Editor’s Note: This is the third blog in a series about Software Delivery Management written by Shawn Ahmed, CloudBees vice president of product marketing.
Today, I’m so excited to announce CloudBees’ entry into the Software Delivery Management (SDM) market with our solution for SDM. It’s been a long time coming, in which CloudBees has reimagined how we could tie all the disparate and siloed tools from across an organization’s teams and departments to provide better, software faster.
In my previous blog posts, I talked about recognizing the limitations and gaps we see in DevOps and software delivery today. We know there’s little controversy about the benefits of a mature continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline. They include reducing the failure rate for changes to under 15% from over 50%, recovery time after downtime measured in minutes instead of weeks and cycle times measured in hours, not weeks. CI/CD helps enterprises deliver software that works better, from a technical standpoint: better performance, fewer failures.
But there’s a limit to what CI/CD can provide to all those organizations undergoing their own DevOps transformation today. CI/CD only connects the parts of the software lifecycle that happen inside the software engineering department. It starts with a bug or feature ticket and ends with a deployment. But when you talk to developers, engineering managers, operations and other stakeholders, they will tell you that things still aren’t perfect. Even if they are able to implement multiple best practices, and achieve the quality and velocity promised with effective CI/CD and DevOps, there is still work to do. Developers don’t have visibility into the real business or customer need, or adoption; engineering management is still scrambling to understand where things are and continually communicate this to management; operations and shared services are still wrestling with multiple disconnected tools. We are delivering faster, but are we delivering better? Delivering the right thing for the business goals? For the customer? More importantly, it doesn’t tell us if the software is actually meeting the needs of customers.
Software Delivery Management (SDM) truly changes the game by going beyond CI/CD and empowering developers and other stakeholders to best collaborate and creatively solve problems. It gives them the data, insights and best practices that allow them to truly continuously improve, keep value flowing and efficiently develop and deliver the right products and features to customers.
At CloudBees, we are right in the heart of this exciting new category. We’re extending the feedback loop to integrate the entire software lifecycle, starting with researching market demands and customer needs and then evaluating how software can be used to meet those needs, all the way from code through to customer support.
CloudBees Solution for SDM
The Software Delivery Management strategy is all about recognizing software delivery as a core business process and any solution developed to support SDM needs a comprehensive management system. I previously outlined the four pillars of SDM that a solution needs to rest upon:
- COMMON DATA – All information within and around software delivery activity would need to be captured and stored with a consistent domain model to enable and facilitate connected processes, shared insights and collaboration.
- UNIVERSAL INSIGHTS – Visibility and insights would need to enable a common understanding and continuous learning from data across, up-and-down and throughout all functions in the organization.
- COMMON CONNECTED PROCESSES – Processes would need to orchestrate the entirety of the software delivery value stream and connect functions together to efficiently bring ideas to market with maximum value and adoption.
- ALL FUNCTIONS COLLABORATING – And finally, all functions and teams within and around the software delivery organization would consequently work together to amplify value creation efforts.
Our new CloudBees solution for SDM will help organizations facilitate collaboration between software development teams and other business stakeholders. You can expect our solution to include some of the most important capabilities that close the gap for software delivery.
Initially, our solution will be comprised of a platform to support SDM and will include modules for the product hub and value stream management. Future modules will become incorporated into the solution as it evolves. The CloudBees solution for SDM doesn’t replace our existing products such as CloudBees Core, CloudBees Flow and others. Instead, those products will become modules. Our customers can continue to evolve with us towards SDM as our solution for SDM unfolds.
I’m excited that our solution will support some of the most important needs of SDM now and in the future such as:
One unified system of record – With the CloudBees solution for SDM, information spread across multiple software planning, development and delivery tools can be captured, linked and cross-referenced The building of a single, unified system of record means everybody can see up-to-the-minute software delivery status via connected processes and get the information they need, when they need it.
- Workflow engine – Software development is fundamentally about giving highly educated people the tools they need to find creative technology solutions to business problems. With the CloudBees workflow engine, it’s possible to tie together all of the low-value steps that need to happen as the software is developed, allowing engineers to focus their energy on high-value, creative projects—including collaborative brainstorming with other business stakeholders.
- Recommendations engine – CloudBees’ SDM tool will provide intelligent recommendations to fuel continual, incremental improvement in terms of both the software delivery process and how well the software meets customer needs, based on feedback and real-world data, such as from feature flagging.
CloudBees Solution for SDM: Preview Program
While Software Delivery Management emerges as a market category, we want your voice to shape our solution. We’re also launching the CloudBees Solution for SDM Preview Program to ensure our solution meets the needs of organizations.
Using software to build business value isn’t just about delivering faster, it’s about creating software that appropriately addresses customer needs. Software Delivery Management is the only way to make sure the software your organization creates is meeting customer desires and building value for the business.
Learn how CloudBees makes software delivery management possible and visit our booth at DevOps World | Jenkins World. Download our new whitepaper on SDM — Continuous Everything: Why Software Delivery Management Matters.
