Continuous Delivery (CD), a key initiative for Cisco IT in FY15, is a set of principles and practices to truly transform IT end-to-end. It extends from how IT partners with the business, prioritizes a backlog of requirements, aggressively develops, and eventually delivers the prioritized capabilities; all with the view of achieving common business outcomes.

Building upon some of the earlier work in the IaaS and PaaS space (Infrastructure and Platform as a Service), the Continuous Delivery Platform track launched an offering called Software Delivery as a Service (SDaaS) to truly transform the life of an IT developer – end-to-end. Solution set were created for both front-end custom web-app development, as well as for Oracle database back-end and ERP. Continuous delivery builds upon and extends Agile, continuous integration, and DevOps practices and tools to transform the way software and applications are deployed and delivered. Cisco IT’s journey to continuous delivery is fueled by three main objectives: 1. Accelerate time to capability, 2. Improve software quality, 3. Optimize cost of delivery.

A successful continuous delivery model requires culture and mindset shifts across all of IT and the business. Continuous delivery shatters the phase-based, sequential approach to application development, where specialized groups complete the work in phases. Each phase is added sequentially and depends on the one that came before it. Groups work in silos, and there is little communication between them. What’s more, this approach assumes that every business requirement can be identified before any design or coding occurs.

For a successful continuous delivery model, early engagement by business stakeholders is vital. Discussions shouldn’t focus on what IT can deliver but on what business outcomes will be achieved. The business should be treated as a member of the development team, actively involved along with IT as capabilities grow from prototype to limited availability to full-blown adoption. Business stakeholders have a high degree of oversight and control over what our services are delivering. Feedback loops at regular intervals enable tweaks to be made in real time as business, market, and end-user requirements change.