Introduction: Deployment Strategy

Overview

In this lesson, we'll discuss the approach to smooth software delivery. We'll briefly discuss the starting points of building the software that will further connect to other practices discussed later on in this chapter.

The MVP fallacy

The idea of an MVP is to get enough of a product into production so that it can then be iterated upon to make a more feature-rich product. If the MVP is all that we build, then we might be wasting our time. It would appear that we've only implemented a feature for the purpose of adding a marketing tick box—in other words, "Yes, we have that feature too!" 

An equivalent problem is when a prototype is deployed to production. Keeping prototypes alive in production can be difficult. To guard against this, try making prototypes obviously visually flawed. Remove or break style sheets and display text as hand-drawn.

When to buy vs when to build

A good practice to keep as a general principle is to always consider buying something rather than building it. These days, a lot of problems have already been solved. There may be an open-source project, a commercial product, a research paper, or a blog post that solves the problem we have. A quick check can save days of development. Careful consideration of what to build and what not to build can allow for rapid development.