Not All CI Solutions Are Created Equal

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Are there any of you out there who have attempted Continuous Integration, Delivery, or Deployment, and had it fail? Have you ever just given up because it was over complicating things? People were not happy?

Believe it or not, this is very common. I have heard many stories where organizations have failed at implementing CI. So first and foremost I want to say: it's ok! We all recognize the value of what we get from doing CI, but in reality, in practice we need to be more practical and pragmatic in our approach. May I offer some counsel.

Implement Countinuous Confidence

This may seem strange at first, and probably expected since this blog is all about Continuous Confidence, but really, truly, this is he first step. Focus on your confidence points. 

Generally, when I see failure in the CI world, it isn't the methodology, but rather the lack of confidence in the process that is causing the problem. Generally speaking, I see people wanting to implement CI in here organization because they are tired of breaking production. Eye are tired of fire fighting. They are moving from one fire to another. They need to understand why they are not confident about releases or code or whatever it is. Identify where you are not confident.

Teach Proper Unit Testing

I find this quite humorous. As I work with more and more shops, I almost always find that the majority of their test suite is either non existent or they are selenium tests. I find it humorous that we try to do CI without tests. You can automated the build, but without a proper test suite, you will not gain any confidence.

Having a proper test suite, and teaching developers responsibility for their code, will allow you to fight the fires! You will find, that when you have a proper test suite, that your stress levels will decrease and decisions about the business and the product will be better and less knee jerk. Allow your developers to gain confidence in themselves by teaching proper testing.

Be Methodical

You need to allow your organization to grow. You can't do CI over a week. Plan what works for you. Don't try to do a cookie cutter CI solution. CI is meant to be integrated and useful to you. If someone tells you hat you have to use a specific tool or do it a specific way, do t believe them. Do look for something that you have to change your entire way of doing things, but rather augment what you have.

We are trying to gain Confidence, and when we do, our lives are so much better for it.

That being said, I want to direct your interests to a new CI tool that is built with Continuous Confidence in mind. I am still writing the front end for it, but this tool has helped me scale organizations to do just what they need to. I wrote it and is sponsored by BambooHR. 



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