Agile methodology has transformed the way that software development processes are conceptualized and implemented. Not only has it changed the way the design cycle works, but it has also changed the approach to the management of the design cycles, thereby opening up scope for further automation and efficient output production. Design cycles are not looked at processes but as products that undergo continuous development.
A path to production is the ecosystem of support that the organization provides to the processes that lead to the final output. In the case of digital transformation, and mainly in the IT sphere, the process of software development is supported by the path to production. Several practices support the ecosystem of the path to production. While certain parts of these practices may seem to overlap, in the larger picture, they complement each other and build a robust support system for the entire development process from start to end.
Here are a few of these practices that Labscove offers:
Release management
With continually evolving user needs and emerging possibilities, some additions and changes are made to the software every day. Continuous integration (CI) allows the siloed software developments from individual programmers to come together through automated testing so that no time is lost in detecting and addressing gaps in the code. Continuous deployment (CD) ensures that the user interface remains up to date with the latest changes being made available regularly without waiting for a single overhaul.
The process of release management allows for the smooth execution of CI/CD pipeline, thereby keeping the costs low and ensuring an error-free deployment along with making more time available for greater focus on innovation. Through robust and continually monitored test automation, software development is tested at various stages leading up to deployment. While the investment on automated tests is considerable, the return on investment is high in terms of increased productivity and smoother source code control processes.
Application performance management
As the value addition through CI/CD is consistent, the user experience is undergoing constant change. It, therefore, becomes pertinent to consistently ensure that the performance of the application is measured, monitored, and supported at various levels. The set of practices carried out as a part of Application Performance Management allows organizations to track and improve their online presence and performance and identify areas that have scope for improvement.
Digital Experience Monitoring is possibly the most critical component of APM. Continuous evaluation of the users’ virtual experiences across different channels educates the management and developers alike on the improvements that can enhance user engagement. Application discovery, tracing, and diagnostics–referred to collectively as ADTD–takes care of several internal functions that support CI/CD. ADTD processes include tracking and improving runtime architecture, running discovery and visualization.
Service management
Service management is an approach to managing software development. Service Management in the context of information technology is the practice of customer-focused management, wherein the management is treated as a process. It is a means to an end; the end in this context is consumer experience that is created and developed. While some see service management and release management as contrasting approaches, others see them as complementary practices.
There are several specialized ITSM tools available that can be chosen and customized as per the specific requirements of the process and the user experience that anchors the user-centred design process.
Site Reliability Engineering
Every ecosystem is dynamic and is bound to face challenges and undergo changes. The path to production is no different. Site Reliability Engineering ensures that the challenges in the ecosystem are fixed, and the changes are accommodated with minimum disturbance to the process of creating, developing, and deploying.
In simple terms, this is a job that oversees the operations of a machine. While it requires the expertise brought in by managers specializing in operations, it also requires the software developers who can look at the process from the outside and find avenues for improvement in the environment built for software developers. Leading organizations, therefore, ensure that SRE teams have a healthy mix of experts from the spheres of operations and software development to sustain a growing ecosystem. SRE teams also help in customizing the path to production as per the requirements and goals of the software development.
Automation
Automation is a component that is a part of most of the practices listed above. However, it deserves a special mention to highlight the breadth and depth of support provided by automation in the path to production. An essential perspective that automated testing brings to the approach is to consider the ecosystem as a product. In a macro view of the path to production, the entire set of processes and their support structures are considered and tested as one unit to gauge efficiency and usability as a user would experience it.
Automated testing allows the team to have a continuous assessment of all the problems that need to be addressed. More importantly, because of the data coming in from multiple levels, it also informs the process of prioritizing the problems and identifying which of the problems need to be tackled first.
Considering that the path to production begins with several software developers working individually, and ends as a unified service, it can be seen as a funnel. Test automation provides filters at different stages of the funnel, which ensures that the final output the user is delivered is most refined. These filters serve as checkpoints that can be chosen, customized or designed based on the requirements of the ecosystem.
Conclusion
The Theory of Constraints informs the path to production. While the production of the user experiences is a process of innovation and bold developments, the path to production is safeguarding this production by identifying and removing limiting factors—both internal and external. Labscove offers expertise in establishing and maintaining a part to production, thereby creating a safe and conducive ecosystem for your organization’s digital transformation to thrive and succeed.
