Bring Customer Voice to Software Development | DevRev Build Overview

DevRev
10 Apr 202307:15

Summary

TLDRSteve 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.

Mindmap

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

play00:00

hey everyone Steve poitras here and

play00:02

today we're going to be taking a look at

play00:04

the build capability of the devra

play00:06

platform which enables you to do things

play00:08

like Sprint planning Dynamic issue

play00:11

prioritization based upon actual

play00:13

customer need as well as simplifies

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those pesky status updates through

play00:18

Integrations with services and tools

play00:20

like GitHub so let's go check it out

play00:26

welcome back in today's video what we're

play00:28

going to be doing is walking through the

play00:30

build capability of the devra platform

play00:34

now what you can see here this is our

play00:36

Trails interface and this is really

play00:38

designed to provide visibility in

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regards to your product structure and

play00:42

product hierarchy

play00:43

so I'm going to go ahead and click on

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our devra product

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and as you can see here I have the

play00:50

capabilities of the platform obviously

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we have our Support app would be it

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but I'm going to click on our build app

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here

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and here underneath our build app we

play00:59

have our features obviously you can see

play01:02

trails is underneath this build app but

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if I click on vu

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I can see high level information about

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this right so who the owners are what

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documents are available for this how

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many tickets are on this item how many

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issues are on this you know what are my

play01:17

KB articles my top customers would be it

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and this is a very powerful thing

play01:22

because one of the benefits of the

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devtrip platform is providing that

play01:25

end-to-in visibility from your customer

play01:27

supporting queries all the way to the

play01:29

back end engineering efforts and in the

play01:32

future even potential Revenue

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opportunities and so a very very

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powerful thing at this platform

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now one of the things you may be

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wondering is okay yeah this is great but

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what if I'm already a customer of an

play01:44

existing platform

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and so for that

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not a problem so let me go ahead and

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click on my settings page and I'll go

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down here to Integrations and then

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connections

play01:57

now in here you can see that we already

play01:58

have a pretty good amount of existing

play02:01

connections but let's go ahead and click

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on ADD connection

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now what pops up here is we can now

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select our service right and so

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obviously you know as of today we built

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a lot of Integrations with existing

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tools you know we understand you you do

play02:19

have products not everyone's a

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Greenfield environment and so you know

play02:22

providing that functionality is very

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core to the platform and so if I wanted

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to import from jira or bitbucket I could

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actually do that and that's you know

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something the system natively provides

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there for me

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now obviously we built different for

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devrevs so you know we we do not uh not

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leverage here or anything like that we

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actually run everything on here

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now one of the other things is you know

play02:47

specifically for build

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how do I track and manage all my

play02:52

development efforts right and so this is

play02:54

actual real live development you know

play02:57

status that's going on for the evolution

play03:01

of our platform

play03:02

now rather than show you everyone else's

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issues I'm going to go ahead and look at

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my own issues here

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and so you know the way that we kind of

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break this down is two things

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we need to keep things simple so from a

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work point of view we break things into

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really Three core categories one now

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which is what are the things that I'm

play03:25

actively working on or doing in this

play03:27

current Sprint

play03:29

next or what are the things that I'm

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doing and have planned for the next

play03:32

print

play03:34

and later what are the things that I'm

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going to get to you down the line so

play03:38

essentially more equivalent to a backlog

play03:42

one of the things that you briefly saw

play03:43

there was we introduced a new feature

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called smart grouping otherwise known as

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clustering so what we're going to do is

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we're going to go ahead and turn that on

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here

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one of the things you can see here is

play04:01

they cluster these items into common

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themes

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so I've been doing some work on updating

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our fastly certs

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some work on client session

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compliance some of our Opa stuff but

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that's a really nice thing so if I click

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on like let's just say Deborah of

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archetype refactor

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

play04:27

doing on this right if I wanted to

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modify these items all at once I can

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select those and then you know change

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the owner I can change the priority or I

play04:36

can also you know create an enhancement

play04:38

and essentially the way to think about

play04:39

enhancements is it's very very similar

play04:42

to you know an epic or a story depending

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on how you like to use them we use them

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more equivalent to uh to an epic so you

play04:51

know let's just see I created Five

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issues here I could cluster those all

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together

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and create one enhancement that you know

play04:58

is reported up to you and all the

play05:00

statuses of those child items actually

play05:03

roll into so you know obviously a very

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very powerful thing there so if I look

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at all the items that I've touched in

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the past few days you'll see this one

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called launch the book now one thing to

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highlight here is this was automatically

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created

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so rather than forcing me as a user or

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developer to go create an issue and you

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know manually track state and Status

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that's that's a horrible experience

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right and so for Developers for those

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people that are working primarily in git

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or an sem platform

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why not just allow them to create

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branches push to GitHub do PR's do their

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reviews merge their code push it to CI

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CD

play05:43

and that's one of the very very valuable

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things about this GitHub integration so

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you know you can see I didn't

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manually create this at all the system

play05:52

automatically created this for me based

play05:54

upon a new Branch creation

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and if I go down here to events

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I can see every single thing going on in

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here and so this is one of the key

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things is when I actually started

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development on this

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automatically updates the status 2 and

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development when someone starts

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reviewing this code it automatically

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pushes it into the in review stage and

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

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thinking about developer productivity as

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well as you know General status

play06:25

management

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a lot of times with traditional

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platforms status in the system is

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completely out of sync with reality just

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because it requires people to manually

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go update that status now one of the

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benefits here I don't have to update

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that status right I just do my work I

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focus on my PRS I focus on you know

play06:45

pushing and promoting things through CI

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CD and as it progresses through those

play06:50

stages it actually updates the status

play06:52

for me and that is a very very powerful

play06:55

thing like this has been life-changing

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for me personally

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so you know just a very short video

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today for you on the build capability of

play07:04

the devra platform obviously a lot of

play07:06

very exciting uh interesting things

play07:08

coming stay tuned and we'll talk to you

play07:10

soon

play07:13

foreign

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Related Tags
Devra PlatformSprint PlanningIssue PrioritizationCustomer NeedsStatus UpdatesGitHub IntegrationProduct HierarchyDevelopment TrackingSmart GroupingAutomationDeveloper Productivity