DevOps Teams that achieve daily releases have mastered a unique set of skills and practices to ship software faster and more frequently, with higher confidence. This high frequency release model differs significantly from the traditional Scrum framework with 2-week sprints (or longer).
I wrote about this recently in my article published at devm.io platform , where I discussed the daily routines, processes and tools that support these teams, while contrasting them with more familiar cadence of traditional scrum teams. For teams and organizations looking to move towards daily releases, I also covered the key adjustments required to turn this vision into reality.
The Daily Rhythm: Planning, Execution, and Monitoring
1. Planning
For teams delivering code daily, the rhythm of planning, execution and monitoring does not follow the two-week sprint cycle but happens continuously. Here is what this daily rhythm looks like:
- Frequent Prioritization: Daily release teams prioritize their work each day, selecting high impact tasks that can be completed and shipped within a single day.
- Dynamic Backlogs: Instead of working with a static sprint backlog which is derived from the mammoth product backlog, these teams operate with highly flexible backlogs – adding things to it every day. They are ready to pivot quickly in response to customer feedback or issues, urgent needs or new business opportunities.
- Smaller Targeted Tasks: Work items are broken into small, manageable pieces – each designed to be completed within hours. User stories and tasks are refined to be achievable in less than a day, keeping workloads manageable and ensuring that work completed aligns with daily release goals.
2. Execution
Unlike Scrum teams that often release at the end of a sprint, daily release teams execute work with a focus on immediate delivery.
- Incremental Work: Instead of waiting until the end of a sprint, developers push small, frequent changes every day. Every code change is designed to be testable and deployable at the end of the day.
- Automated Testing: It is critical to daily releases. CI pipelines are designed to run tests on each code change, ensuring stability and reliability and readiness of production.
- Seamless Deployment: CD pipelines are in place, so that the code – once tested – is deployed automatically to production. With daily releases, teams cannot afford to spend hours on deployment activity every single day – so it is imperative to automate it.
3. Monitoring
- Automated Monitoring: Monitoring tools track deployment success, system performance, and error rates in real time. Tools like Datadog, New Relic, or Prometheus help track application performance, error rates and system health. These tools are crucial for catching issues early and preventing them from impacting users.
- Daily Retrospective Feedback Loops: Instead of waiting until the end of a sprint, the team reviews their daily progress and identifies immediate improvements – leading to quick adjustments.
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