Software development delivery time

Feature design and implementation may require work that has never been performed before. Integration, test, and deployment must be performed continuously as quickly as possible. Shorter product delivery lead times are better since they enable faster feedback on what we are building and allow us to course correct more rapidly. Short lead times are also important when there is a defect or outage and we need to deliver a fix rapidly and with high confidence. The second metric to consider is batch size.

Reducing batch size is another central element of the Lean paradigm—indeed, it was one of the keys to the success of the Toyota production system. Reducing batch sizes reduces cycle times and variability in flow, accelerates feedback, reduces risk and overhead, improves efficiency, increases motivation and urgency, and reduces costs and schedule growth.

However, in software, batch size is hard to measure and communicate across contexts as there is no visible inventory. Therefore, we settled on deployment frequency as a proxy for batch size since it is easy to measure and typically has low variability. A release the changes that get deployed will typically consist of multiple version control commits, unless the organization has achieved a single-piece flow where each commit can be released to production a practice known as continuous deployment.

Traditionally, reliability is measured as time between failures. However, in modern software products and services, which are rapidly changing complex systems, failure is inevitable, so the key question becomes: How quickly can service be restored? How long it generally takes to restore service for the primary application or service they work on when a service incident e. Finally, a key metric when making changes to systems is what percentage of changes to production including, for example, software releases and infrastructure configuration changes fail.

In the context of Lean, this is the same as percent complete and accurate for the product delivery process, and is a key quality metric. Look at what percentage of changes for the primary application or service you work on either results in degraded service or subsequently requires remediation e. As opposite to Waterfall, with Agile you can see iterative results before the final delivery.

According to this, you have an opportunity to revise and implement changes during the development process. Agile methods allow you to divide the scope of work into smaller parts so each developer or team could be more efficient. Besides, communication techniques in Agile eliminate a gap between the team and the client, that reduces the time which is the most valuable asset in most projects.

Scrum , one of the agile methodologies, reduces the role of project manager. All team members work on the scope of the project and each sprint together. That way saves time and makes collaboration fruitful and helpful. Another Scrum advantage is the ability to be aware of all problems and issues and apply fixes as soon as possible without wasting time and cost.

That ensures the work is moving fast and efficient through the whole project. If you have a strict final delivery date, please remember that, and control the dynamic scope, so you do not fly beyond the deadline!

If you want to learn more about the possible approach for your project and get practical advice, please let us know. You can also get acquainted with our project approach. After you have decided about the project methodology, it is time for planning and estimation of the tasks. The goal is to collect all requirements and information, think about the risks, build the project team, assess the budget and finally, consider the time and delivery dates.

The estimation of fixed cost projects includes a lot of aspects, and you should foresee some critical issues and unanticipated difficulties your project can face with. Discuss the project requirements, organize a brainstorm discussion, listen to their suggestions and ideas to make the project better and faster. One of the good practices is not only to rely on your experience but also to include statistics and probabilities data to make estimation process more accurate. You can find here our answer to the question of how to get the maximum value within the planned budget.

You may quickly discover unneeded redundancies, excessive or untimely documentation efforts, or a host of other factors that add no real value to your development efforts. They create obstacles that impede progress, slowing your ability to complete projects faster.

Optimise your process by modifying or removing these steps so that your team can meet your assigned benchmarks more easily. One thing that can severely hamper your ability to speed up development is an improper testing strategy. Software needs to be tested, debugged, assessed and revisited when needed. However, it is important to realise that it is not enough to just do the right types of testing.

You also need to test at the appropriate time to keep the project on schedule. That means testing as early in the developmental stage as possible and continuing to test throughout.

Testing helps you identify bugs so that you can implement the fixes needed to ensure integrity and effectiveness. Appropriate testing will also help your company meet industry standards. In turn this improves customer satisfaction and protects your name. Most importantly, it will eliminate bugs that could create delivery delays. Those efforts can also reduce costs and will lead to improvements in your ability to deliver projects. To maximise development and delivery speed, you will need to make adaptability a key aspect of your company culture.

When your team and systems maintain the right level of flexibility, it is easier to adapt to challenges.