Material UI Dora Metrics: Ships Updates like a Pro, First Response Times Could Do Better

Imagine you're building a sleek, modern web application, and you want it to look fantastic without spending ages on design.

That's where Material UI comes in!

It’s like having a toolbox filled with all the right components for your React project. MUI gives you a robust set of ready-to-use components that follow Google's Material Design guidelines, so your app looks great and feels intuitive.

A React developer buddy of mine was curious about how this repository’s engineering workflow was holding up. He couldn’t stop talking about it, so I figured, why not make his day? I used Middleware OSS and got a sneak peek into the software delivery pipeline of Material UI to see how things were running behind the scenes.

We checked their Dora Metrics. Dora metrics are four key performance indicators—Deployment Frequency, Lead Time for Changes, Change Failure Rate, and Mean Time to Recovery—that measure the speed and reliability of software delivery in DevOps teams. Know more about Dora Metrics here.

Also read: VS Code Dora Metrics: Reveals Smooth Cycle Time Smooth; Raises Red Flags on Lead Time

What does Material UI’s Dora Metrics look like?

Stellar Cycle and Lead Times

Material UI exhibited a perfect cycle time and lead time. Both were within 2 to 3 days. Thanks to their active community contributions, especially by authors like oliviertassinari, siriwatknp, and Janpot. They could churn out many new features like Pre-serialize & Cache Styles that improves performance, authored by romgrk, theme variables enhancement authored by siriwatknp, and custom sheet for GlobalStyles authored by sai6855 in the past three months itself.

Their merge time stats were impressive, placing them in the top percentile based on Dora metrics benchmarks from the 2023 State of DevOps report. In July, things looked great with an average merge time of 4.47 hours. But the pace slowed—rising to 10.17 hours in August and further to 11.77 hours by September.

Response Delays Signal Need for Prioritization

Similarly, their first response time was solid in July and August, at 28.8 hours and 24 hours—both within the 2023 State of DevOps Report's benchmarks. However, September saw a sharp increase, hitting 41.52 hours.

The rise in their first response time, from 28.8 hours in July to 41.52 hours in September is not a healthy sign. It can often be attributed to competing priorities or a growing backlog of pull requests.

While a quick initial response is key to keeping contributions moving smoothly, delays can occur if maintainers are juggling other responsibilities or if the number of incoming PRs increases. This fluctuation in response time suggests a potential bottleneck, where the team may need more resources or better prioritization to maintain efficiency in handling contributions.

Also read: Ideal Software Delivery Pipeline: A Three.js Dora Metrics Case Study

Material UI Soars with Exceptional Deployment Frequency

Their consistent rollout of releases places them in the Elite range, according to Dora metrics benchmarks. In July, they completed 90 deployments—around 2.9 per day. This jumped to 111 in August (3.6 per day) and 141 in September (4.7 per day). Maintaining this pace month after month showcases their commitment to rapid delivery without sacrificing quality.

This impressive frequency of deployments highlights their effective continuous integration and deployment practices. The smooth and rapid deployment process is evident in specific pull requests, such as PRs#43412, #43243, and #43514, which serve as prime examples of how quickly and efficiently new features and updates are rolled out.

The success of these deployments can be attributed in part to the repository's well-organized structure.

With comprehensive continuous integration workflows in place, the team streamlines their processes, ensuring that code changes are tested and deployed rapidly.

The only drawback of Material UI is their first response time.

Also read: Deployment Frequency 101: Leverage DORA Metrics to Improve Software Delivery

How can they capitalize on their strengths to enhance their performance?

With an active group of around 3,000 contributors, Material UI has a wealth of talent at their disposal. They should encourage more active participation from contributors by hosting regular coding events, hackathons, or discussion sessions focused on addressing pull requests. This can help speed up response times and foster collaboration.

Implement a Triage System: They should establish a triage process where experienced contributors prioritize incoming pull requests based on urgency and impact. This ensures that critical updates are addressed quickly, improving overall response times.

Enhance Documentation: Given that 20% of their contributions focus on documentation, they can create comprehensive guidelines for submitting pull requests. Clear instructions can streamline the review process, making it easier for maintainers to respond promptly.

Utilize Continuous Integration (CI): With 35% of contributions directed toward continuous integration, optimizing CI workflows can help identify issues earlier. This leads to quicker feedback loops and allows maintainers to address changes more rapidly.

Foster Specialization: They should encourage contributors to specialize in specific areas, such as bug fixes or feature enhancements, to create a team of experts who can respond to relevant pull requests more swiftly. This specialization can lead to more efficient reviews and quicker responses.

Highlight Roadmap Priorities: Clearly outline future plans and high-priority features in the roadmap section of the documentation. By making these priorities visible, contributors can focus on the most urgent issues, allowing maintainers to respond more swiftly to relevant pull requests.

Encourage Timely Reviews: Actively encourage contributors to participate in the review process. With a large community, more eyes on PRs can lead to faster reviews, ultimately improving the first response time.

Our Verdict: Material UI Ships Updates like a Pro, First Response Times Could do Better

Material UI has a well-organized software delivery process. By improving their first response times, they could set a benchmark for an ideal engineering pipeline workflow.

If you find these learnings interesting, we’d really encourage you to give a shot at Dora metrics using Middleware Open Source. You could follow this guide to analyze your team or write to our team at productivity@middlewarehq.com with your questions and we’ll be happy to generate a suggestion study for your repo — free!

Did you know?

Material UI has over 80,000 stars on GitHub, making it one of the top React libraries, loved by developers for its rich set of components and ease of use.

Further Resources

Material UI documentation

Middleware and Dora Metrics

Continuous Integration Guides

Dora Metrics Methodology