Continuous Delivery - Basics

Continuous Delivery is the ability to get changes of all types—including new features, configuration changes, bug fixes and experiments—into production, or into the hands of users, safely and quickly in a sustainable way.

Principles

There are five principles at the heart of continuous delivery:

• Build quality in: It’s much cheaper to fix problems and defects if we find them immediately—ideally before they are ever checked into version control, by running automated tests locally.
• Work in small batches: In continuous delivery, we try and get every change in version control as far towards release as we can, gettting comprehensive feedback as rapidly as possible.
• Computers perform repetitive tasks, people solve problems: Use automation to perform simple, repetitive tasks, and free up humans to focus on problem-solving.
• Relentlessly pursue continuous improvement: Don’t treat transformation as a project to be embarked on and then completed so we can return to business as usual. Embrace Kaizen, and treat Continuous Delivery as a Continuous Journey.
• Everyone is responsible: In high performing organizations, nothing is “somebody else’s problem.” Everyone works together to achieve the organizational level goals, rather than optimizing for what’s best for their team or department.