Monthly Insights - Automation, Ambiguity and Agile
Automation Everything boring that can be automated, should probably be automated. Whether others know about that automation, depends upon how much it is valued over looking busy. Image by magnific I've been on a self undertaken journey at work for the past couple of months - the automation of our build process. I learnt a lot about how Jenkins works, how interactions happen between GitHub,…
Automation has become increasingly important at work, as boring tasks that can be automated should likely be automated. The process of building the software involved various tools such as Jenkins, GitHub, Artifactory, Docker, Ansible, among others. The author started by automating a single build pipeline for Docker images and gradually added more pipelines to handle tests, code coverage, deployment, cleanup, and security scans for different architectures.
This automation has significantly boosted the efficiency of the team, freeing up time for other important tasks.
Ambiguity is another challenge faced while working in software engineering. The author struggled with unclear requirements when they were just starting their career. Now, they understand that navigating ambiguity is a significant aspect of their job. They work with various stakeholders, including product, UX, leads, and customer support, each with their opinions and areas of expertise. By identifying and addressing ambiguities early on, the author has found success in reducing unnecessary code (noise).
Agile, as a theory, is highly regarded for its ability to promote fast-paced and independent team functioning. However, the author has encountered some difficulties when applying Agile in practice. The estimation problem, where story points are assigned to tasks without any prior experience, is one such challenge. It becomes difficult to understand how much effort a task will take based solely on story points, especially for junior developers.
The scope creep issue also arises, where the team ends up adding features without proper documentation or sacrificing quality to meet deadlines. Additionally, the author questions the relevance of strict cadenced release cycles in the Agile context and the frequent meetings required in Agile practices. Overall, the author believes that the issues in Agile today stem from its misinterpretations and implementations.
They hope future approaches will address these problems and lead to a more effective agile methodology.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
