORA covers.
By chance, I saw a LinkedIn post by Gergely Orosz about DX, which immediately caught my attention. After researching and speaking with Greyson Junggren, I was convinced. Co-created by part of the same research team behind DORA and SPACE, and not requiring any technical integrations, DX was perfect for a trial.
We conducted our first survey in July 2022, just two months after I started at DHL. With an initial response rate of 92% (out of 86 engineers), the results were remarkable. They reflected the concerns I had heard and what the leadership team observed, all in a structured and insightful manner. Since then, we’ve been using DX and running quarterly surveys across our growing engineering team, which now numbers around 140 engineers, achieving a 99% response rate in recent quarters.
While having all this data is valuable, real change happens when you act on the results. What we've been doing with the results is a different story on its own, which I'll come to in a different post.
For now, I can wholeheartedly say that DX has been the most valuable investment we've made in driving engineering and cultural excellence at DHL eCommerce BNL.
#dora #space #developerexperience #dx #engineering #culture
