Platform Engineering ROI: How Teams Prove Value Beyond DORA Metrics

Platform engineering ROI can feel hard to prove because DORA metrics do not show the full picture. DORA is still useful, but leaders also want to see time saved, fewer incidents, and faster business outcomes.

Explore cloud & DevOps services or contact to discuss your platform goals.

What DORA misses

DORA focuses on deployment speed and stability. It does not show:

• Time engineers spend waiting on environments, approvals, or access.
• How fast a new service can launch from idea to production.
• The real cost of incidents, rollbacks, and manual work.

Easy ROI metrics leaders understand

• Hours saved per month from self-service (envs, pipelines, infra).
• Fewer handoffs and tickets per team.
• Faster onboarding time for new engineers.
• Fewer incidents and lower downtime cost.

Platform value signals beyond DORA

• Time to first deploy for a new repo or service.
• Mean time to recover from an incident with platform tooling.
• % of services using golden paths and standard templates.
• Support load: tickets per team per month.

A simple ROI dashboard (1 page)

• Cost: platform team size, tools, and infra.
• Savings: hours saved, fewer incidents, fewer tickets.
• Speed: onboarding time, time to first deploy.
• Adoption: % services on the platform.

How to start (quick plan)

• Pick one pain: slow onboarding or slow deploys.
• Measure the baseline for two weeks.
• Ship one improvement (self-service or golden path).
• Show before/after results in one slide.

Key takeaways

Use DORA, but do not stop there. Show time saved, support load reduced, and faster launches. A small, clear dashboard beats a long report.