Everywhere we look, we find new devices and services that offer replacements or enhancements to every aspect of our lives. But with these improvements come new vulnerabilities. 

If your device or application doesn’t work, how does it get fixed? How long does fixing it take? What if that software is running your car? Or the locks on your house? Or the pump for your insulin? Is your software doing what you need, when you need it? 

Progressive Delivery is a way to get curious about where people get value from your product, and how best to make sure the value and the people connect. 

Different stakeholders want to move at different rates – factories want to run consistently all year, but consumers have times when they want to buy back-to-school clothes or holiday presents. Software developers want to be able to show delivered products before their performance reviews. Sales teams are driving toward quarterly and yearly goals. These stakeholders need a way to collaborate, not just co-exist.

Progressive Delivery practices are a way to reconcile the different rates of change across your organization and with your users. You do this by separating deployment (the act of making software features available) from release (giving users access to features) and adoption (users adding a feature to their workflow).

Where does Progressive Delivery fit?

For the builders and engineers, Progressive Delivery is a way to see the systems you work in and on. It’s a perspective. Progressive Delivery doesn’t take the place of Agile, DevOps, or Continuous Delivery. Rather it builds on those. It’s a holistic approach that asks you to continue breaking down silos, and incorporating those lessons with this new point of view. 

Most of all, Progressive Delivery asks you to consider the fact that nothing is ever finished. We’re constantly building upon what was–learning, improving, evolving.

Who are you building for and why. How are you building, and what is necessary to deliver real value? 

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

-Arthur Ashe

Continuing Continuous Improvement

Progressive Delivery is an outgrowth of continuous improvement. It is a way of gathering together all the information we have and using it to change our own behavior and product. Nothing we do is ever finished, it’s currently in a different stage. A movie will find new viewers with new interpretations, even after it’s in the can. A scrubbed kitchen will be used to make tomorrow’s dinner. A photo app will somehow become workplace messaging. We want you to use the lens of Progressive Delivery to make the right things, for the right users, at the right time, and accept that none of that is permanent.