Guide · Impact
Five measures that still tell the truth: DORA metrics in the AI era
AI can make teams feel faster while delivery gets shakier. The five DORA metrics show what is really happening, and how to read them without gaming them.
· 7 min read
Making Work Flow
AI made the typing faster. It didn't fix the queue.
Thirty years of delivering software says the same thing every time: the technology is rarely the hard part. Work stalls in the gaps — in review, in handoffs, in decisions nobody owns. AI moves where the stall sits. It doesn't remove it.
I work on that in two ways. They're for different people, so pick the one that sounds like you.
For delivery leaders
Leading teams that already use AI
Your developers got faster and your delivery didn't. The queue moved somewhere else, the measures stopped meaning anything, and somebody above you wants to see what the tools bought.
A free Health Check, articles three times a week, videos, and a course being built in the open. For anyone accountable for more than one team, anywhere in the world.
For UK small businesses
A fixed-price AI assessment
You've tried ChatGPT; your business hasn't. One person using AI well makes one person faster. Changing how an enquiry becomes a quote is a different job.
Three workflows examined end to end, costed on your own figures, with a written report in ten days. £2,500 + VAT, refunded in full if the numbers don't hold. For businesses of roughly 15 to 100 people.
Latest articles
Written for people running delivery teams
News, with a take · Impact
Amazon calls its AI usage metrics deeply flawed. How to report AI productivity honestly
Amazon's engineering memo admits its AI usage metrics are deeply flawed, yet still uses them. How to report AI productivity without usage becoming the target.
· 4 min read
From the videos · Impact
Does AI make developers faster? How to check AI developer productivity in your own team
Developers feel faster with AI. In one careful study, the clock disagreed. How to check AI developer productivity in your own teams, with three simple measures.
· 5 min read
Who's behind it
Rich Carter
Thirty years in software and twenty leading teams, in large public- and private-sector organisations. Four years leading AI-enabled teams, and the past year on a team working AI-first. Adapt Labs is where I share what actually works.
Read the full background