Automate It!

Development, QA, Deployment, Production Support, Infrastructure,… it doesn’t matter what aspect of software you are affiliated with. Automation is your best friend. And if it is not, you are living a worse nightmare without yet realizing it.

Our team is striving to as much automation as possible, where possible. But how much automation you can be satisfied with? The sky is the limit. You start seeing ROI of automation a little down the road, probably 3 to 6 months after you’ve committed to apply it no matter how difficult it is.

Automating development is somewhat simple. You can follow principles applied in the code (SRP, No-Duplication, etc) and way you go. Build scripts to automate compilation, right tools to avoid re-inventing a wheel, and so forth.

Deployment can be automated fluently with development. CI helps that a lot. Build server can be an initial trigger and the appetite kicks in, where you want more and more of that ‘great stuff’.

Production support IMHO is a bit trickier. There you need to satisfy your hidden customer that support the applications. A good way is to become partners. They have to live on a daily basis with what we create, so they need to be a part of equation, not ignored.  Once they are, they can be given tools and ways to automate and streamline their work, causing in overall product line to improve.

Infrastructure does not live in a separate universe. It’s a part of the same game. Proper infrastructure vital for proper QA and quick development. After all, if you spin your wheels on something that not even a bug, what good does it make?

QA automation IMO is as possible and important as development. After all, QAs are trying to verify that application is working as expected by customers and developers both. Therefore, they need as effective ways to perform their tasks as developers. They also need to be able to do it in a timely fashioned manner, which with growing complexity of user requested features cannot be achieved without automation.

Button line – if you are in software business and have no automation on you radar, you are either living last days of your prehistoric existence, or excessively wasting your clients money and trust. Adopt the change, automate it!