• Home
  • BVSSH
  • C4E
  • Playbooks
  • Frameworks
  • Good Reads
Search

What are you looking for?

Standard : Build, test and deploy processes are fully automated

Purpose and Strategic Importance

This standard ensures build, test, and deploy processes are fully automated and consistently applied. By removing manual steps, teams gain speed, reduce errors, and create more stable, reliable releases.

It supports our policy to "Automate everything possible" and drives a delivery culture focused on flow, repeatability, and quality at scale. Without this standard, teams risk slow, error-prone deployments, reduced confidence, and mounting technical debt.

Strategic Impact

Clearly defined impacts of meeting this standard include improved delivery flow, reduced risk, higher system resilience, and better alignment to business needs. Over time, teams will see reduced rework, faster time to value, and stronger system integrity.

Risks of Not Having This Standard

  • Reduced ability to respond to change or failure
  • Accumulation of technical debt or friction
  • Poor developer experience and morale
  • Decreased confidence in releases and features
  • Misalignment between technical implementation and business priorities

CMMI Maturity Model

Level 1 – Initial

Category Description
People & Culture - Build, test, and deploy steps are manual and error-prone.
- Teams lack awareness of automation benefits.
Process & Governance - No formal processes for automation.
- Builds and deployments vary widely by team or project.
Technology & Tools - Manual scripts or manual steps dominate pipelines.
- Little to no automation tooling used.
Measurement & Metrics - No tracking of build or deployment success/failure rates.

Level 2 – Managed

Category Description
People & Culture - Teams start adopting automation scripts to reduce manual work.
- Some automation knowledge exists but is siloed.
Process & Governance - Basic scripting implemented for build, test, or deploy steps.
- Automation is applied inconsistently across teams.
Technology & Tools - Initial CI/CD tools introduced but usage varies.
- Manual approvals or interventions still common.
Measurement & Metrics - Build success/failure rates begin to be tracked, but not consistently.

Level 3 – Defined

Category Description
People & Culture - Automation is part of standard team practices.
- Teams collaborate on improving pipeline reliability.
Process & Governance - CI/CD pipelines are established and documented.
- Automated testing is integrated into build and deploy stages.
Technology & Tools - Mature CI/CD tools support end-to-end automation.
- Environments are provisioned and deployed via automation.
Measurement & Metrics - Metrics on build times, deployment frequency, and success rates are regularly reviewed.

Level 4 – Quantitatively Managed

Category Description
People & Culture - Teams use data to optimise pipeline performance.
- Automation ownership is shared across roles.
Process & Governance - Pipeline efficiency and stability are monitored and improved.
- Automation failures trigger alerts and fast remediation.
Technology & Tools - Advanced automation includes automated rollback, testing, and security scans.
- Automated environment provisioning supports consistent deployments.
Measurement & Metrics - Quantitative metrics drive continuous pipeline improvements.
- Mean time to recovery (MTTR) and deployment lead time monitored.

Level 5 – Optimising

Category Description
People & Culture - Automation enables continuous deployment and rapid feedback.
- Teams innovate with self-healing and adaptive workflows.
Process & Governance - Automation strategy evolves dynamically with emerging needs.
- Processes incorporate AI/ML for predictive failure detection.
Technology & Tools - Fully automated pipelines with intelligent routing and self-remediation.
- Environments are ephemeral, versioned, and reproducible on-demand.
Measurement & Metrics - Continuous delivery metrics consistently improve.
- Automation drives innovation, cost efficiency, and resilience.

Key Measures

  • Percentage of build, test, and deploy steps fully automated
  • Deployment frequency and success rate
  • Mean time to detect and recover from deployment failures
  • Reduction in manual intervention during pipeline execution
  • Developer satisfaction and velocity related to automation
Associated Policies
Associated Practices
  • Drift Detection & Correction
  • Security Testing in CI/CD
  • GitOps
  • Continuous Delivery (CD)
  • Continuous Deployment
  • Continuous Integration (CI)
  • Shift-Left Testing
  • Test Coverage Analysis
  • Shadow Testing in Production
  • Accessibility Testing
  • Test Data Management
  • Load & Performance Testing
  • Mocking and Stubbing
  • Linting and Static Code Analysis
  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
  • Static Code Analysis
  • Deployment Pipelines
  • Automated Rollbacks
  • Automated Incident Response

Technical debt is like junk food - easy now, painful later.

Awesome Blogs
  • LinkedIn Engineering
  • Github Engineering
  • Uber Engineering
  • Code as Craft
  • Medium.engineering