Operating Continuously

Introduction

Edith Harbaugh

Operating continuously is the nirvana of software development—a software delivery lifecycle in which planning, coding, building, testing, releasing, deploying, operating, and monitoring processes unite to produce value for end users and less stress and risk for those building the software. We are in a transition phase from traditional project-oriented waterfall processes to product-oriented continuous processes. This transition is exciting but, like any change, also scary. I hope this book explains this natural evolution and gives you examples of cultures, processes, and tooling that can help you successfully embrace operating continuously.

I started my career in the ’90s, working first as a software analyst/designer and then as an engineering program manager, when software was made in rigid waterfall processes. The product manager wrote a product requirement doc (PRD), which I, the analyst/designer in engineering, then translated into use cases and functional requirements (known as functional requirement specifications). Designers would make mock-ups, which engineers would subsequently implement. There were then several rounds of quality assurance (QA) to check for user acceptance (did the product manager think it functioned?), defects, and platform compatibility, since customers were installing the software on their own systems. Part of my role as program manager was to generate and maintain the supported platform matrix, which identified which combinations ...