What is Change Failure Rate?
Change Failure Rate (CFR) is one of the four DORA metrics.
Change Failure Rate (CFR) is one of the four DORA metrics. It measures the percentage of deployments to production that cause a failure requiring remediation — a rollback, hotfix, or incident response.
Benchmarks (DORA State of DevOps): - Elite: 0-15% - High: 16-30% - Medium: 16-30% - Low: 46-60%
Change failure rate is the quality counterpart to deployment frequency and lead time. High deployment frequency with high CFR means you're shipping bugs faster.
Why It Matters
CFR directly measures release quality. A rising CFR indicates deteriorating code quality, insufficient testing, or growing technical debt — all inputs to the Product Debt Index assessment.
How to Measure
Failed deployments (requiring rollback, hotfix, or incident) ÷ total deployments × 100. Track monthly and quarterly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if our CFR is above 30%?
Above 30% CFR indicates systemic quality issues. Investigate: insufficient automated testing, pressured releases, lack of staging environments, or growing technical debt.
Related Terms
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