identify waste in your build pipeline

Identifying Waste in your Build Pipeline

Scott Turnquestscott.turnquest@thoughtworks.com

Value Stream Mapping

Fishbone Analysis

5 Whys

When people do the things computers can do, all the computers get together late at night and laugh at us.

Removing Waste:

Identify it. Find the source. Fix it!

Why is everything taking so much longer than we expect?

Identify Waste

Value

Waste

Value Stream Mapping

Analysis Development Acceptance Tests Staging Production

Value

Waste

1 day

1 day

4 days

2 mins

1 hour

4 hours

1 day

4 hours

Process Cycle Efficiency = 75%

Sources of Waste

Fishbone Diagram

Long Feedback Cycles

Structure of Code

Can not test individual system components

Can not test in isolation from AWS

Build / Deploy Pipelines

Provisioning services serially

Unreliable repos. Flakiness

Fix the underlying cause

Reduce your failure rate

Improve raw performance

25 minutes2 hours

Analysis Development Acceptance Tests Staging Production

Value

Waste

1 day

1 day

3 days4 days

2 mins

1 hour

4 hours25 mins

1 day

4 hours25 mins

Process Cycle Efficiency = 83%

5 Whys (another root cause method)

Failed Environment Upgrade

Did not test infrastructure/application

combo

Staging and Production environments differ

Manual deployments!

Deployment team unable to automate

Devs helped to automate deployment

So what did we learn?

• Understand your current value stream to identify waste

• Use analytical methods like Fishbone and 5 Whys to find the root cause of waste

• Don’t be afraid to restructure or redesign when complexity gets in the way

• Analysis techniques are not just for BAs

References

• Continuous Delivery- "Continuous Delivery" by Jez Humble and David Farley. See also: http://continuousdelivery.com/

• Value Stream Mapping - "Lean Software Development" and "Implementing Lean Software Development" both by Mary and Tom Poppendieck.

• Fishbone and 5 Whys - "Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great" by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen