Agile Won't Scale Without Automation

The Agile software development methodology is composed of a number of techniques designed to help deliver incremental releases of high-quality software more quickly than ever before. Although Agile adoption is proceeding steadily, many enterprises aren’t yet fully converted to this approach. However, the trend lines are very clear: industry surveys have shown that the almost all new software development projects will be using Agile methodologies.
While Agile introduces many benefits, it also exponentially increases the pressure on the process of building, testing, and deploying software. Embracing the agile principle of “deliver working software frequently” means that the build, test and deploy processes are done frequently and in compressed timeframes, which can lead to many inefficiencies and poor software quality. So it is imperative for development organizations adopting agile to automate these processes. Without implementing this process automation, the great efficiencies and benefits which can come from Agile methodologies will not be realized.
Over the next five weeks, we will present five distinct challenges that if left unaddressed will drastically reduce an organization’s ability to gain the benefits promised by a move to Agile development methods. These 5 challenges are: manual procedures, performance inefficiencies, error-prone processes, disparate techniques and limited oversight.
For each trait, we explain why it serves as an obstacle to reaping the benefits of a move to Agile methods, as well as how automation helps surmount the barrier to deliver better Agile results.
Come back next week for the first installment of the 5 week series beginning with manual procedures.