The front end of the software development process, or "software creation," includes familiar disciplines such as modeling, requirements management, coding, test definition, change management, etc. There are numerous tools (IDEs, requirements management systems, SCM tools) to make software creation simpler and more efficient.
The back end of the development process, however, has been largely overlooked.
Software Production Management
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This is "software production," consisting of build/package/test/deploy tasks. While most enterprise development teams have made tool and process investments in the front end, production infrastructures are typically home-grown, comprised of manual scripts and internally-developed tools. The reality is that these systems are expensive to maintain and difficult to standardize across an enterprise.
As a result of growing software complexity coupled with increasingly frequent iterations and distributed teams, a homegrown system will likely present more and more of a roadblock to productivity. Put simply, software production has become too slow, too hard to manage, and too hard to understand. What impact does this have on your organization?
