Continuous Integration and Process Streamlining
The Problem: Waterlogged Workflows
Several of our clients have come to us with the realization that they need to update their project management systems. Beyond automation and virtualization, which they know are essential to staying up to date, they need a new way of looking at their processes in the first place. The old philosophy of project management, sometimes known as “Waterfall”, established hardwired processes that start out efficient, but don’t allow for change and adaptation. Our clients have realized that they need a different philosophy to achieve their business goals.
The Analysis: Agile Processes For Long-Term Success
One of the first questions that we asked each of these clients was, “Where do you see your business five years from now?” We want each agency to have that five-year vision in mind, because long-term thinking is critical to process management that can adapt to the changes every growing company will eventually experience. We believe that agility is what transforms a start-up company into a giant — you have to be ready to make the most of an opportunity when it comes along, not be stuck redoing everything from the ground up.
The Solution: It’s Getting Better All The Time
First we helped our clients to overhaul their process management philosophy, shifting the focus from the top-down “waterfall” approach to a more organic one based on agility and continuous evolution. We make sure that everyone in the organization is working together as a team. As a geographically diverse organization ourselves, we recognize that client companies may be spread out around the country or the world as well, and we pay special attention to making sure that everyone is kept in the loop regardless of their location, thereby preventing redundancies and inconvenient ‘gaps’ in project flow.
We use remote document management systems to let all teams collaborate on projects without having to send files back and forth, dramatically reducing confusion. Through this system, every collaborator receives email notifications of changes to the documents, so everyone is “on the same page.” When the source code changes, every employee who works with it is notified, so nobody should ever have to re-do their work.
Continuous evolution means continuous testing, because not all changes that happen organically ought to become part of the process every time. We implement a testing stage where new processes can be tested out before their integration into the system. As the transition continues, everything becomes increasingly seamless, so there’s no such thing as a “testing phase” or an “upgrade phase” — the whole life cycle is continuous, and there’s never any need to put productivity on pause.