Making the Case for Increased Deploy Frequency When Your Hands Seem Tied

The "12" Problem

Last week, I sat down with an engineering leader at a mid-sized financial services company. When I asked about their DORA metrics, particularly deploy frequency, I got an interesting response.

"It's 12," the leader said with a shrug.

"That's interesting," I replied. "How did you arrive at that number, and what does it tell you about your engineering process?"

The leader leaned back in their chair. "Well, we deploy once a month because that's all we're allowed to do. Twelve months, twelve deployments. It's just how things work here. Honestly, the metric isn't very valuable to us since we're locked into this cadence by company policy."

This conversation isn't unusual. Many engineering leaders find themselves in similar situations - tasked with measuring metrics they feel powerless to improve. But is deploy frequency really a dead-end metric when you're limited in how often you can push to production?

Are You Really Stuck, or Just Used to It?

First, let's get honest about why you deploy as often (or rarely) as you do. Ask yourself: "Are we truly blocked by regulations, or have we just accepted slow deployments as 'how things work here'?"

If you're in healthcare, finance, or another regulated industry, you might have compliance requirements - but these rarely specify exactly how often you can deploy code. The confusion often comes from mixing up two different things: deploying code and releasing features to users. You can actually deploy code frequently while controlling when features become available through feature flags.

Find Your "Practice Field"

If production really is locked down, look for another environment that can serve as your deployment testing ground. Development, staging, or internal environments can work perfectly for this purpose.

These environments let your team flex their deployment muscles without the high stakes of production. It's like a practice field where you can run drills, build confidence, and perfect your technique before the big game.

Use Your Wins to Change the Game

Once your team gets good at frequent deployments in your alternative environment, you'll start collecting valuable data: fewer bugs, smaller and safer changes, quicker feedback cycles. This isn't just feel-good stuff - it's ammunition for changing how the broader organization thinks about deployments.

When you can show executives that your team deployed 20 times to the staging environment with zero critical issues, compared to the monthly production deployment that caused four hours of firefighting, you've got a compelling story.

Use these real numbers to challenge assumptions: "We've proven we can deploy safely with our new process. The data shows smaller, more frequent deployments actually reduce our risk profile compared to our current big-bang approach."

The goal isn't just checking a DORA metrics box - it's building a development process that delivers value continuously while actually reducing risk. And that's something everyone from engineers to executives to compliance officers can get behind.

How Allstacks Can Help

At Allstacks, we understand the challenges engineering leaders face when trying to improve metrics like deploy frequency. Our engineering insights platform doesn't just measure your DORA metrics - it helps you understand what's behind them and build the case for meaningful change.

We work with teams across various industries, including those with regulatory constraints, to identify opportunities for improving deployment practices. With Allstacks, you can:

• Track deploy frequency across all environments to show progress in your "practice fields"
• Correlate deployment patterns with quality metrics to demonstrate how increased frequency impacts outcomes
• Generate executive-ready reports that make the business case for deployment process changes
• Benchmark your performance against industry standards to set realistic goals

Don't settle for "it's just 12" when your team could be realizing the benefits of more frequent, safer deployments. Contact Allstacks today to learn how we can help you build a data-driven case for increasing your deploy frequency - even in environments with strict constraints. Our team of experts is ready to help you transform how your organization thinks about software delivery.

Email us at info@allstacks.com today to start the conversation!