The speed of releasing new product versions directly affects your ability to test hypotheses, launch new features, and stay ahead of competitors. A key factor that can either accelerate or slow down this process is the choice of contractor. In this article, we’ll explore the factors that influence release velocity and how to properly evaluate a potential partner to help reduce time to market.
Factors Affecting Product Release Speed
Release frequency is shaped not by a single parameter but by an entire system of decisions:
- Team. The level of qualification and experience, including the presence of QA specialists, QA automation, and DevOps expertise.
- Processes. Adoption of modern development practices such as CI/CD, along with an effective quality assurance strategy.
- Infrastructure. Stability of test environments and mechanisms that enable functionality management (for example, feature flags).
- Metrics. Monitoring DORA indicators—lead time for changes, deployment frequency, change failure rate, and time to restore service—which help assess process efficiency.
- Contract obligations. Clear agreement terms with the partner that set timelines, acceptable error rates, and testing quality standards.
Together, these elements determine whether a partner will accelerate your product’s path to market or, on the contrary, slow down business progress.
Metrics That Define Release Effectiveness
Release speed is a complex indicator showing how efficiently the team works and how quickly you can deliver a new product or feature to customers. It is measured through four key DORA metrics. Let’s take a closer look at each of them.
1. Lead time for changes
This is the time from when a Developer commits code to when those changes become available to users in the production version of the product. If the duration is measured in hours or days, it means the team is working efficiently — you can quickly respond to market needs, release new features, and fix bugs. If the process takes weeks or months, it signals issues in workflows. Delays may stem from bureaucracy, overly complex testing, or inefficient deployment methods.
2. Deployment frequency
This metric shows how often the team pushes changes to production. Daily or multiple releases per week indicate well-established processes. If releases happen only once a quarter or less, the product moves slowly and falls behind the market.
3. Change failure rate
This is the percentage of updates that cause issues, failures, errors, or rollbacks. A low rate (0–5%) points to stable development and deployment processes. A high rate (30–50%) is a red flag: Developers spend a significant amount of time fixing failed releases instead of moving the product forward. This lowers productivity and slows product growth.
4. Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)
This is the average time required to fully restore the system after a failure. A short MTTR (a few hours) means the team has reliable processes and tools for quick detection and resolution of issues. A long MTTR (days or weeks) signals major process flaws. Extended downtime leads to financial losses, customer churn, and reputational damage. Taken together, these metrics reflect release speed and show how effectively a team turns ideas into a ready-to-use product.
What to Look for When Choosing a Vendor
Vendor selection affects time to market. The right partner will help you deliver new features consistently without unnecessary obstacles. To avoid delays, consider the following software vendor selection criteria.
Presence of a QA Team
Developers who neglect automated testing or lack experienced QA specialists inevitably slow down releases. At Osmium, for example, we focus on QA automation to ensure stable releases without lengthy manual checks.
Maturity of Development Processes
The use of CI/CD best practices, trunk-based development, and a test pyramid ensures stability across the entire development cycle. Vendors that overlook these approaches end up delaying project progress.
Reliability of Tools and Test Environments
If the test environment doesn’t fully mirror production or if unreliable tools are used, unexpected issues are likely to appear during releases. The team must apply feature flags for gradual and safe rollouts of new functionality.
Transparency of Contractual Requirements
Contracts (SLA/SoW) should clearly outline factors that directly impact release speed and quality. Key points to include:
- maximum lead time from Developer commit to production;
- acceptable error rate reaching end users;
- mandatory use of automated tests.
Well-defined contractual criteria make it easier to oversee vendor performance and ensure the project develops at the required pace.
How to Evaluate a Vendor
To choose a reliable partner, use an assessment system based on measurable indicators.
Request Work Samples
Ask the vendor how their processes are organized and request proof, such as:
- a sample test suite to evaluate the quality of automation;
- pipeline execution time to understand deployment speed;
- test stability metrics to confirm the reliability of their testing approach.
This data will reveal the vendor’s technical maturity and whether they can be trusted with critical tasks.
Define Key Metrics in the Contract
Your contract should specify the core indicators that directly impact development speed and quality.
- Target lead time — the agreed time for delivering changes.
- Defect escape rate — the acceptable percentage of errors reaching end users.
- Coverage thresholds — the minimum percentage of code covered by tests.
This will ensure that the vendor is truly able to improve release speed of the product, rather than just promising it.
Contract Terms That Slow Down Releases
Certain provisions in a contract can hinder time to market even before development begins. Pay attention to the following.
Fixed-scope waterfall
This outdated approach locks all project requirements before development starts, with any changes introduced only through lengthy, complex procedures. It prevents quick reactions to market needs and user feedback, inevitably causing launch delays.
No test data strategy
Without a clear plan for creating and maintaining test data, reliable automated tests are impossible. This leads to unstable releases and unpredictable bugs that later require manual fixes.
No on-call
If a vendor refuses to provide round-the-clock production support, any failure leaves all responsibility and recovery costs on your side. This sharply increases downtime and damages both business and customer trust.
Templates for Vendor Selection and RFP Preparation
To support you in making an informed choosing a software development vendor, we’ve prepared two templates. The first will help you assess a current or potential vendor, while the second will guide you in drafting a request for proposal (RFP) with the right release speed requirements from the start. Use these templates to filter out unsuitable proposals early on.
How to evaluate a contractor
| Criterion | What to do |
|---|---|
| Pipeline time | Measure how long a full run takes. |
| Deployment frequency | Check how many releases are happening per week/month. |
| QA automation | Estimate the percentage of coverage by automated tests. |
| Flakiness rate | Determine what percentage of tests are unstable. |
| MTTR | See how long it takes to recover from a failure. |
| Defect escape rate | Check how many defects are getting into production (%). |
If a vendor meets the key criteria, cooperation makes sense. But if there are serious shortcomings, it’s better to walk away early than waste resources fixing problems later.
How to create an RFP
| Criterion | What to ask to indicate/do |
|---|---|
| CI/CD | ▫️Describe the approach to CI/CD. ▫️Show how automated tests are integrated into the pipeline. ▫️Indicate the average pipeline transit time. |
| Test environments & data | ▫️Show whether the staging environment is consistent with the production environment. ▫️Explain the strategy for working with test data. ▫️Clarify how quickly the data is updated for testing. |
| Metrics & Targets | ▫️Specify target values: — lead time for changes; — deployment frequency; — change failure rate; — defect escape rate. |
| Support & Recovery | ▫️Describe the on-call process. ▫️Indicate the average MTTR. |
| QA automation | ▫️Specify the percentage of coverage by automated tests. ▫️Indicate the flakiness rate. |
A detailed RFP helps set the right expectations from the start and prevents misunderstandings with the vendor. When requirements for release speed and process quality are clearly defined upfront, you’ll receive more realistic proposals and be able to choose the right partner faster.
Conclusion
Release speed has a direct impact on business, from the ability to react quickly to market changes to maintaining a competitive edge. The vendor you choose determines a lot: whether you can launch new features on time or risk missing critical opportunities.
At Osmium, we build teams and set up processes to ensure releases are regular, fast, and stable. If you’re looking for a partner to accelerate product growth and reduce time to market, we’re here to help.
