What are the productivity bottlenecks in your business? Are you delivering content and digital experiences in an efficient manner? Does it seem like there is an unnecessary number of back-and-forth discussions between team members?
Applying even the most basic business processes can lead to a 12% improvement in productivity.
Business processes are step-by-step guidelines that let workers know exactly what needs to be done and how to do it repeatedly. This reduces mental overhead and wasted time in communication.
Some in-house AEM development teams may not be taking advantage of well-known processes that can streamline repeatable tasks, which can end up wasting time. If you want to maximize the productivity of development, bringing in an expert can be a worthwhile investment.
Experts know how to create business processes and apply them to your needs. In the long run, these will save time and improve productivity.
Let’s discuss four of the most time-consuming habits of in-house AEM development and what processes can improve them.
Having an undisciplined development process
One of the most frustrating outcomes of an undisciplined development environment is accumulating technical debt.
Technical debt is code and infrastructure that wasn’t designed with the future in mind. This means that later in the project, the time saved by coding quickly will be negligible compared to the time and effort that it will take to work with the poorly designed code and infrastructure.
This is a major reason that a disciplined process is essential for software development projects. Invest in proper planning and designing of the architecture of your projects for the sake of success and the people working on said projects.
Sometimes, your in-house AEM development team won’t be equipped to provide well-designed architecture. Investing in an AEM expert partner to lead an AEM project and create disciplined development processes is worth the price if you consider that in 2018, technical debt cost companies in America $511 billion.
Not testing your code
Testing your code is another aspect of future-proofing. When you write code with tests in mind, you think harder about your problem and work backward from the result you want. This leads to better design and documentation and future-proofs your code by finding bugs and edge cases early, as well as many other benefits.
Writing tests for your code may take you longer to see results compared to solving the problems right away, but down the line, you save time and stress. Add writing tests to your development process to make it an essential part of your coding culture.
Not automating manual tasks
Writing code is writing automation. You’re telling a computer what needs to be done so you don’t have to do it manually. There are levels to this, however, and adding automation to higher-level tasks will save time in the long run.
One automation practice that you need to add to your projects is continuous integration and continuous deployment/delivery, also known as a CI/CD pipeline.
A CI/CD pipeline is an automated process that handles the integration of new code into the central repository. This process includes building, testing, and deploying the code, with more steps on every code commit.
The benefits of implementing this pipeline are having infrastructure reliability, saving time, and reducing repetitive tasks.
Every time that a developer writes new code, the same process is involved. You have to build it, test it, push it to the repository, and deploy it. Why do this manually when it’s an identical job every time?
By implementing a CI/CD pipeline once, everyone working on the project only has to worry about writing code and committing it. Once the commit is sent, the CI/CD pipeline handles all the repetitive tasks rather than having each developer do it manually.
Not adopting project management methodologies like Agile
Project management isn’t a new concept. People have been working on projects for a long time, and strategies and philosophies have emerged to solve common problems that plague projects.
One in particular that has taken the software industry by storm is the Agile methodology.
For large projects involving different teams and end users, having an evolving and dynamic project management system is essential. Agile’s four software development values are:
- Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools
- Working Software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer Collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to Change over following a plan
Adopting an Agile philosophy in your organization can have a steep learning curve. Over the course of several projects is when you’re likely to reap the rewards and deliver success while enjoying a more efficient process.
Is your in-house AEM development team capable of leading this project management change? If not, seeking an expert for help could be a worthwhile investment. If you have many projects in your pipeline and want to deliver faster and better results, then adopting an Agile mindset is worth considering.
Final thoughts
In-house AEM development has its benefits and drawbacks. Knowing how to maximize the efficiency and productivity of your team is a crucial element of growing your business.
Trying out new strategies that involve creating processes can be a worthwhile venture. Tasks in development are often repeatable and similar in nature. Rather than customizing how you’ll work on every project, apply proven processes so work can be streamlined and predictable.
Strategies and processes for improving software development productivity include: having a disciplined development process, testing your code, adding automation to repetitive tasks, and adopting an Agile project management philosophy.
Atypical Digital is an Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Preferred Partner specializing in helping enterprise brands leverage Adobe’s AEM platform to optimize their platforms for productivity and efficiency, free up IT-related tasks to make teams more productive, and maximize AEM stability and security.<br> <br> To see how Atypical Digital can help your brand improve its backend foundation to reduce critical errors during AEM upgrades, contact our knowledgeable team of AEM upgrade specialists today!