There are multiple advantages to incorporating automation into the software development lifecycle. Especially given IT skills shortages, these solutions help fill gaps and ensure the pace of business growth.
In addition, automation offers significant and specific benefits within software engineering processes — from product design and development to quality assurance testing. We have helped numerous companies adopt and implement automated processes, and have seen their software teams gain:
- Speed: automation increases the velocity of the development team and the entire software life cycle, processing tasks faster than humans can do them manually
- Efficiencies: time savings accrued from the speed of automated processes enable software teams to focus on more complex engineering tasks and higher level innovation strategies
- Mitigation of errors: misconfigurations and software defects are often human-made mistakes that can be reduced with automation
- Repeatability: rather than having to manually carry out the same task, an automated script can make this easier and efficient
- Scalability: all of the above benefits contribute to optimized operational effectiveness, which helps the business rapidly scale and grow faster
So, which areas are ripe for automation adoption? There are multiple use cases, but here are two where we have seen great value:
1 Product development
Many processes throughout product development can be automated. For example, rather than relying on manual processes such as email or chats within a tool like Slack, you can instead create an automated workflow for the feedback loop. Doing so accelerates collaboration and ensures the right people are kept up to date during software iterations.
Other use cases for automation within product development include code generation, log collection, product configuration, and audit trails.
2 Testing
Many companies are using automation to test code and software. They recognize the benefits, however, they’re not using automated tools to their full advantages. For example, they may not be using all the features and functionality, or they may not fully understand what they have.
No matter if you’re using open source or third-party development tools, or DevOps or Agile methodology, testing should be automated throughout the software life cycle. That includes regression and quality assurance testing.
You may already have the right automated testing tools in your toolbox, so if you’re unsure or your team doesn’t know how to use them, invest in obtaining expertise to assess your environment and help train the teams.
The Need for the Right Talent
On the one hand, automation reduces the manual and mundane tasks that software engineering teams must do. On the other hand, these solutions necessitate new skillsets to manage and optimize these tools, which can be difficult to find.
If your team is struggling to get the right expertise on board, turn to a trusted partner. Our teams at RKON regularly perform tech assessments and application roadmaps to ensure efficient and optimized processes, including automation implementations.
We also can augment your IT teams with our software engineering expertise – including full software development. Contact us today.
