How to Optimize. Your Development Lifecycle by Combining Agile and DevOps

Transcription

1 How to Optimize Your Development Lifecycle by Combining Agile and DevOps Top development teams are combining agile sprints with DevOps integrated teamwork for more efficient development cycles.

2 CONTENTS Introduction... 1 The Limitations of Agile...2 A New Approach: Integrating Agile with DevOps...3 Defining the Lifecycle: 4 Steps to Integrating DevOps with Agile...5 Why a Combined Approach Is Worth the Effort...8 About Logi Analytics...9

3 INTRODUCTION Application development and deployment have become increasingly critical parts of business operations. That s why many organizations have recently sought to optimize their product development lifecycles. Five to ten years ago, many of these companies were developing software products using a waterfall framework: designing a project in full at the outset and then completing it in sequential steps. More recently, increasing numbers of development teams have begun to embrace an agile framework. In an agile approach, phases of a project are completed in two- to four-week sprints. Shorter, time-bound sprints allow for more continuous evolution, feedback, and improvement. The underlying theory is an agile approach leads to higher quality finished products. And agile is increasing in popularity: According to a recent study sponsored by HP, 67 percent of organizations now either lean towards agile or use a pure agile framework. 67 percent of organizations now either lean towards agile or use a pure agile framework. HP Survey 1

4 THE LIMITATIONS OF AGILE While agile has undoubtedly proven effective for many organizations, some are still noticing gaps in their application development lifecycles. Lately, one of the most common questions we hear from product teams is where to fit the UI and UX process into their development lifecycles. The agile approach doesn t traditionally include UI/UX design work or QA testing in the development process, instead placing them in separate stages of the product lifecycle. In practice, this means that developers, QA personnel, UI/UX teams or designers, and IT all complete their own aspects of the project essentially in isolation. While this may work for some organizations, in many cases, the siloed approach to development can cause a project to remain stuck in certain phases longer than necessary. A common instance of this challenge is misalignment between the planning stage of an application and the user experience phase. The team responsible for planning may have a specific vision of how data visualizations should appear to the user, but the design team often a third-party design firm is not made aware of those plans. As a result, projects tend to stall in the design phase as iterations of various graphics are passed back and forth between teams, awaiting approval. than An agile approach means developers, QA, UI/UX, and IT all complete their own aspects of the project essentially in isolation. This siloed approach to development can cause a project to remain stuck in certain phases longer necessary. 2

5 A NEW APPROACH: INTEGRATING AGILE WITH DEVOPS Bringing together traditional IT teams with development teams an approach known as DevOps has also seen a rise in popularity in recent years. DevOps reduces the number of IT functions and steps necessary to push software out, allowing for faster releases and a streamlined process for user feedback. The downside to traditional DevOps is that it does not include the kind of continuous testing and improvement that agile offers. Without that continuous review process, software products can be more prone to error. By combining agile sprints with DevOps integrated teamwork, an organization can truly optimize its development lifecycle. At Logi Analytics, we adopted this integrated approach several years ago and we ve seen a significant increase in the speed of our releases and the quality of our products as a result. Rather than keeping the planning, building, testing, and designing stages in siloed groups, we instead created a smaller team comprised of personnel with expertise across all of these areas. Results from integrating agile and DevOps: Faster releases Higher-quality products Streamlined processes 3

6 Building this kind of team has come with its own challenges. It may take you some time and trial and error to find the right size and makeup for your team. When building your team, keep these considerations in mind: A hybrid DevOps and agile approach makes it crucial that team members have a broad understanding of all aspects of development. Because including DevOps principles in an agile framework requires having personnel with varying skill sets working together, team members should be collaborative by nature. Despite any upfront challenges, the gains Logi has achieved by using this approach have been worth the effort. It s helped us streamline our release process and vastly improve our product offerings overall. 4

7 DEFINING THE LIFECYCLE: 4 STEPS TO INTEGRATING DEVOPS WITH AGILE Once an organization decides to move forward with an integrated DevOps-agile approach, it can take a few specific measures to increase the likelihood of success. 1. Define the Product Lifecycle The first step to successfully integrating DevOps into an agile framework is defining the product lifecycle. Before the development process begins, an organization should understand the length and requirements for each of its sprints, including builds, tests, design, and releases. Defining the lifecycle before each project increases consistency, reduces cost by minimizing waste, and speeds up time to market. In fact, the most commonly cited tip for scaling agile is implementing consistent processes, according VersionOne s 10 th Annual State of Agile Report. 5

8 2. Integrating UI/UX Once the lifecycle is defined, turn to UI/UX. Traditionally, design has been kept separate from the development and engineering processes and incorporated only near the end of the software lifecycle. The problem with this approach is that the UI and UX is not sufficiently accounted for throughout the process. This may lead to a UI/UX that is not intuitive or practical for your targeted end user. Alternatively, development teams that gather user requirements are able to better understand their audience and design with that audience in mind making them far more likely to create a quality UI/UX that increases user satisfaction. And by incorporating design into the agile framework from the early stages of the development lifecycle, the UI/UX can be continuously tweaked and improved throughout the process. 3. Including QA in Each Phase Making QA part of the entire development lifecycle is another critical factor when integrating DevOps and agile. When the QA team is involved with every step of the design and planning phases, they have ongoing input into how the product is being developed. In the true spirit of agile, continuous feedback from QA allows for improvements throughout the development process and that feedback leads to higher quality software. 6

9 4. Leverage the Right Tools and Partners Having the right tools in place is crucial for successfully developing software. Quality project management tools, for example, make managing the development lifecycle far easier for PMs. And with embedded analytics becoming increasingly integral for software products, partnering with a platform provider that allows developers to quickly build and scale dashboards and reports is also paramount. Additionally, organizations that choose to outsource aspects of software development or leverage a third-party to advise on best practices should be sure to thoroughly vet potential partners. In fact, a recent CIO.com article listed not having a trustworthy partner as one of the top five reasons outsourcing projects fail. If you re looking for a partner to help enhance your application s functionality, look for one that has relevant development expertise. For instance, since the Logi development team has already been through the process of integrating DevOps and agile frameworks, we re able to offer advice and fill in gaps where your internal expertise may be lacking. We strive to not just embed into your product s code, but also embed into your processes as well whether that process is DevOps, agile, waterfall, or a hybrid. 7

10 WHY A COMBINED APPROACH IS WORTH THE EFFORT Adopting an integrated development approach certainly takes some upfront resources and commitment. You will need executive buy-in, time to adjust to the new methodology, and possibly a reorganization of teams. But the benefits far outweigh the efforts. Done properly, a hybrid DevOps and agile development approach enables: Faster releases and improved efficiency Better collaboration More value into each release with less risk Fewer bugs and faster fixes Increased visibility Higher user satisfaction Ready to enhance your embedded analytics? GET A BLUEPRINT TO MODERN ANALYTICS 8

11 ABOUT LOGI ANALYTICS Logi helps companies embed analytics into the fabric of their organization and products. With Logi, companies can create genius analytic applications that are purpose-built to users unique roles and skills, and delivered in the apps they already rely on enabling anyone to analyze data when and where they need it. More than 1,800 customers worldwide rely on Logi Analytics. The company is headquartered in McLean, Virginia. Learn more at LogiAnalytics.com. 9