How To Improve DevOps Speed For Shorter Lead Times And Increased Deployment Frequency

Users today expect seamless digital access to business solutions. And that demand will keep accelerating — 96% of leaders report that the pandemic fast-tracked their need for digital transformation by more than five years. In order to provide solutions, organizations must find ways to accelerate software delivery without losing quality. DevOps methodologies provide flexibility and coordination that make it possible not just to keep up but to drive digital disruption in your industry.

Of course, even though DevOps facilitates rapid development, there will still be bottlenecks. It's the price of innovation — processes that used to work smoothly become outmoded as your enterprise evolves. Plus, according to the Theory of Constraints, each time you resolve the most pressing bottleneck, it frees up time and resources to focus on the next one. For example, once Continuous Integration and test automation speed up your software development, you can look for ways to resolve security and compliance bottlenecks. As long as you have visibility into the issues that hinder your DevOps speed, you can overcome them and stay on the path to DevOps success.

How DevOps Accelerates Lead Time and Deployments 

Being able to deliver change as soon as the end user needs it gives enterprises a competitive edge. That's why DevOps is so powerful. Organizations don't have to wait months to develop the solutions their users need. They can create, test, and execute them faster and with fewer errors. Successful DevOps is associated with increased:

Agility

Quality

Efficiency

Agility in the DevOps model allows developers to pivot as necessary. One of the keys to Agile development is a high-trust management style and a less rigid project management model. If there is an issue in the project or business goals change, employees are empowered to come up with a solution and trusted to implement it.

Testing and continuous improvement are inherent parts of a DevOps process. As a result, developers build better code that supports robust, more capable software.

DevOps follows a cycle of steps designed to eliminate wasteful, bureaucratic processes and focus on the end goal. That targeted approach improves efficiency, which makes it possible to increase speed and quality simultaneously.

Unfortunately, despite noble goals, many companies struggle to accelerate their software delivery with DevOps. Some common challenges are:

• Bottlenecks: Development at breakneck speeds means an increased number of deployments. But you can only deploy as fast as your slowest dependency. That creates issues in the development pipeline that lead to bottlenecks. 
• Code conflicts: DevOps fosters collaboration, but collaboration without visibility creates confusion. Without a strong tracking system, transparency in the development cycle becomes impossible. Teams struggle to merge branches, track errors and resolve issues. In addition to technical incompatibilities, changing priorities or standards can also introduce conflict - code that was “good” for the initial sprint might no longer match how the software has evolved. All of this conflict slows down the process and puts stress on teams.
• Repetitive tasks: Any development process will include some repetitive tasks. Although tedious and time-consuming, these tasks also often require high levels of precision. Testing is a good example. Many testing processes are extremely repetitive but still prone to human error. If a rushed tester makes a mistake, defective code might not be caught until later, when it is more expensive and difficult to fix.

These problems accompany every DevOps process. That's why companies like Copado have solutions in place to overcome them.

Overcoming Barriers to DevOps Speed 

No enterprise DevOps process is perfect. There's always room for improvement, and successful DevOps teams need to be able to deliver features quickly to keep up with demand. Three critical components for improving DevOps speed are: 

• CI/CD: Continuous integration and continuous delivery is a process of adding code as soon as it's ready and rolling it out to users quickly. Rather than waiting for one large update, developers feed their code in a few pieces at a time. Then, a well-managed branching strategy helps teams avoid merge hell and supports a more agile, collaborative process. 
• Automation: Automation takes repetitive, time-consuming tasks off your developers’ plates. Automating processes lets you move more quickly, with less error, while freeing up your developers to work on more complicated tasks. Two key candidates for automation are testing and resolving merge conflicts because they are common bottleneck sites that contain repetitive, easily automated processes.
• Data Management: Data is at the heart of modern business strategies, but many organizations struggle to apply DevOps principles to their data. Many organizations still rely on highly specialized employees to navigate and query complex relational databases. However, in the age of Big Data, this practice can’t scale up to meet enterprise needs. Accelerating DevOps speed requires successfully managing Configuration and Test Data to give developers and decision-makers fast, flexible access while still maintaining data integrity and security. For example, to test on production-like data, you’ll need tools to move it between environments, retain complex relational connections and configuration information, filter and limit the number of records, and ensure any sensitive or identifying information is masked. Data management solutions, like Copado Data Deploy, provide the data templates and other data management tools necessary to populate test environments and integrate your data across your DevOps cycle.

Using the right tools, you can accelerate DevOps speed and keep up with user demand for seamless solutions. In today’s fast-moving development landscape, organizations that iron out an efficient DevOps process will be the ones to deliver.