On March 15, the ProFocus team had the privilege of hosting a Leaders Lunch for Portland-based software development managers.
Moderated by John Boone, President of ProFocus Technology, our roundtable discussion focused on Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment. All of the leaders in attendance were at different stages of the journey towards implementation of CI/CD.
Here are a few of our top takeaways from this lively and educational discussion.
Getting Started with CI/CD
If you’re still in the early stages of implementing continuous integration and continuous deployment, here are a few recommendations from our experts:
Start Small
Choose portions of your project where you can effectively implement CI/CD on a smaller scale.
Demonstrate the Business Case
To gain buy-in from company leadership, demonstrate the benefits of this approach, including:
- Releasing software faster.
- Adding more features, more quickly.
- Utilizing the scalability of testing to improve your software — One of our attendees went from 100 tests before implementing CI/CD to over 10,000 tests after.
CI/CD Best Practices
Keep the following best practices in mind as you get up and running with CI/CD:
- Do everything as code — adopt an infrastructure as code approach.
- Maintain consistency throughout every step of the build and deployment process.
- Plan for maintenance of the tests — all tests need maintenance over time.
- Give the tests to your developer so they can test before submitting their code.
- Run metrics — for example, which developers are doing tests?
- Build a metric-driven culture from the very beginning — measure yourself on the processes.
- Remember that it’s better to make small changes with multiple deployments rather than big changes.
Recommended Resources
Want to learn more about CI/CD? Check out these resources our attendees recommend:
- DevOps Handbook by JA Humble — A guide to using DevOps practices to increase profitability, elevate work culture, and exceed your productivity goals.
- The Phoenix Project — An entertaining read on the culture of DevOps.
- Web Scalability for Startup Engineers — a roadmap for delivering scalable applications in the fast-paced startup environment.
- Udemy Solution Architect Courses — A wide range of affordable online lessons on best practices and certification courses.
Final Thoughts
- DevOps is a mindset. It is about breaking down the barriers between the functions.
- The next level is BizOps — or breaking down the walls between the business and development.
If you are a leader in software development and engineering, and would like to be involved in future roundtable discussions like the one above, please send an email to [email protected] with a request to be invited to upcoming Leaders Lunches.
We hope to see you at our next one!
