Engineering Delivery
Team profiles
A team profile is one of seven groups of teams that DORA found in its 2025 research. Each profile combines how a team delivers software with how its people experience their work, so it says more than one number can. This page explains the seven profiles, the eight factors behind them, and why Engineering Delivery does not place your team in one.
New to DORA? Start with What is DORA?, then come back here.
Where do the profiles come from?
DORA found them with a cluster analysis of survey answers. A cluster analysis groups answers that are similar to each other and different from the rest, so the groups come from the data rather than being set in advance.
DORA explains why it looked beyond the delivery metrics: they "tell you what is happening, but they don't explain why. A low deployment frequency might be caused by technical debt, bureaucratic processes, or team burnout, and the metrics alone can't distinguish between them" (2025 report, page 14).
The eight factors
The cluster analysis used eight factors at once (2025 report, page 15):
| Factor | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Team performance | How effective and collaborative a person's immediate team is. |
| Product performance | How successful and good the team's product or service is, such as helping users do important tasks, keeping information safe, and latency. |
| Software delivery throughput | The speed and efficiency of software delivery. See Throughput and instability. |
| Software delivery instability | The quality and reliability of software delivery. |
| Individual effectiveness | A person's own sense of how effective they are and what they achieve at work. |
| Valuable work | How much of their time a person spends on work they feel is valuable and worthwhile. |
| Friction | How much friction gets in the way of a person's work. Lower is better. |
| Burnout | Feelings of exhaustion and cynicism about work. Lower is better. |
Only the two delivery factors can be read from your tools. The other six are about how people experience their work, so only the people themselves can answer them.
The seven profiles
| Profile | Share | In plain words |
|---|---|---|
| Foundational challenges | 10% | In survival mode, with basic gaps in process, environment and results, and high burnout and friction. |
| The legacy bottleneck | 11% | Unstable systems set the work and wear down morale, with a lot of unplanned, reactive work. |
| Constrained by process | 17% | Systems are stable, but slow processes use up the team's effort, with high burnout and low impact. |
| High impact, low cadence | 7% | Strong product performance and individual effectiveness, but low throughput and high instability. |
| Stable and methodical | 15% | Valuable, good quality work at a deliberate, sustainable pace, with low burnout and friction. |
| Pragmatic performers | 20% | Speed and stability, while well-being and engagement are about average. |
| Harmonious high-achievers | 20% | Good results across delivery, product and well-being, with low burnout and friction. |
Share is the share of the teams surveyed in each profile. Source: 2025 report, pages 16 to 18. DORA notes that "the names and descriptions for each of these clusters are an interpretation of the data. Your team may see similar performance levels as a given cluster but may not feel the cluster name or description describe your team well" (2025 report, Figure 2, page 16).
No profile is a target. DORA's advice is the same whichever profile fits: "to foster a mindset of continuous improvement" (2025 report, page 22).
How do I find our team's profile?
Ask the team. DORA's AI Capabilities Model suggests two ways, and says that "a precise answer on which cluster best describes the team today isn't critical. It's more important to identify the area that would benefit the most from improvement efforts" (AI Capabilities Model, page 71).
- A conversation. Gather the people who build and run one application or service. Review the seven profiles together. Give everyone three votes to place on the profiles that best match the team today, then reveal the votes and talk about where they landed. The goal is a shared view of the team's challenges, not one perfect label.
- A survey. Collect each person's answers on all eight factors, then map the team to the closest profile. DORA publishes the questions it used in its 2025 survey.
Then use the profile to pick where to work. For example, DORA suggests that a high impact, low cadence team might focus on reducing instability, and that a team facing foundational challenges might start with team performance (AI Capabilities Model, page 71). The seven AI capabilities are a good list to choose from.
How Solidafy uses this
In Engineering Delivery, open Delivery, then Speed. The Your team profile card shows what the app can read and what it cannot, and never places the team in a profile.
- It reads the two delivery factors from your data: whether throughput and instability went up, down, stayed steady or were mixed against the 90 days before. See Throughput and instability.
- It names the six factors only people can answer. The app's developer experience survey asks about feedback loops, cognitive load and flow state, not these six, so they stay unanswered.
- It shows no profile. DORA publishes no rule for placing one team in a profile from its numbers, so any placement the app made would be a guess.
This is on purpose. A profile picked by software from two factors out of eight would look precise and be wrong. Use the card as the delivery half of the team conversation above.
Learn more
Official sources used on this page:
- DORA, State of AI-assisted Software Development 2025 (pages 14 to 18 and 22)
- DORA AI Capabilities Model 2025 ("Identifying your team profile", pages 67 to 71)
Related Solidafy guides: