Development process

How to get something from idea to done using a standard development process.

There are many different Development processes. I’ve worked with Waterfall phasing, scrum with sprints which releases all at the same time once done as well as Release Trains and all what they are called. The most superior Development process is the one that moves things from Idea to Done in the fastest and safest way possible.

It can be called a lot of things, and have a lot of back thought like “reducing waste” and other actually less tangible names. We need to define what a Development process is. It’s a process that moves ideas through different departments and people who needs to have a say, to people who codes them, to testing, to feedback, to changes, repeat and in the end to a release. 

As with all other topics in this book, we can’t just dive in to the development process without talking about the why (Simon Sinek would be proud).

We want to be able to react to feedback from our users quickly. We also want to be able to build new features that will increase the usage and therefore the revenue of our product. We also want to make sure that when we introduce new things, other things shouldn’t break.

At the same time we want to be able to test new things and see how they are adapted. We want to focus on what's most important now but also not change focus and move away from finalising what was important yesterday and still now delivered. We don't want a mayhem entropy where things gradually decline into disorder.

Keeping creativity high, enabling instead of limiting employees. So we have a Development Process. Sounds like a lot? How can a process enable creativity, isn't it the other way around? On an axis of opposites you have creativity on one side and process on the other?

The answer: It depends. It's again a balance. Too strict and there will be now creativity. Let's dive in.

I like to divide the process in to a few “stages” in which an idea moves until done.

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