Any successful journey begins with an understanding of where you are on the map, and where you need to be. Before setting out on the road towards Continuous Delivery, Rapidiant performs a thorough assessment of the organization. It examines the people, processes and tools currently in use, and immediately targets choke points in your application “delivery pipeline.”
Just as the overall strength of a chain is determined by its weakest link, so can the speed and efficiency of a software delivery pipeline be strangled by a single unaddressed “pipeline segment.” For example, modern Agile initiatives often tackle first the low-hanging fruit of instituting “Continuous Builds,” but if that same organization has failed to address the area of automated regression testing, their either just expediting the deployment of unchecked and flawed code, or quickly queuing up test requests to a testing organization that cannot adequately process the backlog.
Accordingly, Rapidiant assesses an organizations delivery pipeline holistically to ensure that all segments are improved and advancing at a consistent rate such that no one area overwhelms the next in line. The major DevOps areas most commonly addressed are:
- Configuration Management
- Continuous Integration
- Continuous Deployment
- Automated Testing
- Security Scanning
- Continuous Monitoring
Each of these disciplines requires highly skilled Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to assess and address deficiencies and areas for improvement. The Rapidiant philosophy is that a relatively small cross-functional team of such SMEs can address what needs to be accomplished more effectively and faster than a much larger team with increased overhead and unnecessary layers of communication.
Rapidiant teams comprise SMEs who have spent considerable time in functional roles on real continuous delivery projects. Each team member understands both the overall desired outcomes as well as near term priorities. As the project matures and the needs of the team change, a different skillset is often required, and is inserted at the appropriate time for a smooth transition of pipeline improvements. As such, Rapidiant incorporates adaption into the services engagement model, which we have found critical to customer success.