KCNA Cloud Native Application Delivery Practice Question
Which DORA metric measures the percentage of deployments that cause a failure in production?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Change Failure Rate
Change Failure Rate is the percentage of changes that result in a failure (e.g., service degradation, rollback). It is one of the four key DORA metrics.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Deployment Frequency
Why it's wrong here
Deployment Frequency counts how often releases reach production, not how many of them cause failures. It is tempting because it also measures deployment outcomes, but it captures throughput rather than reliability. The stem asks for the percentage of failing deployments, which is Change Failure Rate.
- ✗
Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)
Why it's wrong here
MTTR measures the time taken to restore service after an incident, not the proportion of deployments that fail. It is tempting because it also tracks production failures, but it answers how long recovery takes, whereas the stem asks for a rate. The correct metric is Change Failure Rate.
- ✓
Change Failure Rate
Why this is correct
Change Failure Rate directly quantifies the proportion of production deployments that result in degraded service or require remediation, such as a hotfix or rollback. This precisely matches the stem's requirement to measure the percentage of deployments causing production failures, distinguishing it from deployment frequency, lead time, and mean time to restore.
- ✗
Lead Time for Changes
Why it's wrong here
Lead Time for Changes measures elapsed time from code commit to running in production, not the share of deployments causing failures. It is tempting because it also concerns the deployment pipeline, but it quantifies delivery speed, whereas the stem asks for the failure percentage. Change Failure Rate is correct.
Visual reference
About these practice questions
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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on KCNA
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. Which DORA metric measures the percentage of deployments that cause a failure in production?
medium- A.Lead time for changes
- B.Mean time to recover (MTTR)
- ✓ C.Change failure rate
- D.Deployment frequency
Why C: Change failure rate is the percentage of deployments that result in degraded service or require remediation.
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This KCNA practice question is part of Courseiva's free CNCF certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the KCNA exam.