analyse

SCOPE: Build and deployment pipeline

ASSUMPTIONS:
• Automated tests run on every commit
• Deploy to staging automatic
• Production deploy requires approval

GEMBA OBSERVATIONS:

Actual Pipeline (.github/workflows/main.yml):
1. On push to main:
   ├─> Lint (2 min)
   ├─> Unit tests (5 min) [SKIPPED if "[skip-tests]" in commit]
   ├─> Build Docker image (15 min)
   └─> Deploy to staging (3 min)

2. Manual trigger for production:
   ├─> Run integration tests (20 min) [ONLY for production!]
   ├─> Security scan (10 min)
   └─> Deploy to production (5 min)

SURPRISES:
✗ Unit tests can be skipped with commit message flag
✗ Integration tests ONLY run for production deploy
✗ Staging deployed without integration tests
✗ No rollback mechanism (manual kubectl commands)
✗ Secrets loaded from .env file (not secrets manager)
✗ Old "hotfix" branch bypasses all checks

GAPS:
• Staging and production have different test coverage
• Documentation doesn't mention test skip flag
• Rollback process not documented or automated
• Security scan results not enforced (warning only)

RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. CRITICAL: Remove test skip flag capability
2. CRITICAL: Migrate secrets to secrets manager
3. HIGH: Run integration tests on staging too
4. HIGH: Delete or secure hotfix branch
5. MEDIUM: Add automated rollback capability
6. MEDIUM: Make security scan blocking

CURRENT STATE: Feature request → Production

Step 1: Requirements Gathering
├─ Processing: 2 days (meetings, writing spec)
├─ Waiting: 3 days (stakeholder review)
└─ Owner: Product Manager

Step 2: Design
├─ Processing: 1 day (mockups, architecture)
├─ Waiting: 2 days (design review, feedback)
└─ Owner: Designer + Architect

Step 3: Development
├─ Processing: 5 days (coding)
├─ Waiting: 2 days (PR review queue)
└─ Owner: Developer

Step 4: Code Review
├─ Processing: 0.5 days (review)
├─ Waiting: 1 day (back-and-forth changes)
└─ Owner: Senior Developer

Step 5: QA Testing
├─ Processing: 2 days (manual testing)
├─ Waiting: 1 day (bug fixes, retest)
└─ Owner: QA Engineer

Step 6: Staging Deployment
├─ Processing: 0.5 days (deploy, smoke test)
├─ Waiting: 2 days (stakeholder UAT)
└─ Owner: DevOps

Step 7: Production Deployment
├─ Processing: 0.5 days (deploy, monitor)
├─ Waiting: 0 days
└─ Owner: DevOps

───────────────────────────────────────
METRICS:
Total Lead Time: 22.5 days
Value-Add Time: 11.5 days (work)
Waste Time: 11 days (waiting)
Efficiency: 51%

BOTTLENECKS:
1. Requirements review wait (3 days)
2. Development time (5 days)
3. Stakeholder UAT wait (2 days)
4. PR review queue (2 days)

WASTE ANALYSIS:
• Waiting for reviews/approvals: 9 days (82% of waste)
• Rework due to unclear requirements: ~1 day
• Manual testing time: 2 days

FUTURE STATE DESIGN:

Changes:
1. Async requirements approval (stakeholders have 24hr SLA)
2. Split large features into smaller increments
3. Automated testing replaces manual QA
4. PR review SLA: 4 hours max
5. Continuous deployment to staging (no approval)
6. Feature flags for production rollout (no wait)

Projected Future State:
Total Lead Time: 9 days (60% reduction)
Value-Add Time: 8 days
Waste Time: 1 day
Efficiency: 89%

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN:
Week 1: Set review SLAs, add feature flags
Week 2: Automate test suite
Week 3: Enable continuous staging deployment
Week 4: Train team on incremental delivery

CURRENT STATE: Incident detected → Resolution

Step 1: Detection
├─ Processing: 0 min (automated alert)
├─ Waiting: 15 min (until someone sees alert)
└─ System: Monitoring tool

Step 2: Triage
├─ Processing: 10 min (assess severity)
├─ Waiting: 20 min (find right person)
└─ Owner: On-call engineer

Step 3: Investigation
├─ Processing: 45 min (logs, debugging)
├─ Waiting: 30 min (access to production, gather context)
└─ Owner: Engineer + SRE

Step 4: Fix Development
├─ Processing: 60 min (write fix)
├─ Waiting: 15 min (code review)
└─ Owner: Engineer

Step 5: Deployment
├─ Processing: 10 min (hotfix deploy)
├─ Waiting: 5 min (verification)
└─ Owner: SRE

Step 6: Post-Incident
├─ Processing: 20 min (update status, notify)
├─ Waiting: 0 min
└─ Owner: Engineer

───────────────────────────────────────
METRICS:
Total Lead Time: 230 min (3h 50min)
Value-Add Time: 145 min
Waste Time: 85 min (37%)

BOTTLENECKS:
1. Finding right person (20 min)
2. Gaining production access (30 min)
3. Investigation time (45 min)

IMPROVEMENTS:
1. Slack integration for alerts (reduce detection wait)
2. Auto-assign by service owner (no hunt for person)
3. Pre-approved prod access for on-call (reduce wait)
4. Runbooks for common incidents (faster investigation)
5. Automated rollback for deployment incidents

Projected improvement: 230min → 120min (48% faster)

SCOPE: REST API backend (50K LOC)

1. OVERPRODUCTION
   Found:
   • 15 API endpoints with zero usage (last 90 days)
   • Generic "framework" built for "future flexibility" (unused)
   • Premature microservices split (2 services, could be 1)
   • Feature flags for 12 features (10 fully rolled out, flags kept)
   
   Impact: 8K LOC maintained for no reason
   Recommendation: Delete unused endpoints, remove stale flags

2. WAITING
   Found:
   • CI pipeline: 45 min (slow Docker builds)
   • PR review time: avg 2 days
   • Deployment to staging: manual, takes 1 hour
   
   Impact: 2.5 days wasted per feature
   Recommendation: Cache Docker layers, PR review SLA, automate staging

3. TRANSPORTATION
   Found:
   • Data transformed 4 times between DB and API response:
     DB → ORM → Service → DTO → Serializer
   • Request/response logged 3 times (middleware, handler, service)
   • Files uploaded → S3 → CloudFront → Local cache (unnecessary)
   
   Impact: 200ms avg response time overhead
   Recommendation: Reduce transformation layers, consolidate logging

4. OVER-PROCESSING
   Found:
   • Every request validates auth token (even cached)
   • Database queries fetch all columns (SELECT *)
   • JSON responses include full object graphs (nested 5 levels)
   • Logs every database query in production (verbose)
   
   Impact: 40% higher database load, 3x log storage
   Recommendation: Cache auth checks, selective fields, trim responses

5. INVENTORY
   Found:
   • 23 open PRs (8 abandoned, 6+ months old)
   • 5 feature branches unmerged (completed but not deployed)
   • 147 open bugs (42 duplicates, 60 not reproducible)
   • 12 hotfix commits not backported to main
   
   Impact: Context overhead, merge conflicts, lost work
   Recommendation: Close stale PRs, bug triage, deploy pending features

6. MOTION
   Found:
   • Developers switch between 4 tools for one deployment
   • Manual database migrations (error-prone, slow)
   • Environment config spread across 6 files
   • Copy-paste secrets to .env files
   
   Impact: 30min per deployment, frequent mistakes
   Recommendation: Unified deployment tool, automate migrations

7. DEFECTS
   Found:
   • 12 production bugs per month
   • 15% flaky test rate (wasted retry time)
   • Technical debt in auth module (refactor needed)
   • Incomplete error handling (crashes instead of graceful)
   
   Impact: Customer complaints, rework, downtime
   Recommendation: Stabilize tests, refactor auth, add error boundaries

───────────────────────────────────────
SUMMARY

Total Waste Identified:
• Code: 8K LOC doing nothing
• Time: 2.5 days per feature
• Performance: 200ms overhead per request
• Effort: 30min per deployment

Priority Fixes (by impact):
1. HIGH: Automate deployments (reduces Motion + Waiting)
2. HIGH: Fix flaky tests (reduces Defects)
3. MEDIUM: Remove unused code (reduces Overproduction)
4. MEDIUM: Optimize data transformations (reduces Transportation)
5. LOW: Triage bug backlog (reduces Inventory)

Estimated Recovery:
• 20% faster feature delivery
• 50% fewer production issues
• 30% less operational overhead