AZ-400 Question 21
Select 3You are a DevOps engineer at a company that has recently adopted Azure DevOps for continuous integration and continuous delivery. You�ve been asked to design a consolidated dashboard to measure flow of work, focusing on cycle times, time to recovery, and lead time. You want to ensure that each of these metrics is displayed in near real-time so stakeholders can identify bottlenecks and service interruptions quickly. Which three actions should you take to design and implement this dashboard effectively?
- A
Create an Analytics view in Azure DevOps that charts how long it takes for a work item (e.g., user story) to move from 'New' to 'Closed' and embed this view in a dashboard widget to track cycle time.
- B
Define a dedicated 'Incident Recovery' pipeline that automatically calculates time to recovery whenever any step in any pipeline fails, regardless of incident severity.
- C
Customize queries in Azure Boards or the Analytics service to capture lead time, tracking earliest code commit through successful production deployment, and then publish those metrics in a shared dashboard.
- D
Set all existing dashboards to 'Private' so only the engineering leads can adjust metrics and queries, ensuring data consistency for cycle time calculations.
- E
Configure a widget in Azure DevOps (e.g., a custom Analytics widget) that tracks the duration from an incident being flagged to its resolution, reflecting time to recovery.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answers: A, C, E
Explanation
In Azure DevOps, a well-designed dashboard for flow of work metrics�such as cycle time (from work item creation to completion), lead time (from code commit to production deployment), and time to recovery (from incident to resolution)�relies on accurate data collection points and the right analytics tools. Options 1, 3, and 5 each address setting up the relevant metrics in Analytics or Boards and surfacing them in a dashboard widget. For more information, consult the Azure DevOps documentation on analytics and reporting: https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/devops/report/analytics.
- A. Correct.
Option 1 is correct. By creating and embedding an Analytics view that measures the time from when a work item is created to when it is closed, you can accurately track cycle time on the dashboard. Azure DevOps Analytics provides summarization and charting tools for these states.
- B. Incorrect.
Option 2 is incorrect. Merely defining a separate 'Incident Recovery' pipeline for all failures is not best practice for tracking time to recovery. Time to recovery usually focuses on how long it takes from an actual production issue or service interruption until resolution, rather than any job failure in a generic pipeline.
- C. Correct.
Option 3 is correct. Lead time generally measures how long it takes from the first code commit until that code is successfully deployed to production. Custom queries in Azure Boards or Analytics can capture these details, and publishing them in a shared dashboard provides visibility to the broader team.
- D. Incorrect.
Option 4 is incorrect. Making dashboards private can prevent team-wide visibility into critical metrics. While limiting access may be warranted in certain secure scenarios, it does not contribute directly to designing or implementing a unified dashboard for cycle time, lead time, or time to recovery.
- E. Correct.
Option 5 is correct. Time to recovery tracks how quickly the team can restore normal operations once an incident is detected. Configuring a widget that measures the time from when an incident is flagged to its resolution ensures this metric is visible in the dashboard.