Deployment takes forever
Map every step from done to live. Mark manual versus automated, mark the wait before each one, then total it.
When teams first measure cycle time, the usual shock is how little of it is spent working on the product. Most of it is waiting between steps, and deployment is where a large share of that waiting hides.
This matters for what you fix first. If waiting is the larger number, automating the working steps will barely move your cycle time. The queues are the problem: the approval that sits overnight, the shared environment somebody else is holding, the release window that only opens on Thursdays.
One warning. There is a strong correlation between code quality and fast deployment. When you go looking at why push-button releases have not happened already, you usually find technical debt that is the real reason. The manual deploy is the symptom, not the disease.
What you get
- A ten-step map from done to live, with manual and automated marked separately
- A column for the wait before each step starts, which is the number most teams have never counted
- Totals for working time, waiting time, and waiting as a percent of the whole
- The question that finds which manual steps exist only because nobody trusts the test suite
Where should we send it?
One email with the worksheet. You can unsubscribe from anything else in one click.
On its way
Check your inbox. If it has not landed in a minute or two, look in promotions or spam, and add sam@startuppatterns.com to your contacts so the rest arrive.
Adapted from the Delivery chapter of The Mindful Product Company by Sam McAfee.