Missing a deadline never feels good! 

Despite designing perfect workflows from start to finish, we often found our teams chasing deadlines until the very last moment. This upsetting trend led us to a quest to find out what obstacles prevented our teams from getting work over the finish line in time. The biggest factors contributing to unwanted delays were unnecessary meetings, vague instructions, using outdated tools, poor communication and collaboration.

Missing a lot of deadlines recently? Don’t panic !

Once we were in the same sinking boat but this writeup is all about how  we turned the table using a DevOps approach.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

Embrace DevOps Practices

The foundation for an ultra-productive team lies in adopting DevOps Approach, using suitable agile methodologies with weekly sprints.With aCI/CD pipeline in place for each workstream, different teams receive/give continuous feedback on changes made thereby improving workflows and outcomes.This also ensures that all the teams collaborate and contribute  while potential delays or problems can be flagged. 

Break Down  Projects into SmallerTasks

This step plays a crucial role in helping our teams meet deadlines. All the projects are broken down into smaller tasks that are easy to accomplish and iterate as the deadline approaches. To prevent the subjective breakdown of projects, regular meetings are held by different teams. The main objectives are providing the team with:

• The project  breakdown for upcoming days

• A brief on what the team has achieved given the upcoming release

• Problems faced by the team

• Steps to overcome the problems

Prioritizing, Not Multitasking is the Key to Productivity

With the projects being  broken down into smaller tasks, our teams are encouraged to focus on the individual tasks rather than multitasking. In stark contrast to multitasking, this step helps improve overall team efficiency and productivity significantly.

Building Cross-Functional Teams

In a cross-functional team, employees from different departments are grouped to pursue a common goal. This helps develop a sense of responsibility in everyone for the final outcome. In this model, employees are more engaged spurring innovative ideas. Besides, involving experts with unique skill sets helps bring new insights and perspectives.

Fostering a Culture of Collaboration 

Breaking silos, we foster collaboration in our cross-functional teams by encouraging face-to-face interactions, conducting team lunch and other similar activities. In case of remote teams, we leverage tools like Skype, Zoom, Google Hangouts to ensure daily team interaction and collaboration.

Adopting DevOps processes and tools helped our teams run projects efficiently, cost-effectively and on time. We are never missing a deadline ever again!