How do we get started with Continuous Delivery? Manuel suggests that we run a Value Stream Mapping session with all the teams involved in the release process to learn about the “current state” of the release process.
We also review the most common challenges and blocks for teams that are starting to adopt Continuous Delivery.
Read on to learn about the different motivations businesses have to adopt Continuous Delivery, and Manuel’s 3 steps from bi-weekly release to Continuous Delivery.
The business motivation to adopt Continuous Delivery
In the end, Continuous Delivery is a practice. Focusing on the practice is only part of the process. First we must understand the business impact we can expect, and the key benefits for teams adopting the practice. Manuel highlights that, when using Continuous Delivery, organizations go from a “big event release” to “no event release”. Smaller changes reduce risks, and the frequency of release leads to an easy, and relaxed release event.
In this segment, we also discuss the Lean concept of “waste” and quote the #NoEstimates book:
The golden rule to determine if something in your organization falls in the category of waste is: “do we want to have more of this? Like double or triple it?”
How to get started with a team that wants to adopt Continuous Delivery
If you are working with a team that already wants to move to Continuous Delivery, Manuel suggests that you focus on the “walking skeleton” or MVP of the delivery pipeline. As Manuel puts it: “stop the bleeding first”.
A worthy goal, and “standard” for this first implementation of the delivery pipeline might be “keep quality stable, don’t accept quality deterioration”.
Beware of the big CD project, which is likely to fail and kill the impetus for CD adoption.
The 3 steps from bi-weekly releases to Continuous Delivery
In this segment, we explore the 3 main steps that Manuel follows when working with teams and organizations to adopt Continuous Delivery:
- Try to release more often. Maybe you already release every 2 weeks, and the team asks “why any faster?” Releasing more often is the first step, the step that exercises the release muscle to help you find the pain points.
- Find the architecture changes you might need. Once you start to release more often, you will find dependencies and slow process-steps due to waiting and bottlenecks. At that time, consider if you might need some architecture changes before you can move to the next step.
- Focus on the technical agility. Finally, the teams moving towards Continuous Delivery will need to focus on improving their technical practices. In the end, CD requires certain practices to be in place before it succeeds (listen in to learn what those practices are.
In this segment, Manuel asks a very important question: does your organization allow your teams to learn the practices they must learn to be able to adopt Continuous Delivery?
The Team Topologies Book to help you find the best way to organize your team
Manuel co-authored the Team Topologies book, where he and his co-author explore the different types of teams they have worked with. In the book they explore what those different team topologies look like, and what that means for how they work.
Resources to help you adopt Continuous Delivery / Continuous Integration
We list many different resources in this episode. Here is the list of the ones Manuel highlights:
- The book Continuous Delivery by Jez Humble and Dave Farley. Dave was a guest on the podcast.
- Jez Humble’s site: ContinuousDelivery.com
- A CD checklist (public trello board): http://cdchecklist.info/
- LinkedIn Learning CICD courses under DevOps foundation: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/devops-foundations-continuous-delivery-continuous-integration/devops-core-concept-ci-cd, where Manuel’s course will also be published
- All Day DevOps videos: https://www.alldaydevops.com/ondemand-recordings-2019
- Pipeline conference videos: https://learn.pipelineconf.info/
- Books for your specific needs e.g.:
Happy learning! 🙂
About Manuel Pais
Manuel is the co-author of Team Topologies book, and also Co-founder DevOps Lisbon meetup. He works as an independent consultant on organisational design, DevOps, Continuous Delivery.
You can link with Manuel Pais on LinkedIn and connect with Manuel Pais on Twitter.
