Bring Customer Voice to Software Development | DevRev Build Overview

Summary

Steve Poitras introduces the Devra platform's build capability, emphasizing its ability to streamline sprint planning, issue prioritization, and status updates through integration with tools like GitHub. The platform offers end-to-end visibility from customer support to backend engineering, and its smart grouping feature simplifies tracking development efforts. The video showcases the platform's automation of issue creation and status updates, enhancing developer productivity and ensuring status accuracy without manual updates.

Takeaways

• 🛠️ The Devra platform offers build capabilities that simplify sprint planning, dynamic issue prioritization, and status updates.
• 🔍 The platform's Trails interface is designed for visibility into product structure and hierarchy.
• 📊 Users can view high-level information about features, including owners, documents, tickets, issues, and customer details.
• 🔄 The platform provides end-to-end visibility from customer support queries to back-end engineering efforts and potential revenue opportunities.
• 🔌 Devra supports integration with existing platforms, allowing for connections to services like JIRA or Bitbucket.
• 📈 The build app within Devra helps track and manage development efforts with real-time status updates.
• 🔑 The platform categorizes work into 'Now', 'Next', and 'Later', simplifying the organization of tasks and planning.
• 👥 Smart grouping or clustering feature helps in organizing issues into common themes for better management.
• 📝 Enhancements in Devra are similar to epics or stories in other platforms, allowing for grouping of related issues.
• 🌐 GitHub integration allows for automatic issue creation based on branch creation, PRs, and merges, streamlining the development process.
• 📈 Automatic status updates based on development progress, reducing the need for manual status management and increasing productivity.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the video by Steve Poitras?

The main focus of the video is to explore the build capability of the Devra platform, which includes features like sprint planning, dynamic issue prioritization, and integration with tools like GitHub.

What does the Trails interface in the Devra platform provide?

The Trails interface provides visibility into the product structure and hierarchy, allowing users to see high-level information about features, owners, documents, tickets, issues, and more.

How does the Devra platform benefit from its end-to-end visibility feature?

The end-to-end visibility feature allows users to see the entire process from customer support queries to backend engineering efforts and potential revenue opportunities, enhancing transparency and understanding of the workflow.

What is the purpose of the 'Integrations and Connections' feature in the Devra platform?

The 'Integrations and Connections' feature allows users to connect the Devra platform with existing tools and services, such as JIRA or Bitbucket, making it easier to import data and streamline workflows.

How does the Devra platform simplify the tracking and management of development efforts?

The platform simplifies tracking and management by categorizing work into 'Now', 'Next', and 'Later', and by providing real-time updates on development status through integrations with tools like GitHub.

What is the 'Smart Grouping' or 'Clustering' feature in the Devra platform?

The 'Smart Grouping' or 'Clustering' feature allows users to group related issues or tasks together under common themes, making it easier to manage and modify multiple items at once.

How does the Devra platform handle the creation of issues automatically?

The platform automatically creates issues based on new branch creations and updates the status as the development progresses through stages like 'In Development', 'In Review', and so on, without requiring manual updates from the user.

What is the significance of the 'Enhancements' feature in the Devra platform?

The 'Enhancements' feature is similar to an epic or a story in other platforms, allowing users to group multiple issues together and report their collective status, which is useful for managing larger projects or features.

How does the Devra platform integrate with GitHub to improve developer productivity?

The platform integrates with GitHub to automatically create issues based on branch creations, update statuses as code is reviewed and merged, and push changes through CI/CD pipelines, reducing the need for manual status updates and streamlining the development process.

What is the key advantage of the Devra platform's status management compared to traditional platforms?

The key advantage is that the Devra platform's status management is automatically updated in sync with the actual development progress, eliminating the need for manual updates and providing a more accurate and efficient workflow.

What can we expect from the Devra platform in the future according to the video?

According to the video, we can expect more exciting and interesting features to be added to the Devra platform in the future, although specific details were not provided.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Introduction to Devra Platform's Build Capability

Steve Poitras introduces the build capability of the Devra platform, highlighting its features for sprint planning, dynamic issue prioritization based on customer needs, and streamlined status updates through integration with tools like GitHub. The platform's Trails interface is designed to provide visibility into the product structure and hierarchy. The video walkthrough demonstrates navigating the platform, accessing the build app, and viewing high-level information about features, tickets, issues, and customer data. The benefits of the platform include end-to-end visibility from customer support to back-end engineering efforts and potential revenue opportunities.

05:01

🔌 Seamless Integration with Existing Platforms

The script discusses the ease of integrating the Devra platform with existing tools, such as Jira or Bitbucket, through the settings page under Integrations and connections. The platform's focus on providing functionality for non-Greenfield environments is emphasized. The video also covers how to track and manage development efforts with real-time status updates, simplifying the process for developers working in git or a similar platform. The introduction of smart grouping or clustering features is highlighted, which helps in organizing issues into common themes for better management and visibility. The automatic creation of issues based on new branch creation and the integration's ability to update status as development progresses are also discussed, showcasing the platform's impact on developer productivity and status management.

Keywords

💡Devra Platform

The Devra Platform is the central subject of the video, which is a tool designed to streamline various aspects of product development and management. It is mentioned as having the capability to perform sprint planning, dynamic issue prioritization, and simplifying status updates. The platform's interface, referred to as 'Trails,' is highlighted for providing visibility into product structure and hierarchy.

💡Sprint Planning

Sprint planning is a key concept in agile development methodologies, where it refers to the process of defining what to accomplish in a specific time frame, known as a sprint. In the context of the video, the Devra platform's build capability enables sprint planning, suggesting it helps in organizing and managing tasks within a set period.

💡Dynamic Issue Prioritization

Dynamic issue prioritization is the process of continually adjusting the priority of issues or tasks based on changing circumstances or needs. The video script mentions this feature of the Devra platform, indicating that it allows for issues to be reordered according to actual customer needs, which is crucial for maintaining product relevance and customer satisfaction.

💡Status Updates

Status updates are a common practice in project management to communicate the progress of tasks or projects. The video discusses how the Devra platform simplifies these updates through integrations with other services and tools, reducing the manual effort required to keep stakeholders informed.

💡Integrations

Integrations in the context of the video refer to the connections the Devra platform can establish with other tools and services, such as GitHub. This feature allows for seamless data exchange and workflow continuity between the platform and other systems used in the development process.

💡GitHub

GitHub is a widely used platform for version control and collaboration that is mentioned in the video as one of the services with which the Devra platform can integrate. The integration with GitHub is highlighted for its ability to automatically create issues and update statuses based on development activities.

💡Product Hierarchy

Product hierarchy is a concept that refers to the organizational structure of products, features, and components within a development project. The video script mentions that the Devra platform's Trails interface is designed to provide visibility into this hierarchy, which is essential for understanding the relationships and dependencies between different elements of a product.

💡Smart Grouping

Smart grouping, also referred to as clustering in the video, is a feature that allows issues or tasks to be automatically grouped into common themes or categories. This helps in organizing and managing work more efficiently by identifying patterns or areas of focus within a project.

💡Enhancements

Enhancements in the video are described as a way to bundle multiple issues or tasks into a single entity, similar to an epic or a story in other development methodologies. This is used to manage and report on a collection of related work items, as seen when the speaker creates five issues and clusters them together under one enhancement.

💡CI/CD

CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment, which are practices in software development aimed at automating the integration of code changes and the deployment of applications. The video mentions the benefits of the Devra platform's GitHub integration for developers, allowing them to focus on their PRs and CI/CD processes while the platform automatically updates the development status.

💡Developer Productivity

Developer productivity refers to the efficiency and effectiveness with which developers can perform their tasks. The video emphasizes the Devra platform's ability to enhance developer productivity by automating status updates and integrating with development tools, thus allowing developers to focus more on their core work rather than administrative tasks.

Highlights

Introduction to the build capability of the Devra platform, which simplifies sprint planning and issue prioritization based on customer needs.

The platform integrates with services like GitHub to streamline status updates and enhance productivity.

Overview of the Trails interface designed for visibility into product structure and hierarchy.

Demonstration of accessing the build app and its features within the Devra platform.

Explanation of how the platform provides end-to-end visibility from customer support queries to backend engineering efforts.

Showcase of the platform's ability to integrate with existing tools and platforms, including Jira and Bitbucket.

Introduction of smart grouping or clustering feature to organize development efforts into common themes.

Description of the three core categories of work: Now, Next, and Later, simplifying task management.

Illustration of how enhancements, similar to epics or stories, can be created to roll up the status of child items.

Example of how the platform automatically creates issues based on new branch creation in GitHub.

Explanation of how the platform updates the status automatically as development progresses through CI/CD stages.

Highlight of the platform's ability to keep status in sync with reality without manual updates.

Discussion on the impact of the platform on developer productivity and general status management.

Teaser for upcoming features and developments in the Devra platform.

Conclusion of the video with a summary of the Devra platform's build capability and its benefits.

Transcripts

hey everyone Steve poitras here and

today we're going to be taking a look at

the build capability of the devra

platform which enables you to do things

like Sprint planning Dynamic issue

prioritization based upon actual

customer need as well as simplifies

those pesky status updates through

Integrations with services and tools

like GitHub so let's go check it out

welcome back in today's video what we're

going to be doing is walking through the

build capability of the devra platform

now what you can see here this is our

Trails interface and this is really

designed to provide visibility in

regards to your product structure and

product hierarchy

so I'm going to go ahead and click on

our devra product

and as you can see here I have the

capabilities of the platform obviously

we have our Support app would be it

but I'm going to click on our build app

here

and here underneath our build app we

have our features obviously you can see

trails is underneath this build app but

if I click on vu

I can see high level information about

this right so who the owners are what

documents are available for this how

many tickets are on this item how many

issues are on this you know what are my

KB articles my top customers would be it

and this is a very powerful thing

because one of the benefits of the

devtrip platform is providing that

end-to-in visibility from your customer

supporting queries all the way to the

back end engineering efforts and in the

future even potential Revenue

opportunities and so a very very

powerful thing at this platform

now one of the things you may be

wondering is okay yeah this is great but

what if I'm already a customer of an

existing platform

and so for that

not a problem so let me go ahead and

click on my settings page and I'll go

down here to Integrations and then

connections

now in here you can see that we already

have a pretty good amount of existing

connections but let's go ahead and click

on ADD connection

now what pops up here is we can now

select our service right and so

obviously you know as of today we built

a lot of Integrations with existing

tools you know we understand you you do

have products not everyone's a

Greenfield environment and so you know

providing that functionality is very

core to the platform and so if I wanted

to import from jira or bitbucket I could

actually do that and that's you know

something the system natively provides

there for me

now obviously we built different for

devrevs so you know we we do not uh not

leverage here or anything like that we

actually run everything on here

now one of the other things is you know

specifically for build

how do I track and manage all my

development efforts right and so this is

actual real live development you know

status that's going on for the evolution

of our platform

now rather than show you everyone else's

issues I'm going to go ahead and look at

my own issues here

and so you know the way that we kind of

break this down is two things

we need to keep things simple so from a

work point of view we break things into

really Three core categories one now

which is what are the things that I'm

actively working on or doing in this

current Sprint

next or what are the things that I'm

doing and have planned for the next

print

and later what are the things that I'm

going to get to you down the line so

essentially more equivalent to a backlog

one of the things that you briefly saw

there was we introduced a new feature

called smart grouping otherwise known as

clustering so what we're going to do is

we're going to go ahead and turn that on

here

one of the things you can see here is

they cluster these items into common

themes

so I've been doing some work on updating

our fastly certs

some work on client session

compliance some of our Opa stuff but

that's a really nice thing so if I click

on like let's just say Deborah of

archetype refactor

I can actually see the work that I'm I'm

doing on this right if I wanted to

modify these items all at once I can

select those and then you know change

the owner I can change the priority or I

can also you know create an enhancement

and essentially the way to think about

enhancements is it's very very similar

to you know an epic or a story depending

on how you like to use them we use them

more equivalent to uh to an epic so you

know let's just see I created Five

issues here I could cluster those all

together

and create one enhancement that you know

is reported up to you and all the

statuses of those child items actually

roll into so you know obviously a very

very powerful thing there so if I look

at all the items that I've touched in

the past few days you'll see this one

called launch the book now one thing to

highlight here is this was automatically

created

so rather than forcing me as a user or

developer to go create an issue and you

know manually track state and Status

that's that's a horrible experience

right and so for Developers for those

people that are working primarily in git

or an sem platform

why not just allow them to create

branches push to GitHub do PR's do their

reviews merge their code push it to CI

CD

and that's one of the very very valuable

things about this GitHub integration so

you know you can see I didn't

manually create this at all the system

automatically created this for me based

upon a new Branch creation

and if I go down here to events

I can see every single thing going on in

here and so this is one of the key

things is when I actually started

development on this

automatically updates the status 2 and

development when someone starts

reviewing this code it automatically

pushes it into the in review stage and

that's that's a key thing when we start

thinking about developer productivity as

well as you know General status

management

a lot of times with traditional

platforms status in the system is

completely out of sync with reality just

because it requires people to manually

go update that status now one of the

benefits here I don't have to update

that status right I just do my work I

focus on my PRS I focus on you know

pushing and promoting things through CI

CD and as it progresses through those

stages it actually updates the status

for me and that is a very very powerful

thing like this has been life-changing

for me personally

so you know just a very short video

today for you on the build capability of

the devra platform obviously a lot of

very exciting uh interesting things

coming stay tuned and we'll talk to you

soon

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