COVID-19 has amplified the need to provide access to data and knowledge to the people that need it when they need it.
I had the opportunity to speak with Sacha Labourey, CEO, CloudBees, and attend the virtual DevOps World 2020. The theme of the conference is to “transform the future of software development,” the need for which has been accelerated by COVID-19 which has been a tremendous disruption to business as well as an accelerator of digital transformation.
According to Sacha, to succeed with digital transformation, companies need to accelerate the development, delivery, and management of software and applications with resilience, compliance, and safety.
COVID-19 has enabled forward-thinking companies to see holes in their software that has hindered the ability to work remotely and has laid bare the need to diversify responsibility and access to the data and knowledge required to run your applications and business.
During the conference, CloudBees announced the availability of software delivery management (SDM) modules for two DevOps use cases that will solve problems for organizations and allow them to continuously deliver software efficiently across all teams, tools, and technologies while integrating wider business functions.
SDM connects organizations’ cross-functional teams to the software delivery process. By providing more visibility across the software development life cycle (SDLC), improving processes, and encouraging more seamless collaboration, SDM helps organizations deliver better software and measure business outcomes from software development efforts. SDM is essentially the equivalent of a CRM, or system of record, for software delivery.
The two modules build on the highly-connected system of record established for the next-generation software delivery platform. The modules give engineering managers and leaders the visibility, connectivity, control, and insights they need to unblock bottlenecks in the software delivery process.
“We previously introduced our vision for Software Delivery Management as a market category,” said Shawn Ahmed, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Software Delivery Automation, CloudBees. “Last year, we brought that vision into focus by building an extremely powerful and highly connected system of record to be the backbone of our offering. This year, we are leveraging that work by announcing the general availability of CloudBees Software Delivery Management in Q4 2020 with the first two modules that tackle specific challenges organizations have today. This is only the beginning!”
The first of the two new modules takes an initial step in solving higher-order feature management problems and grants product development teams control over the features that get issued in software releases. Extending the developer-centric feature flags technology, product development teams can begin to manage features holistically, grouping, and controlling sets of flags for coordinated progressive delivery.
With this new module, feature releases can be decoupled from deployment schedules. Product development teams will be able to release new capabilities with reduced risk on a schedule that fits the business and user needs. Product development teams will now have the tools to better manage large numbers of feature flags while simultaneously providing improved visibility and control to non-technical stakeholders.
The second SDM module is focused on engineering productivity to help engineering managers and leaders deal with the struggle to gain visibility into the development process. Using the module, leaders can better understand whether their teams are spending time working on the right priorities, moving quickly enough to deliver value on time, and maintaining the quality of the software the organization expects to deliver. The module leverages the foundational capabilities of SDM by connecting tools and importing data into the system of record, where it is then normalized and democratized. It gives engineering managers and leaders the insights they need to ensure resources are being properly allocated towards initiatives based on business priorities and customer value.
“In our product research efforts around Software Delivery Management, we found that our customers face the same challenges we do -- namely, how do we measure and continually improve engineering efficiency, and deliver product value faster and of higher quality,” said Susan Lally, Senior Vice President, Product Development, CloudBees. “That validated that both feature management and engineering productivity were widespread pain points in the industry, so we prioritized bringing these two Software Delivery Management modules to market first. Gaining more control over feature deployment and deeper insights into the development process will give customers the control, visibility, and insights they need to deliver software more quickly and efficiently.”