Streamlining Development Processes

Development processes should help teams deliver, not slow them down. Streamlining means eliminating unnecessary steps, automating repetitive work, and reducing handoffs. The goal is getting code from idea to production as smoothly as possible.

Process Friction

Finding Friction

Process Mapping

MAP YOUR CURRENT PROCESS
════════════════════════

STEP 1: LIST EVERY STEP
─────────────────────────────────────
From idea to production:

1. Requirement created
2. Groomed/refined
3. Sprint planning
4. Development starts
5. Local testing
6. Create PR
7. Wait for review
8. Review feedback
9. Address feedback
10. Merge
11. Deploy to staging
12. QA testing
13. Deploy to production
14. Monitor

STEP 2: MEASURE TIME
─────────────────────────────────────
For each step, track:
├── Active time (actually working)
├── Wait time (sitting idle)
└── Total time

Example:
Step              Active    Wait      Total
────────────────────────────────────────────
Development       16h       -         16h
Wait for review    -        48h       48h
Review             2h       -         2h
Address feedback   4h       -         4h
Wait for QA        -        24h       24h
QA testing         4h       -         4h
Deploy prod        1h       -         1h
────────────────────────────────────────────
TOTAL             27h       72h       99h

Active: 27 hours (27%)
Waiting: 72 hours (73%)

INSIGHT: 73% of time is waiting.

STEP 3: IDENTIFY BOTTLENECKS
─────────────────────────────────────
Biggest wait times:
├── Code review: 48h → reduce first
├── QA queue: 24h → reduce second
├── These are your targets
└── 80/20: Fix biggest impact first

Eliminating Waste

Remove Unnecessary Steps

WASTE ELIMINATION
═════════════════

TYPES OF WASTE:
─────────────────────────────────────
WAITING:
├── For review
├── For approval
├── For information
├── For environment
└── Reduce by: SLAs, automation, self-service

HANDOFFS:
├── Dev to QA
├── Team to team
├── Person to person
└── Reduce by: Cross-functional teams

REWORK:
├── Bugs from poor specs
├── Fixes after review
├── Rollback and redo
└── Reduce by: Better quality upfront

OVERPROCESSING:
├── Approvals nobody reads
├── Documentation nobody uses
├── Meetings for everything
└── Reduce by: Eliminate if not adding value

MOTION:
├── Switching between tools
├── Finding information
├── Context switching
└── Reduce by: Consolidate tools, reduce WIP

QUESTION EACH STEP:
─────────────────────────────────────
For every process step, ask:
├── "Does this add value?"
├── "What if we skipped it?"
├── "Can we automate it?"
├── "Can we combine it with another step?"
├── "Who decided we need this?"
└── If no good answer, eliminate

Reduce Handoffs

HANDOFF REDUCTION
═════════════════

PROBLEM:
─────────────────────────────────────
Every handoff has:
├── Wait time to pick up
├── Context loss
├── Communication overhead
├── Blame opportunity
└── Quality risk

BEFORE:
─────────────────────────────────────
Dev → Code Review → QA → Ops → Deploy
(4 handoffs = 4 opportunities for delay)

AFTER:
─────────────────────────────────────
Cross-functional team does it all:
├── Pair program (built-in review)
├── Automated tests (built-in QA)
├── CI/CD (no ops handoff)
├── Deploy on merge
└── 0 handoffs

STRATEGIES:
─────────────────────────────────────
1. Cross-functional teams
   ├── Team has all skills
   ├── No external dependencies
   └── Own end-to-end

2. "You build it, you run it"
   ├── Team deploys their code
   ├── Team handles incidents
   └── Full ownership

3. Shift left
   ├── Testing during development
   ├── Security in design
   ├── Ops concerns in code
   └── Problems found earlier

4. Pair/mob programming
   ├── Review built-in
   ├── Knowledge shared
   └── No waiting

Automation

What to Automate

AUTOMATION PRIORITIES
═════════════════════

HIGH VALUE (DO FIRST):
─────────────────────────────────────
Testing:
├── Unit tests on commit
├── Integration tests on PR
├── E2E tests on merge
├── Security scanning
└── No manual test passes

Deployment:
├── Build automatically
├── Deploy on merge
├── Rollback capability
├── Feature flags
└── No manual deployment steps

Code Quality:
├── Linting on save
├── Formatting on commit
├── Style checking
├── Complexity metrics
└── No manual code style reviews

MEDIUM VALUE:
─────────────────────────────────────
Notifications:
├── Deploy success/failure
├── Test failures
├── Review needed
├── Task status changes
└── No manual status updates

Environment:
├── Spin up on demand
├── Database seeding
├── Config management
└── No manual setup

AUTOMATION PRIORITY TEST:
─────────────────────────────────────
Automate if:
├── Happens frequently
├── Is rule-based (no judgment)
├── Is error-prone manually
├── Is boring for humans
├── Creates delays when manual
└── Has clear success criteria

Speed Improvements

Code Review Speed

FASTER CODE REVIEW
══════════════════

PROBLEM:
─────────────────────────────────────
PRs wait 2-3 days for review.
Biggest bottleneck for most teams.

SOLUTIONS:
─────────────────────────────────────
1. REVIEW SLA
   "First review within 4 hours"
   (or 24 hours max)
   Track and make visible.

2. SMALL PRs
   Under 400 lines.
   Faster to review.
   Smaller = quicker turnaround.

3. DEDICATED REVIEW TIME
   10-11am: Review hour
   Everyone reviews together.
   No context switching.

4. PAIR PROGRAMMING
   Review happens as you code.
   Zero wait time.
   Higher quality.

5. AUTO-ASSIGN
   Round-robin assignment.
   No "who should review this?"
   CODEOWNERS file.

6. CI FIRST
   CI must pass before human review.
   Don't waste reviewer time on broken builds.

TRACKING IN GITSCRUM:
─────────────────────────────────────
Task → Status: Code Review
Track time in this status.
Alert if > 24 hours.
Dashboard visibility.

Deployment Speed

FASTER DEPLOYMENTS
══════════════════

PROBLEM:
─────────────────────────────────────
Deployment is scary, slow, infrequent.
Leads to big, risky releases.

SOLUTIONS:
─────────────────────────────────────
1. CI/CD PIPELINE
   ├── Automated build
   ├── Automated tests
   ├── Automated deploy
   ├── One click or automatic
   └── No manual steps

2. FEATURE FLAGS
   ├── Deploy code without releasing
   ├── Gradual rollout
   ├── Quick disable if problems
   ├── Decouple deploy from release
   └── Deploy more confidently

3. SMALLER DEPLOYMENTS
   ├── Deploy more often
   ├── Smaller changes = less risk
   ├── Easier to rollback
   ├── Faster to debug
   └── "If it hurts, do it more often"

4. AUTOMATED ROLLBACK
   ├── One-click rollback
   ├── Automatic on failure
   ├── Previous version ready
   └── Reduces deploy fear

TARGET:
─────────────────────────────────────
From: Deploy weekly (scary)
To: Deploy daily (routine)
To: Deploy on every merge (continuous)

Each step reduces risk and increases speed.

GitScrum Streamlining

Process Optimization

GITSCRUM FOR STREAMLINED PROCESS
════════════════════════════════

SIMPLE WORKFLOW:
─────────────────────────────────────
Keep minimal:
├── To Do
├── In Progress
├── Review (optional)
├── Done
└── Fewer states = less overhead

Each state = Real status, not bureaucracy

AUTOMATIONS:
─────────────────────────────────────
├── PR merged → Task to Done
├── Task assigned → Notify assignee
├── Stale 3 days → Alert
├── Status change → Update stakeholders
└── Reduce manual status updates

INTEGRATIONS:
─────────────────────────────────────
├── GitHub/GitLab: PRs link to tasks
├── CI/CD: Build status visible
├── Slack: Notifications
├── Calendar: Sprint dates
└── Single source of truth

METRICS:
─────────────────────────────────────
Track automatically:
├── Cycle time
├── Time in each status
├── Bottleneck visibility
├── Sprint velocity
└── Use data to improve

REDUCE OVERHEAD:
─────────────────────────────────────
Don't require:
├── Detailed time logging
├── Comments on every task
├── Multiple approval steps
├── Complex custom fields
└── Only what adds value

Continuous Improvement

Improvement Cycle

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
══════════════════════

REGULAR RETROSPECTIVES:
─────────────────────────────────────
Every sprint, ask:
├── What slowed us down?
├── What was frustrating?
├── What can we eliminate?
├── What can we automate?
└── Pick ONE thing to improve

SMALL EXPERIMENTS:
─────────────────────────────────────
├── Try for one sprint
├── Measure the impact
├── Keep if better
├── Revert if worse
└── Low risk experimentation

EXAMPLE IMPROVEMENTS:
─────────────────────────────────────
Sprint 1: "Code review taking 3 days"
Action: Implement 24h SLA
Result: Down to 1 day ✓

Sprint 2: "Deployment still manual"
Action: Automate staging deploy
Result: 10 min → 2 min ✓

Sprint 3: "Too many meetings"
Action: Cancel one recurring meeting
Result: +4 hours/week for team ✓

Continuous, incremental improvement.

Best Practices

For Streamlined Development

1. Map your process — Understand before improving
2. Measure wait time — That's where waste hides
3. Automate repetitive — Humans for thinking
4. Reduce handoffs — Cross-functional teams
5. Small batches — Smaller = faster flow

Anti-Patterns

PROCESS MISTAKES:
✗ Adding steps without removing
✗ Approval for everything
✗ Manual repetitive tasks
✗ Big bang releases
✗ Handoffs between silos
✗ Complex workflows
✗ No measurement
✗ Never questioning "why we do it this way"

Related Solutions

• Workflow optimization strategies
• Streamlining code review processes
• Improving developer productivity