What Nicole Forsgren thinks about developer tools
Researcher of software delivery performance, co-author of "Accelerate" and of the DORA, SPACE and DevEx frameworks, and author of "Frictionless".
Nicole Forsgren did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
2 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Nicole Forsgren has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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Their wordsI I will say I tend to start with adoption. I am not a fan of an adoption metric. I don't like it, but also devs are like a gloriously cranky bunch.
↗Nicole Forsgren: Leading high-performing engineering teams in the age of AI - The Pragmatic Summityoutube.com 13th of 18 in this recording
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Our readingYou cannot mandate a tool developers dislike — they will quietly spin up the one they wanted.
Their wordsI'm going to sound old when I say this, but like I one time had a company tell me, "Oh, well, they have to use that CI/CD system." I'm like 20 bucks, they're just spinning up Jenkins. And they were, right?
↗Nicole Forsgren: Leading high-performing engineering teams in the age of AI - The Pragmatic Summityoutube.com 14th of 18 in this recording