Developer's dilemma: Toolchain hell

In 2019, 65 percent of IT professionals say they plan to deliver 10 or more applications (State of Application Development, outsystems, 2019/2020). That data validates something we know. Across industries everywhere, development teams face increasing demands from leadership to increase productivity and, accelerate software delivery. Teams are adopting modern techniques and tools for organizing their projects to deliver business value to end-users quickly. They are consistently seeking ways to improve efficiency and ship software faster in response to increasing demands.

The biggest challenge to increasing efficiency is tool-sprawl and managing complex toolchains. There are thousands of tools on the market for each stage of the software development process. The tools are aimed at developers and most development teams are accustomed to integrating multiple tools of their choice to create custom software development solutions that work for their needs. However, this requires tooling knowledge, a lot of coding expertise, and can be an incredibly time-consuming process, that is prone to errors.

According to a study by Forrester and Liasion Technologies, 63 percent of organizations report that integrating multiple tools direct their resources to less strategic tasks, create resource strains (60 percent), and don’t always meet the needs of complex integrations (52 percent) [cmswire]. Team leads must save their talented development team from toolchain hell and reallocate their time and skills to delivering the company’s next great product. Instead of continuing to use in-house solutions of discrete tools pieced together, modern development teams are exploring other ways to achieve greater efficiency. Organizations are looking into implementing out-of-the-box toolchain management solutions or complete end-to-end solutions purchased from outside vendors.

Developer Dilemma 

Developers are looking for tools that streamline their team’s workflow with a single platform to plan, code, and launch. With numerous tools for software development on the market, narrowing down choices can easily become overwhelming. Asking yourself these important questions can help you filter your choices:

• What tool gives us out-of-the-box functionality, so we don’t have to integrate and maintain multiple tools?

• How can we maximize our development time and have our team work on high-value tasks?

• How can we drive greater visibility into the development process?

• How can we keep organization leaders informed on the development pipeline?

• How can we release faster and deliver value continuously?

Ossum

When we created ossum we had several things in mind. First, we had the developers’ tools dilemma in mind. We saw the trends of increased purchasing of end-to-end vendor solutions to meet rising demands for faster software delivery. A smart platform, ossum, unifies Agile planning, Git version control, and Continuous Delivery. This is how ossum spans the needs of developers and their extended teams:

1. Gives you back time and reduces your effort.

Ossum is an integrated out-of-the-box solution that significantly minimizes the need to juggle multiple tools. Spend valuable development time doing what you love, instead of managing an overly complex toolchain.

2. Lets your team focus on the work, not on the tools.

Ossum’s customizable Kanban boards make it easy for teams of any size to plan, prioritize, and visualize work from anywhere. You will have fun using the intuitive design that lets you easily manage workflows, track progress, and keep everyone, including leaders up to speed on the development pipeline. Feel energized about your work and achieve new heights of productivity because ossum provides clarity and transparency into the planning process for the whole team.

3. Gets your team collaborating with better code management techniques.

It encourages team collaboration by reviewing, discussing, and voting on incoming code changes to your projects. Get your whole team’s input on code approval with our built-in code management and review process. Gain clear insight into what code has changed using ossum’s default side-by-side view or try the vertical comparison view, whichever one you prefer. Easily find the code you are looking for using our context-aware code search, which allows you to search across multiple repositories to find the relevant code for you. Drive greater accountability and traceability across your dev team.

4. Helps you release software faster and deliver value continuously.

Tie planning to code to release, all within a single platform. Seamlessly integrate with the Continuous Integration tool of your choice: Jenkins, TeamCity, or Bamboo. Use the built-in visual cues on your planning cards to get real-time insight into the build and commit status.

It’s called ossum for many reasons. One important reason is that it empowers development teams to accelerate app development and saves a ton of time & effort previously spent on integrating and maintaining complex toolchains. Sign up on resources.ossum.cloud for seamless developer experience.