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One hint: A DevOps Platform can help!","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749668486/Blog/Hero%20Images/why-you-should-join-the-gitlab-security-team.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/6-tips-to-make-software-developer-hiring-easier","https://about.gitlab.com","article","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"6 tips to make software developer hiring easier\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Valerie Silverthorne\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2021-11-09\",\n      }",{"title":662,"description":663,"authors":670,"heroImage":664,"date":672,"body":673,"category":674,"tags":675},[671],"Valerie Silverthorne","2021-11-09","\nMastering software developer hiring has never been more critical – or more difficult.\n\nIn fact, it’s almost the perfect storm: There’s a global and growing shortage of developers; voluntary job turnover rates in the US are 25% (almost double what they were three years ago); and demand for skilled engineers is expected to outstrip supply by 1.2 million in three years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. \n\nAt the same time, what developers want, or will settle for, has changed, perhaps at least partially driven by the pandemic. Developers want meaningful challenges, a flexible work-life balance, tools and processes that don’t slow them down, and, increasingly, the option to work completely remotely.\n\nSo what can you do to keep your developers from leaving and make software developer hiring easier? Here’s our best advice:\n\n* Understand the developer mentality. “Of all the tech roles, developers are the most fickle,” says GitLab’s staff developer evangelist [Brendan O’Leary](/company/team/#brendan), who, with nearly 20 years experience as a developer, is in a very good position to know. “They don’t want to put up with a lot and tend to have strong opinions.” \n\n* Stop measuring. It is possible to tie developer productivity to results, and not a mandatory 40-hour work week. How do we know this? Because that’s how GitLab operates, by [measuring results and not hours spent](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#results). “Companies need to stop measuring knowledge workers, like developers, by the hours they spend,” O'Leary says. “That’s the worst thing you could do.” Instead, build a culture that values paid time-off, family leave, and other work-life balance efforts because those will resonate with developers, he stresses. \n\n* Up your tool game. The [science has spoken](/blog/why-software-developer-job-satisfaction-matters-and-how-to-make-it-happen/) and developers drowning in information overload aren’t as productive, which ties directly into job satisfaction and happiness. In our [2021 Global DevSecOps Survey](/developer-survey/), we heard a lot about tool chains with between five and 15 tools on them, and often there wasn’t just one tool chain in play, but several. That’s a lot of noise. A [DevOps platform](/solutions/devops-platform/) streamlines code development, testing, deployment, and monitoring and definitely improves a company’s ability to successfully do DevOps. When we asked respondents to tell us in their own words about the benefits of a DevOps platform, this comment summed it up:  “Reduced mean time to recovery (MTTR), quicker time to market, reduced lead time for fixes, and fewer change failures.” \n\n* Embrace flexible work. Nearly two years into a global pandemic, the time is right for companies to be deliberate about their choices. Developers are going to choose employers who have thought through all the options, whether it’s fully remote, remote with flexibility, or other combinations. But they’re not going to settle for companies trying to patchwork it without a solid plan. “Not every company is losing developers,” O'Leary says. “Developers are going to the places that understand the flexibility in life that can come from remote, while also not sacrificing any productivity.”\n\n* Don’t forget “concrete” perks. Free soda and “bring your dog to work” days probably aren’t enough to make developers consider your team, or decide to stay long term. Focus on what matters: time for volunteer or side projects, a collaborative culture, and demonstrable recognition of success. We offer [discretionary bonuses](/handbook/incentives/#discretionary-bonuses). Some companies send handwritten notes from senior leadership, while others meet monthly for group celebrations. Whatever you do, just make it sure it’s authentic.\n\n* Assess the skills gap. You’ve got unfilled roles and DevOps team members itching for a change. Why not marry the two?  West Monroe, a Chicago-based technology consulting firm, found 56% of managers surveyed rated their organization’s skills gap [as moderate to severe](https://www.westmonroe.com/perspectives/signature-research/the-upskilling-crisis-effectively-enabling-and-retraining-employees-for-the-future?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=upskilling&utm_content=!acq!v3!118035700243_kwd-333379491008__501805835687_g_c__&utm_campaign=Search%3A+Prospecting%3A+BA%3A+Priority+Content%3A+Gated%3A+Tier+3_BBM&atrkid=V3ADWED098667_118035700243_kwd-333379491008__501805835687_g_c___&gclid=CjwKCAjw7--KBhAMEiwAxfpkWF1Xg74_9zydAzfcJLt0t90OMh7MYsyV3yOfwK4bJWt-OBX1BzW2mRoClv4QAvD_BwE). And a survey from the McKinsey Quarterly discovered 53% of executive respondents felt [reskilling](https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-accelerate/our-insights/five-fifty-the-skillful-corporation?cid=fivefifty-eml-alt-mkq-mck&hlkid=a7a8ae1b68574d02b81db1f1eeb8fd8d&hctky=12428831&hdpid=8233aa33-5ff4-4450-a4c7-2f47dfeaf9d0) was the best solution to the skills gap. So stand out from the crowd and offer solid learning paths to employees, as well as tuition reimbursement. At the very least, offer your DevOps team time for [DIY learning](/blog/best-advice-for-your-devops-career-keep-on-learning/), as needed. Also consider [job swapping](https://www.managersorbit.com/job-swapping-benefits/), which can be a great way to expose employees to new career opportunities.\n \n_Sharon Gaudin contributed to this blog post._\n\n\n## Read more on DevOps careers: \t\t\n\n- [Best advice for your DevOps career? Keep on learning](/blog/best-advice-for-your-devops-career-keep-on-learning/)\n\n- [Four tips to increase your DevOps salary](/blog/four-tips-to-increase-your-devops-salary/)\n\n- [DevOps salaries in 2021: Where do you rank?](/blog/a-look-at-devops-salaries/)\n\n- [Have DevOps jobs to fill? Try these 3 strategies to hire and retain](/blog/have-devops-jobs-to-fill-try-these-3-strategies-to-hire-and-retain/)\n\n\n\n","devsecops",[676,677,9],"careers","DevOps",{"slug":679,"featured":6,"template":680},"6-tips-to-make-software-developer-hiring-easier","BlogPost","content:en-us:blog:6-tips-to-make-software-developer-hiring-easier.yml","6 Tips To Make Software Developer Hiring Easier","en-us/blog/6-tips-to-make-software-developer-hiring-easier.yml","en-us/blog/6-tips-to-make-software-developer-hiring-easier",{"_path":686,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":687,"content":693,"config":702,"_id":704,"_type":13,"title":705,"_source":15,"_file":706,"_stem":707,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/achieve-devsecops-collaboration",{"title":688,"description":689,"ogTitle":688,"ogDescription":689,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":690,"ogUrl":691,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":691,"schema":692},"DevSecOps basics: 5 cross-functional team collaboration goals","Team work makes the (DevSecOps) dream work. Here's what you need to know about collaboration.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749663594/Blog/Hero%20Images/devsecops-cross-collaboration.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/achieve-devsecops-collaboration","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"DevSecOps basics: 5 cross-functional team collaboration goals\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Vanessa Wegner\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-07-01\",\n      }",{"title":688,"description":689,"authors":694,"heroImage":690,"date":696,"body":697,"category":698,"tags":699},[695],"Vanessa Wegner","2020-07-01","\n_This is the second in a five-part series on getting started with [DevSecOps](/solutions/security-compliance/). Part one gives you nine ways to [shift security left](/blog/efficient-devsecops-nine-tips-shift-left/). Part three offers concrete steps to add [automated security testing](/blog/devsecops-security-automation/) into the mix. And part four explains how to [build a strong security culture](/blog/security-culture-devsecops/) to support your DevSecOps efforts._\n\nCross-functional collaboration seems like a dry buzzword, but I promise you it’s way better than it sounds. After all, [DevOps](/topics/devops/) is cross-functional collaboration. DevSecOps is too. [In GitLab’s 2020 DevSecOps Survey](/developer-survey/), respondents had a plethora of strong reasons to do DevOps, including code quality, faster time to market, and _happier developers_.  But if there are rifts in communication and collaboration, any joint Dev, Sec, or Ops effort will all be for naught. \n\n[Collaboration](/blog/future-merge-requests-realtime-collab/) is a core principle of DevOps but it is even more critical when bringing a third element – security – into the mix. Team members should feel comfortable reaching out across functions, asking questions, and sharing (non-sensitive) information. DevSecOps brings a special meaning to collaboration because of the shift in roles and responsibilities introduced by new security efforts. [Shifting your security practices left](/blog/efficient-devsecops-nine-tips-shift-left/) will require some heavy lifting to truly get your DevSecOps practices off the ground.\n\n## Leading by example\n\nTo begin, leaders from each functional team need to gain a mutual understanding of the other teams’ functions, roadblocks, and goals. Then they should discuss how security will be integrated into dev and ops – both how the lifecycle will flow, and how employees will be onboarded to any new processes. The results of that discussion should be shared across the entire organization to put everyone on the same page. \n\nOrganizational heads will need to set an example for their teams. Employees should understand the collaborative work that is being done at the top, and how their own work is part of that effort. Additional expectations should also be communicated. These, as outlined below, should foster a collaborative environment that requires communication and reliability across teams. \n\n### Cross-functional team goals\n\nIt’s important to start with cross-functional team goals. These can be broad (like \"deliver a secure and stable product at every release\"), or specific (\"add extensive identity verification features while ensuring compliance with GDPR\"). Regardless of what the goal is, it should be made clear that employees across all functions are working together to achieve the same thing – and the cross-functional team will be evaluated as a whole. \n\n### Peer teaching and peer learning\n\nWhen security employees understand the function and goals of Dev and Ops, they’ll be able to give better guidance and instruction on how each role can produce secure work. On the other hand, when Dev and Ops understand the function and goals of security, they’ll find it more logical to incorporate new security practices into their day-to-day work. This way, employees will understand how their goals align with and benefit each other. Employees should be encouraged to help one another learn – and certainly should be encouraged to learn from each other with open minds. \n\n### Centralized information sharing\n\nFor the best possible [DevSecOps](/solutions/security-compliance/) experience, information needs to live and be shared in a central location – preferably [a single platform for the entire DevOps lifecycle](/stages-devops-lifecycle/). Ideally, the entire project team has access to all the information they need, all in the same place. This minimizes context-switching and reduces the likelihood of information getting lost or missed by team members. Keeping change logs, test and scan results, code reviews and other metrics colocated means everyone knows where to find the information they need to get their job done efficiently.  \n\n## DevSecOps: Five collaboration goals\n\nWhat does it look like to have strong collaboration across your teams? Qualitative principles are slightly harder to quantify than things like vulnerabilities, but there are plenty of ways to build your team's collaborative muscles and measure their strength:\n\n1. Project planning is a joint effort between Dev, Sec, and Ops. \n1. Employees have access and actively contribute to a single datastore with reporting and visibility across the DevSecOps lifecycle.\n1. Vulnerability management, reporting, and remediation will cost less and happen more quickly than before you began your DevSecOps efforts.\n1. Tools have been consolidated so that development and security can collaborate within the same interface. \n1. Project delays are rarely caused by lack of communication or information sharing. \n\n_How efficient are your DevSecOps practices? [Take our DevSecOps Maturity Assessment to find out.](https://about.gitlab.com/resources/devsecops-methodology-assessment/)_\n\n**Read more about DevSecOps:**\n\n[How CI can get you to DevSecOps faster](/blog/solve-devsecops-challenges-with-gitlab-ci-cd/)\n\n[Why security as code is important](/blog/how-to-security-as-code/)\n\n[How to integrate security into DevOps](/blog/how-to-security-as-code/)\n\nCover image by [Charlie Egan](https://unsplash.com/@charlieegan3) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/qOR762W7OvA)\n{: .note}\n","insights",[9,700,677,701],"collaboration","security",{"slug":703,"featured":6,"template":680},"achieve-devsecops-collaboration","content:en-us:blog:achieve-devsecops-collaboration.yml","Achieve Devsecops Collaboration","en-us/blog/achieve-devsecops-collaboration.yml","en-us/blog/achieve-devsecops-collaboration",{"_path":709,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":710,"content":716,"config":724,"_id":726,"_type":13,"title":727,"_source":15,"_file":728,"_stem":729,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/adopt-agile-and-devops-for-ibm-z",{"title":711,"description":712,"ogTitle":711,"ogDescription":712,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":713,"ogUrl":714,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":714,"schema":715},"The benefits of DevOps practices for IBM Z","GitLab aims to provide a unified enterprise-wide DevOps platform with enhanced support for IBM Z. Here are three areas that can start to align DevOps and mainframe development.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749666262/Blog/Hero%20Images/default-blog-image.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/adopt-agile-and-devops-for-ibm-z","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"The benefits of DevOps practices for IBM Z\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Vick Kelkar\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2021-09-10\",\n      }",{"title":711,"description":712,"authors":717,"heroImage":713,"date":719,"body":720,"category":721,"tags":722},[718],"Vick Kelkar","2021-09-10","\n\nAs more organizations adopt open source software, [DevOps](/topics/devops/) and cloud computing, teams are moving towards a hybrid approach to application development and deployments. This is a particular challenge for siloed mainframe development teams that typically work within their own development tools – and those tools are are not the same ones used by their distributed developer counterparts. These disparate toolsets are not integrated between build, package, test, and deploy steps. GitLab aims to provide a [unified enterprise-wide DevOps platform](/solutions/devops-platform/) with enhanced support for IBM z/OS® applications. Here are three critical areas to focus on that can help bridge the gap between mainframe and \"modern\" DevOps development.\n\n## Common workflows for hybrid environments\n\nDevOps is naturally aligned to Agile processes with its focus on continuous improvements, freqent releases and adherence to business objectives. As organizations adopt a hybrid infrastructure to meet their needs, it becomes extremely important to have a common workflow (and tools!) for continuous software development. The development workflow should be the same whether you are building a [cloud native](/topics/cloud-native/) container application for Red Hat OpenShift or whether you are refactoring COBOL applications on IBM Z. Ideally, in both scenarios, the same source code management, along with Git commit and merge-request workflows should be used, regardless of the type of application code or where it is deployed. The advantage of using the same software development lifecycle methodology and tools allows an organization to drive an enterprise-wide DevOps strategy.  Additionally, this helps organizations to attract mainframe developers, allowing them to move between mainframe and cloud-based application development projects,  enhancing developer job satisfaction, growth and retention.\n\n## Security and compliance vs speed\n\nIn an enterprise-wide mission critical application where security and compliance are paramount, a deployment cadence of once a quarter is considered satisfactory, but in a consumer-facing containerized application (using [microservices](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/microservices/)), multiple deployments can be easily achieved in a single day. Release speeds can differ but software security isn't negotiable. Every organization needs to ensure security by making sure best practices are followed for all application development processes. Ultimately, the ideal situation for every organization would be shortened development cycle times, while at the same time enabling developers to identify any security issues ahead of time. Rather than integrating security tools into the complex DevOps toolchain, a single application for the entire software development lifecycle can improve your security risk posture, simplify compliance/audit, and accelerate software development.  With [DevSecOps methodologies](/solutions/security-compliance/), security testing becomes an integral part of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) eliminating friction between siloed development and security teams, and dramatically improving code quality and deployment cycle times.\n\n## Increase collaboration and automation\n\nDevOps practices and elastic cloud computing resources helpdevelopers become more self-sufficient as they deploy their applications at scale. They can request identical compute resources on every new release of their application. Automating the deployment steps through a CI/CD pipeline makes rolling out the new version of an application more efficient and less prone to errors. While [CI/CD tooling](/topics/ci-cd/) increases automation for software inspection, development and delivery, resilient systems like IBM Z or RedHat OpenShift Container Platform have their own built-in automation to address application testing, reliability and availability.\n\nMost organizations have a security team that looks at the risk posture of an application. This can range from high availability of applications for business continuity reasons, to a vulnerability in a software library.  In most cases, the security team is much smaller than the application development teams and uses different tools to analyze risks. This creates an impediment for organizations to scale and applications to scale in production. Using the same workflow and shared data model between security and development teams allows knowledge sharing and helps break down team silos. For example, a Red Hat OpenShift application developer can create a security Issue in their GitLab Ultimate DevOps Platform, and the security team can comment on that same issue and analyze the risk.\n\nCloud computing and its elasticity offers advantages for certain applications and use cases while on-premise systems like IBM Z offer advantages for high transaction applications and use cases. Red Hat Openshift offers a cloud native approach to application deployments. GitLab Ultimate integrates with container platforms as well as IBM Z environments. This gives customers the flexibility to deploy their application in their desired environment while helping increase automation and Agile practices in their organization.\n\nTo learn more\n\n* Visit[ GitLab Ultimate for IBM z/OS](https://www.ibm.com/products/gitlab-ultimate/zos)\n* Hear GitLab and IBM experts discuss the benefits of integrating GitLab into your DevOps solution -[Automate your Z DevOps CI/CD pipeline with GitLab](https://mediacenter.ibm.com/id/1_djnxx05v)\n* Learn about the management of mainframe apps lifecycle with[IBM Z DevOps and GitLab](https://mediacenter.ibm.com/id/1_oxj8eseu).\n* Take advantage of the[DevOps Acceleration Program](https://ibm.github.io/mainframe-downloads/DevOps_Acceleration_Program/devops-acceleration-program.html) to partner with IBM for a successful transformation\n","culture",[9,700,723],"workflow",{"slug":725,"featured":6,"template":680},"adopt-agile-and-devops-for-ibm-z","content:en-us:blog:adopt-agile-and-devops-for-ibm-z.yml","Adopt Agile And Devops For Ibm Z","en-us/blog/adopt-agile-and-devops-for-ibm-z.yml","en-us/blog/adopt-agile-and-devops-for-ibm-z",{"_path":731,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":732,"content":738,"config":744,"_id":746,"_type":13,"title":747,"_source":15,"_file":748,"_stem":749,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/agile-best-practices",{"title":733,"description":734,"ogTitle":733,"ogDescription":734,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":735,"ogUrl":736,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":736,"schema":737},"5 Agile best practices","Make the most out of Agile development with these technical best practices.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749678597/Blog/Hero%20Images/run-agile-in-gitlab.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/agile-best-practices","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"5 Agile best practices\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Suri Patel\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-08-13\",\n      }",{"title":733,"description":734,"authors":739,"heroImage":735,"date":741,"body":742,"category":698,"tags":743},[740],"Suri Patel","2019-08-13","\n\n[Agile development](/solutions/agile-delivery/) can have\na transformative impact on teams and applications. These five best practices can\nhelp your team streamline and accelerate delivery.\n\n## 1. Continuous integration\n\n[Continuous integration](/features/continuous-integration/) works by pushing small code chunks\nto an application’s codebase hosted in a Git repository. Every push triggers a pipeline of scripts to build,\ntest, and validate code changes before merging them into the main branch. By\nbuilding and testing each change as early as possible – usually several times a\nday – teams can detect errors as quickly as possible, reduce integration problems,\nand avoid compounding problems, allowing teams to develop faster, with more confidence.\n\n## 2. Retrospectives\n\n[Retrospectives](/blog/how-we-used-gitlab-to-automate-our-monthly-retrospectives/) are conversations about what went well and what went wrong in a\nproject or iteration. One of the most important Agile qualities is continuous\nlearning, and retros provide a transparent way to discuss how various teams\nexperienced a sprint and voice any concerns or ideas.\n\n> “A successful team is a happy team. Bringing down cycle time can help a team be more\nsuccessful because they are shipping value more often, but your team might have more\nimportant things that must be addressed first. Using retrospectives will help you figure\nout what success means to your team, and what needs to be done to achieve\nthat success.” – [Rachel Nienaber](/company/team/#rnienaber), engineering manager, Geo\n\nTo generate the best results from a retrospective, there should be\n[a safe environment for feedback and discussion and a plan for advancing discussion\nfrom facts to\nconclusions](/handbook/engineering/management/group-retrospectives/).\n\n## 3. Pairing\n\nPairing sessions can help team members work through features both large and small,\ninspiring problem-solving and ideation. When pairing, one team member writes code\nwhile the other reviews each line. Pairing results in fewer bugs, increased innovation,\nand skills development. Team members can learn from each other and discover best\npractices. Team members can spontaneously pair or managers can set up a more\n[formal pairing session process](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/support/support-training/issues?label_name%5B%5D=pairing) 🍐\n\n## 4. Iterative development\n\nWhen teams iterate with small changes, they can\n[reduce cycle time](/blog/strategies-to-reduce-cycle-times/) and spark rapid feedback cycles.\nBy making the quickest changes possible to improve a user's outcome, teams can add\nuseful functionality with fewer bugs or usability issues since potential problems\nare spotted early. Other benefits of iterative development include faster time to\nmarket, reduced scope creep, and increased morale (i.e. team members can see their\nwork right away rather than wait several releases).\n\n## 5. Burndown charts\n\nIf your team uses a Scrum framework, consider using [burndown charts](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/burndown_and_burnup_charts.html) to monitor\nsprint progress. Teams can visualize the work scoped in the current sprint to\nunderstand what work has been completed, allowing them to react to risks quickly\nand adapt. This information can help business stakeholders understand that anticipated\nfeatures may be delayed until a future sprint.\n\nEmploying Agile best practices will have a significant positive impact on efficiently\ncreating customer-centric products.\n\nDo you have any best practices that have transformed your team’s development process? We’d love to hear them!\n\nCover image by [Mikael Kristenson](https://unsplash.com/@mikael_k?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/6GjHwABuci4)\n{: .note}\n",[9,700,677,723],{"slug":745,"featured":6,"template":680},"agile-best-practices","content:en-us:blog:agile-best-practices.yml","Agile Best Practices","en-us/blog/agile-best-practices.yml","en-us/blog/agile-best-practices",{"_path":751,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":752,"content":758,"config":763,"_id":765,"_type":13,"title":766,"_source":15,"_file":767,"_stem":768,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/agile-for-developers-refactor-code",{"title":753,"description":754,"ogTitle":753,"ogDescription":754,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":755,"ogUrl":756,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":756,"schema":757},"Agile for developers: Refactoring code","The time commitment involved in refactoring may cause hesitation, but the impact on developer productivity and efficiency outweighs the initial discomfort.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749680945/Blog/Hero%20Images/refactorpost.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/agile-for-developers-refactor-code","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Agile for developers: Refactoring code\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Suri Patel\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-12-18\",\n      }",{"title":753,"description":754,"authors":759,"heroImage":755,"date":760,"body":761,"category":298,"tags":762},[740],"2019-12-18","\n\nIt’s difficult to cook in a cluttered, untidy kitchen. You need a specific knife, but it needs to be washed. You need that one mixing bowl, but it’s not in the cabinet where you usually keep it. You can’t find a place for the cutting board, because the countertop has no room. Software development is similar to cooking - you need a tidy codebase to deliver rapidly. If you don’t clean your code as you develop, you can find yourself surrounded by a mess. Fortunately, refactoring code helps you keep your [source code](/solutions/source-code-management/) neat and tidy.\n\n## Refactor code to accelerate Agile delivery\n\nRefactoring simplifies the design of code, without altering its behavior, to increase maintainability and readability. Teams refactor code before adding updates or releasing features in an effort to improve code quality so that future iterations built on original code are not bogged down by confusion and clutter. As such, this process helps to [accelerate Agile delivery](/solutions/agile-delivery/).\n\n>  “None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes.” — Thomas Edison\n\nRefactoring isn’t a random exercise in which developers tinker with code. It’s a precise process designed to enhance the internal structure of a program’s source code. While it may seem like a tedious task, refactoring has long-term business value.  \n\n## How to get started with refactoring\n\nStaring at unrefactored code trying to determine where to start can be a frightening experience. Fortunately, there are a few methods you can use to make refactoring a little easier. \n\n### Incremental refactoring\n\nThe simplest way to get started is to make small improvements. Make a list of the parts of your system that change most often and refactor those areas. Making incremental improvements on the files that your team works with most often can help you steadily work through your code. By targeting the areas that are used most often, refactoring can have a significant impact on your overall system.\n\n### Test-driven development\n\nYou can think of test-driven development as cleaning as you’re coding. If you’d like to revolutionize the way your team develops and make refactoring an integrated aspect of your workflow, you can embrace test-driven development, which incorporates coding, unit tests, and refactoring to program in short development cycles. Developers write a failing automated test to define a new function before writing the smallest amount of code to pass the test. The code is then refactored to an ideal state.\n\n## The benefits of refactoring code\n\nRefactoring prevents code rot, such as bad dependencies between classes, myriad patches, incorrect allocation of class responsibilities, and duplicate code, resulting in a more efficient code base. The time taken to refactor pays dividends, since it’s easier to clean code closer to when it was written rather than rush to fix problems later.\n\nThe time commitment involved in refactoring may cause hesitation, but the impact on developer productivity and efficiency outweighs the initial discomfort. When developers take the time to refactor, they continually maintain a tidy source code so that other developers can easily deliver without running into problems. Refactoring helps create a culture of shared responsibility, trust, and collaboration.\n\nWith refactoring, the QA and debugging stages are simpler, since there is more cohesion to the overall code. Furthermore, software assets can be extended for years, allowing users to experience prolonged value rather than dealing with an unusable system. \n\n## What’s next for your team?\n\nAgile techniques have the power to transform your team’s culture, sparking seamless delivery, innovation, and collaboration. Depending on your team’s challenges, there’s a technique to help your team through it. With [pairing sessions](/blog/agile-pairing-sessions/), your developers can bridge knowledge gaps, increase communication, and develop solutions to challenging problems. By [strengthening group development](/blog/how-to-strengthen-agile-teams-with-tuckmans-model/), you can help your team rebuild after breaking down silos. When your team [embraces an Agile mindset](/blog/agile-mindset/), they’re more flexible and can easily adapt to changes. Refactoring is one step in a journey to help your team cultivate a strong Agile culture. \n\nCover image by [Barn Images](https://unsplash.com/@barnimages?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/t5YUoHW6zRo)\n{: .note}\n",[9,700,723],{"slug":764,"featured":6,"template":680},"agile-for-developers-refactor-code","content:en-us:blog:agile-for-developers-refactor-code.yml","Agile For Developers Refactor Code","en-us/blog/agile-for-developers-refactor-code.yml","en-us/blog/agile-for-developers-refactor-code",{"_path":770,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":771,"content":777,"config":785,"_id":787,"_type":13,"title":788,"_source":15,"_file":789,"_stem":790,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/agile-for-remote-work",{"title":772,"description":773,"ogTitle":772,"ogDescription":773,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":774,"ogUrl":775,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":775,"schema":776},"How async and all-remote make Agile simpler","Engineers at GitLab and IssueTrak share their tips on adopting Agile while working remotely.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749681930/Blog/Hero%20Images/runlanes.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/agile-for-remote-work","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How async and all-remote make Agile simpler\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Sara Kassabian\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2021-03-02\",\n      }",{"title":772,"description":773,"authors":778,"heroImage":774,"date":780,"body":781,"category":721,"tags":782},[779],"Sara Kassabian","2021-03-02","\n\nWhether you have the [Agile manifesto](https://agilemanifesto.org/) memorized or thought agility was a sport for dogs, there are a few core principles that engineers and non-engineering folks can adopt to improve communication, collaboration, and efficiency in their work – whether or not they’re working from the same office.\n\nInterestingly, the first piece of advice GitLab team members shared for engineers (or content developers) using Agile or working remotely is the same: Over-communicate!\n\n\"Provide maximum context in discussions and document the outcomes in the most appropriate location,\" says [Lindsay Kerr](/company/team/#lkerr), frontend engineering manager for Threat Management at GitLab. \"This allows other members of the team to benefit from synchronous conversations while giving stakeholders insight into the progress of the team.\"\n\n## How Agile keeps development lean\n\n[Agile software development](/topics/agile-delivery/) is all about developing solutions through collaboration and iteration, with some of the techniques being stand-ups, sprints, and more. Another key principle of Agile: Making processes more lean.\n\nDuring our annual user conference [GitLab Commit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8BvRMalbkM&list=PLFGfElNsQthYQaTiUPQcu4O0O20WHZksz&index=10), the software company [IssueTrak](https://www.issuetrak.com/) explained how migrating to GitLab helped the company embrace Agile software development. Before, IssueTrak was using five tools to manage their ticketing and repositories and power their [CI/CD pipelines](/features/continuous-integration/), at a substantial monthly cost. After IssueTrak migrated to GitLab, they reduced their monthly costs by 80% and simplified their toolchain by adopting GitLab for all their software development needs. You can [read more about their experience below](#how-two-teams-use-sprints-with-gitlab).\n\n### Why all-remote and Agile pair well together\n\nGitLab has embraced the principles of Agile software development in two key ways. The first way we've built agility and efficiency into our culture is by embracing all-remote, asynchronous work. By working remotely, team members can work when they want and in places and spaces that best suit them. Remote work has become more widely adopted since the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the traditional office, explains [Lauren Barker](/company/team/#laurenbarker), fullstack developer working on the Website.\n\nRemote work is a simple concept to grasp, but asynchronous (async) work is a bit more complicated. At GitLab, working async looks like optional meetings with detailed agendas and Slack channels are busy but without the pressure of an immediate reply. Zoom meetings are recorded and posted on the [GitLab Unfiltered channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMtZ0sc1HHNtGGWZFDRTh5A), which supports our commitment to transparency and breaks down silos by improving communication across teams.\n\n\"Working asynchronously enables an individual to contribute when they’re 'on',\" says Lauren. \"Sometimes you’re feeling super productive and motivated on a certain project at 2 AM, not during normal business hours such as 9-5.\"\n\nThe core of effective async, all-remote, and Agile workflows is documentation. By clearly defining project scope and needs in writing, processes are easy to follow and replicable for all users. At GitLab, perhaps the most important rule of all is our [handbook-first principle](/company/culture/all-remote/handbook-first-documentation/), which states that our handbook is the single source of truth in the organization and challenges team members to document everything. [Tyler Williams](/company/team/#tywilliams), website fullstack developer at GitLab, discussed the value he’s derived from the handbook-first mentality at a [recent Inbound Marketing team meeting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhsdwlqvuN4&list=PL05JrBw4t0KrurHzoPhov77x3_P26Ncz1) and said that handbook-first coupled with async work is what powers Agile for him.\n\n## Insights on remote team building with Agile\n\nTyler and Lindsay both acknowledge it can be challenging to build team camraderie remotely when applying Agile principles like stand-ups when you're not in-person.\n\n\"It is easier to implement the human-connectivity pieces of an Agile mindset when you are in person,\" says Tyler. \"It is easier to implement the process-focused pieces of Agile techniques when you are all-remote and asynchronous.\"\n\n\"Distance can remove people from consequences,\" adds Brandon. \"A bad manager could drop a project on you, turn off remote messaging, and go on vacation. I've experienced this at previous workplaces.\"\n\nBut working alongside humans in the same space isn’t always an upside. In-person work can make personality clashes more commonplace, says Lindsay.\n\n### Remembering when Agile was analog\n\nBefore project management tools like Jira and GitLab, scrum teams had to plan sprints manually using things like post-its, index cards, and white boards. While this analog approach to sprint planning can be good for team-building, it was less efficient in the long-run.\n\n\"When I started working on scrum teams in 2008 we actually stood up together in a room during stand-up. We looked at post-it notes (tasks) associated with index cards (stories) when discussing the answers to our three questions (what did I do yesterday, what am I doing today, and what is blocking me),\" says Lindsay.\n\n\"We used an egg-timer to make sure our stand-up didn't go longer than 10 minutes each day. I drew our burndown on paper each day, across every two-week sprint, for the course of a three-month project. We looked each other in the eyes when we gave our answers, watched our teammates move the post-it note from 'to-do' to 'in progress', and celebrated together when a post-it moved to the 'done' column.\"\n\nIt is hard to document progress using the analog approach to sprint planning. When one team member is out sick or on vacation, they lose the historical context of a project as post-its move columns, and meetings happen without thorough notes or recordings.\n\n\"In an office setting, it may be easier to adopt the human-focused mindset, but it is much more challenging to adopt appropriate processes to keep Agile techniques running, and it is a much less enjoyable endeavor to coach people around process,\" says Tyler.\n\n### GitLab is designed for Agile\n\nThe other way we've embraced Agile principles at GitLab: [we've baked many Agile artifacts into different features of our DevOps Platform](/blog/gitlab-for-agile-software-development/) such as issues, labels, milestones, and weights, etc. \"These words seem somewhat abstract but they are all different ways to help you categorize and organize information to help you work agilely,\" explains [Brandon Lyon](/company/team/#brandon_lyon), frontend engineer for Marketing at GitLab.\n\nThese Agile features coupled with robust CI/CD help us keep GitLab lean and allow _our customers_ to continuously deliver software to _their customers_.\n\n\"If the main point of Agile is to continuously deliver working software as value to customers, GitLab enables teams to be Agile because it has the best CI/CD tools I've ever used, and they're integrated directly in my day-to-day task management workflow,\" says Tyler.\n\n## How two teams use sprints with GitLab\n\nIn their GitLab Commit presentation, IssueTrak team members Lisa Cockrell, director of development, and Jordan Upperman, fullstack developer, said that they created two custom issue boards using GitLab, one of which is the \"Ready for Sprint\" column and board. Sprint planning meetings are much shorter now because the team can just look at the \"Ready for Sprint\" board to identify which issues are ready to enter the development process.\n\n\"Our use of these two Kanban boards allows us to pivot with ease when necessary. As bugs are found during testing it's easy for us to quickly weigh the new ticket, remove an item with equal weight, and send it back to the top of the 'Ready for Sprint' column,\" says Lisa. She explains that this process prevents scope creep and helps stakeholders remember that when work is added to the sprint, something else must come out. Watch the entire presentation to learn more about how IssueTrak uses GitLab tools for Agile development:\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/t8BvRMalbkM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\nBrandon, Tyler, and Lauren all work on the [Digital Experience team at GitLab](/handbook/marketing/digital-experience/), which is responsible for our marketing website. In the spirit of iteration and efficiency (two of our values at GitLab), the team is in the process of updating the way they conduct sprints. Tyler [opened an MR to facilitate the discussion](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_requests/74534) – share your tips for sprints by commenting on the MR or suggesting a change.\n\nWe are constantly looking for new strategies to communicate and engineer with clarity and efficiency. If you have any suggestions for how to better embrace Agile, async, and all-remote work, let us know in the comments or tweet at us @GitLab. If you are still new to this topic, our advice is to try and go with the flow, and leave your expectations at the door.\n\n\"If you keep in mind that Agile is a flexible, human-focused approach to knowledge work and delivering value to customers, the rest will fall in place,\" says Tyler. \"Take strong opinions with a grain of salt, and give yourself room to make mistakes and remember that [it's impossible to know everything](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#its-impossible-to-know-everything).\"\n",[9,783,784],"remote work","inside GitLab",{"slug":786,"featured":6,"template":680},"agile-for-remote-work","content:en-us:blog:agile-for-remote-work.yml","Agile For Remote Work","en-us/blog/agile-for-remote-work.yml","en-us/blog/agile-for-remote-work",{"_path":792,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":793,"content":799,"config":804,"_id":806,"_type":13,"title":807,"_source":15,"_file":808,"_stem":809,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/agile-mindset",{"title":794,"description":795,"ogTitle":794,"ogDescription":795,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":796,"ogUrl":797,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":797,"schema":798},"What is an Agile mindset?","Learn how embracing change can help you speed up software delivery.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749680634/Blog/Hero%20Images/agilemind.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/agile-mindset","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"What is an Agile mindset?\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Suri Patel\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-06-13\",\n      }",{"title":794,"description":795,"authors":800,"heroImage":796,"date":801,"body":802,"category":698,"tags":803},[740],"2019-06-13","\n\n\nEnsuring [Agile](/solutions/agile-delivery/) teams use the most [effective strategies](/solutions/agile-delivery/) to reduce cycle time is a\npriority for IT leaders, but what good is a menagerie of techniques if a team’s\napproach to software development doesn’t spark innovation? When it comes to\nbuilding the foundation for accelerating delivery, IT leaders have been incorrectly\nplacing emphasis on collecting tools rather than developing an Agile mindset.\n\n> “The core of Agile is recognizing that we need to get to and maintain an Agile mindset. **If I have an organization with an Agile mindset, and really rock-solid product management, Agile processes and tools will evolve out of that. If you have the Agile mindset and an awesome connection with your customers and are solving their problems, things will evolve in the right way.** You won’t even realize you’re being Agile. It’s just good business.” — [Todd Little](https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2016/06/07/the-key-missing-ingredient-in-the-agile-manifesto-mindset/#4fa5917467ff), CEO Lean Kanban\n\nThere are many definitions of an Agile mindset, but the general consensus is that it:\n\n* Views setbacks as learning opportunities\n* Embraces iteration, collaboration, and change\n* Focuses on delivering value\n\n## Agile mindset characteristics\n\nThere’s no definitive list of what makes up an Agile mindset, but with the\nintention of getting you started, here are a few of the most widely accepted\ncharacteristics. Based on your team’s dynamics, your organization’s culture, and\nyour goals, you may adopt other attributes to help your team accelerate delivery.\n\n### Setbacks are learning opportunities\n\nEmpower your team to experiment and be creative so that rather than view a setback\nas a failure, they’ll see it as an opportunity to learn and grow. When your team\nhas the freedom to be innovative – without fear – they’re more likely to solve\nproblems and add to the knowledge base of what works and what doesn’t.\nTaking risks shouldn’t be a rebellious endeavor — it should be your team’s norm.\n\n### Agile values and principles: Iteration, collaboration, and change\n\n**Iteration**: Instill the belief that there’s always room for improvement and\nthat anyone can propose a change or idea. At GitLab, we believe\n[everyone can contribute](/company/mission/#mission) and that [iteration is the fastest\nway to feedback](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#iteration), helping us course correct and\ncreate new features.\n\n**Collaboration**: Finding ways to improve and increase cross-collaboration\nenables frictionless handoffs, helps relieve the burden on teams, and facilitates\na culture of trust and communication. Whether you develop new workflows or use\ndifferent tools, keep an eye out for silos which can work against collaboration.\n\n**Change**: Agile methodology is founded on the ability to adapt to\nunpredictability. If your customers or organization want to pivot soon after a\ndirection is set, your team should be able to do just that. Any\nprocesses or roadblocks that prevent your team’s ability to be flexible and\nembrace change should be removed.\n\n### Deliver value\n\nWe can all agree that teams should deliver value both to customers and the\norganization. But where an Agile mindset makes all the difference is shifting the\nemphasis from the output, which focuses only on the items delivered, to the\noutcome, which is how a feature meets a market need. An Agile mindset helps teams\ncreatively think of how a feature can solve a problem rather than feel pressured\nto deliver a set number of items in a month. It’s the whole “quality over quantity” idea.\n\n## Steps to shift to an Agile mindset\n\nChanging your team’s perspective and the way they approach problems is a difficult\nundertaking. You’re challenging their long-held beliefs while requiring them to\ncomplete tasks and meet deadlines. This is an uncomfortable process in any\nenvironment, but especially in the workplace where an (in)ability to quickly\nshift can impact performance and reputation. Fortunately, there are a few\nmethods to help you navigate these difficulties and enable your team to smoothly\nadopt an Agile mindset:\n\n\n1. **Model behavior**: The most effective way to help your team shift to an Agile\nmindset is to exemplify the behaviors you want to see. To create a\n“no-fault, embrace risk” environment, share your setbacks with the team and tell\nthem what you learned. When someone experiments, praise them for trying something\nnew and discuss the biggest lessons learned. By being transparent and showing your\nteam that this new way of thinking is possible, you become their collaborator.\n1. **Storytelling**: Share how other organizations or teams have benefited from\nan Agile mindset. Understanding what others gained from a new way of\nthinking can help your team feel more enthusiastic about the change.\n1. **Take small steps**: After doing more research about an Agile mindset, you\nmight get excited and feel tempted to change things overnight. Take small steps\nand make minor adjustments in the beginning to help your team acclimate.\n\n## What's the impact?\n\nWith an Agile mindset, teams can quickly adjust to changing market needs, respond\nto customer feedback, and deliver business value. Adopting a new perspective can\npositively change a team’s culture, since the shift permits innovation without fear,\ncollaboration with ease, and delivery without roadblocks.\n\nCover image by [Benjamin Voros](https://unsplash.com/@vorosbenisop?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/X4bgpcGBNAY)\n{: .note}\n",[9,700,677,723],{"slug":805,"featured":6,"template":680},"agile-mindset","content:en-us:blog:agile-mindset.yml","Agile Mindset","en-us/blog/agile-mindset.yml","en-us/blog/agile-mindset",{"_path":811,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":812,"content":818,"config":823,"_id":825,"_type":13,"title":826,"_source":15,"_file":827,"_stem":828,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/agile-pairing-sessions",{"title":813,"description":814,"ogTitle":813,"ogDescription":814,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":815,"ogUrl":816,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":816,"schema":817},"Improving pair programming with pairing sessions","Pairing with a teammate can increase delivery. Here we look at what pairing sessions are, what they involve and what they're good for.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749665897/Blog/Hero%20Images/incrementalcodedevelopment.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/agile-pairing-sessions","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Improving pair programming with pairing sessions\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Suri Patel\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-08-20\",\n      }",{"title":813,"description":814,"authors":819,"heroImage":815,"date":820,"body":821,"category":698,"tags":822},[740],"2019-08-20","\nArya and Sansa. Han and Chewbacca. Harry and Ron. When people team up, great things can happen.\n\n## What is pair programming?\n\nPair programming, an Agile approach to software development, involves two programmers working together at the same workstation. One programmer (called the driver) writes code while the other programmer (called the navigator) reviews code in real time. Pairing sessions can accelerate [Agile delivery](/solutions/agile-delivery/), because teammates work together to find the best solutions to several challenges. \n\nRather than working in silos, team members work together to share knowledge and quickly move through obstacles. Sounds good, right? Well, some organizations view pair programming as an inefficient use of time. After all, why should two developers work on the same piece of code when there’s a mountain of technical debt, an impending release, and lingering OKRs around the corner?\n\n## How to get started with pair programming\n\nThe key to any successful paired programming partnership is open communication and creating a plan together so you can avoid bottlenecks during the project process. \n\nHere are a few things you need to consider as a team before beginning any coding work:\n\n* Have a mutual understanding of what “ready” looks like for this project. Consult each other as well as any stakeholder involved, like a product owner, so that everyone is clear on when to give the projects a final green light. \n* Create a step-by-step project plan. Consider how you will trade off coding and reviewing responsibilities, how you want to handle testing, and any other external help you may need to complete the project. \n* Brainstorm as many potential roadblocks as you can think of in this planning process, and try to come up with potential solutions. You can brainstorm together on paper, talk it out, or go off separately and then share thoughts, but this is an important step. Always be prepared!\n* Agree on the technology you want to use. From computers and keyboards to reliable wifi or a whiteboard, make sure you have all of the tools you need.\n\n## Some pair programming best practices\n\nTo achieve the best outcome of your pair programming experience, we recommend you follow these best practices:\n\n* **ABC (Always be communicating).** Regardless of whether you’ve worked well together in the past or you’re a brand new partnership, the importance of communication can’t be overstated. Two individuals are likely to have different thoughts and opinions along the way. To keep the project (and yourselves) from suffering, establish open and frequent communication practices early.\n* **Take turns.** No single person has to be the only one navigating or driving, and you shouldn’t. Take turns in each role as often as you need to make sure your minds and eyes stay fresh and you keep producing quality work.\n* **Take a break.** Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was coding. You and your pair programming partner need to make sure to take breaks so as not to induce burnout. \n* **Get good technology tools.** And remember to click that video on. Oftentimes, pair programming is done remotely. It can help to have an actual facetime conversation, even if it’s virtual, to stay connected and communicative throughout the course of the partnership. \n* **Ask for help.** If there is a part of your project that both of you don’t understand, ask for clarification. Better to ask ahead of project completion than after. \n\n## The case for and against pair programming\n\nThere are benefits and drawbacks to pairing sessions, so a few GitLab team members\nshared their thoughts to help you determine whether pair programming is right for you.\n\n> “I've done pair programming in the past. I love it because it helps to bounce\nideas off people, and I find we often could solve ‘bigger’ problems faster. To me,\nthe downside is measuring/proving that this is a good method of programming since\nmany people see this as inefficient (two people working on the same problem).” –\n[Cynthia Ng](/company/team/#TheRealArty), senior support agent\n\nToday’s developer feels the pressure of delivering at rapid speeds. Sometimes, a\nchallenge is just too complex for one person to solve, and pairing sessions can\nhelp alleviate the difficulties experienced when racing towards a release while\ncarrying a burdensome issue. Talking through solutions and drawing on each other’s\nexperiences can help a pair work towards a new approach.\n\nMeasuring the effectiveness of pairing sessions might be difficult, but there are ways to\nevaluate success. Considering failures in functionality, the number of\nbugs, and improvements in productivity can help teams determine whether pairing\nmakes a difference with delivery.\n\n### The role of engagement and continuous learning in delivery\n\nIT leaders may be reluctant to embrace pairing, since two developers dedicate\ntheir time to a single problem, but it’s important to note researchers have\nfound that\n[90% of new skills learned are lost due to lack of\nengagement](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204425904578072950518558328),\nand in an Agile framework, a culture of continuous learning helps improve all aspects of delivery.\n\n> “When I was a junior developer, I found it very helpful to talk through my\nthought process and hear how senior developers approached the same problem. But,\nas an introvert, I found it exhausting to do all day, every day.” –\n[Jennie Louie](/company/team/#jennielouie), test automation engineer, Enablement\n\nAgile models often include the value of continuous learning to help everyone –\nfrom C-level to junior level – develop new skills to remain adaptable and productive.\nPairing sessions provide a platform from which teammates can learn in tandem.\n\n> “I’ve never done ‘strict’ pairing with a driver/navigator, only the relaxed kind\nwhere you just chat and sometimes switch keyboards. And while I can't really imagine\npairing full-time, I guess with the right pair and some practice it could indeed be\na great experience.” – [Markus Koller](/company/team/#toupeira), backend engineer, Create:Editor\n\nThe drawbacks to pair programming might make you hesitate, but I encourage you to\ntake a chance on it, especially if you want to accelerate delivery. Here are a\nfew pros and cons of pairing to help you understand the process:\n\n### Advantages of pair programming\n\nDirectly collaborating with a teammate can increase morale and inject fun and\ndiversity in one’s day. By working alongside each other, teammates can learn\ndifferent coding practices, workflow techniques, and new ways of approaching\nproblems, which increases innovation and efficiency and decreases knowledge silos.\n\n> “Pair programming can be great for onboarding, mentoring, and [rubber ducking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging)\ndifficult problems, since teammates receive immediate\nfeedback.” – [Andrew Kelly](https://gitlab.com/ankelly), senior security engineer, [Application Security](/topics/devsecops/)\n\nJunior developers benefit when pair programming with senior developers, since they’ll\ngain strong industry knowledge. Meanwhile, senior developers get teaching experience\nand the ability to think critically about solutions.\n\n> “Programming is fairly abstract. When you have to explain a concept verbally, it\noften makes you realize you're missing pieces or that there are better\nways to solve problems than your initial idea.” – [Brandon Lyon](/company/team/#brandon_m_lyon), marketing web developer/designer\n\nRegardless of experience level, everyone can benefit from pairing sessions, since\nthere is no right answer in programming. I consider software development a multi-faceted\nendeavor in which imagination and creativity are driving forces. Based on knowledge,\nexperience, and learning styles, people approach some aspects of code with\na different understanding of how it ties into existing systems. When pairing, people can\ndiscuss these perspectives and assess which approach is best.\n\n### Disadvantages of pair programming\n\nPairing might sound like the solution to many of your delivery problems, but it’s\nnot all roses and rainbows.\n\nGiven the success of pairing, teammates might be tempted to join forces a little\ntoo often. Pair programming can feel inefficient if overdone or used for tasks\nsuch as boilerplate code, smaller and well-defined changes, and [yak shaving](https://www.techopedia.com/definition/15511/yak-shaving).\n\n> “Pair programming is not a silver bullet. Some software solutions just need a\nsingle person to hunker down and work it out before sharing with others.” – [Andrew Kelly](https://gitlab.com/ankelly)\n\nIf teams are just starting out with pairing, it can take practice and patience\nto be a “good pair,” which can be difficult even for experienced pair programmers.\nDo retros after a pairing session to understand what worked well, what didn’t work,\nand how you can improve future sessions.\n\n## See it in action\n\nNow that you know a bit more about pair programming, you might feel ready to take\nthe plunge. At GitLab, we 💖 pairing. Most pairing sessions occur when developers\nwork at the same station, but as an [all-remote company](/company/culture/all-remote/),\nwe’ve found ways to make it work.\n\n> “Remote pair programming can be tougher than in-person pairing. Distance plus the\ntooling isn’t always the best, but it’s not impossible.” – [Andrew Kelly](https://gitlab.com/ankelly)\n\nGitLab’s Support team created a [dedicated project and issue templates for pairing\nsessions](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/support/support-training/issues?label_name%5B%5D=pairing).\n\n> “In Support, we do pairing sessions (or group ‘crush sessions’) and find we often\nget through _more_ tickets when working together, so it's something we're tracking\nas a milestone for each quarter.” – [Cynthia Ng](/company/team/#TheRealArty)\n\nOver in engineering, the Frontend team has also been [experimenting with how to support\npair programming](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/frontend/general/issues/12). The\nteam has used VSCode live share a few times but enjoys open discussion and sending\npatches to each other.\n\n> “The best format so far is someone posts a \"🍐 request\" in the #frontend_pairs\nSlack channel – people show interest – a time is scheduled on the calendar – then\nwe do somewhat of a mob programming session.” – [Paul Slaughter](/company/team/#pslaughter), frontend engineer, Create:Editor\n\nEvery software team hears the importance of acceleration, and it can be a daunting\nthought, especially when faced with complex problems. The next time you find\nyourself dragging your fingers across the keyboard and dreading that next line of\ncode, consider pairing up with a teammate to tackle issues together.\n\n> “Pairing will look different for everyone. Anything that encourages\ncommunication, engaged knowledge sharing, and breaking our engineering silos is\ngood.” – [Paul Slaughter](/company/team/#pslaughter)\n\nCover image by [Jonathan Mast](https://unsplash.com/@jonathanmast) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/RW6Wz9QaoKk)\n{: .note}\n",[9,700,677,723],{"slug":824,"featured":6,"template":680},"agile-pairing-sessions","content:en-us:blog:agile-pairing-sessions.yml","Agile Pairing Sessions","en-us/blog/agile-pairing-sessions.yml","en-us/blog/agile-pairing-sessions",{"_path":830,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":831,"content":837,"config":844,"_id":846,"_type":13,"title":847,"_source":15,"_file":848,"_stem":849,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/agile-planning-with-a-devops-platform",{"title":832,"description":833,"ogTitle":832,"ogDescription":833,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":834,"ogUrl":835,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":835,"schema":836},"Agile planning with a DevOps platform","How a DevOps platform enables an entirely different way to plan and manage work","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749669233/Blog/Hero%20Images/photo-1531403009284-440f080d1e12.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/agile-planning-with-a-devops-platform","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Agile planning with a DevOps platform\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Cormac Foster\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2021-05-19\",\n      }",{"title":832,"description":833,"authors":838,"heroImage":834,"date":840,"body":841,"category":842,"tags":843},[839],"Cormac Foster","2021-05-19","\n\nSeveral years ago, a portfolio manager asked me if he needed to learn about “all the stuff the [DevOps](/topics/devops/) people do.” I told him yes, explained why it was worth it to “learn their language,” and discussed how he could extract nuggets of information to help unlock product value. It was good advice at the time, but it didn’t answer the bigger question—“Sure, he *should*, but should he *have to*?” \n\nThe answer to that question is no. He already had a job—managing a P&L for several products. He shouldn’t have to learn another job just to do that one well. \n\nTools are rarely the solution, but they’re often the problem. At the time, without custom integration, lots of digging, manual translation, and a little bit of luck, there just wasn’t a good way to surface all the information the portfolio manager needed to do his job well. At best, he’d receive batched reports from different tools in his DevOps toolchain, with none of them connected to the tools where decisions were made. So putting on a DevOps hat was the best compromise.\n\nTimes have changed for the better. DevOps and Agile have matured. We’ve established best practices, we know how and when to deviate from them, and we have an idea how we’d like to improve them. On the tool side, that means we’re ready to ditch those toolchains for a platform.\n\nGitLab was the first [DevOps platform](/solutions/devops-platform/) — designed as a single application from the beginning — but platform evolution is nothing new. Salesforce combines what used to be a disparate toolchain with massive integration overhead into a CRM platform that anyone, in any role, can use to boost productivity. Recently, the industry seems to have started to endorse the trend toward DevOps platforms. Last year, Gartner identified a new market in its [2020 Market Guide for Value Stream Delivery Platforms](https://about.gitlab.com/analysts/gartner-vsdp21/), in which GitLab was a Representative Vendor. \n\n![Epic roadmap view in GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/epic_roadmap.png \"Status rollups in epic roadmaps are always up-to-date\")\n\nWe’re excited to see industry experts recognize that we’ve reached the next stage of evolution. But what does a DevOps platform mean for that portfolio manager, or a product owner, or anyone else focused on the “business” end of business? Quite a lot, actually. It means:\n\n* Accuracy: When the work happens inside the same system of the planning, there is no lost data at API chokepoints, no delayed outputs from batch processes, and no doubt that the status rollups for an epic are anything but up-to-date.\n* Visibility: When you need more than a roll-up of an initiative’s status, a DevOps platform lets you inform your planning by clicking through into any level of detail — down to actual code changes or security and performance scan results.\n* Efficiency: Contextual drilldowns mean never again having to sift through spreadsheets full of useless-to-you data just to find that one thing you need.\n* Actionability: “Reporting” is so 20th century. A DevOps platform lets you learn, plan, and execute in the same system, removing blockers, collaborating, and adjusting course without losing any context or time.\n* Delivery speed: Fewer resources spent maintaining integrations means more developers and ops personnel focused on actually delivering value to your users.\n\nDon’t just take our word for it: look at customers like [British Geological Survey](/customers/bgs/), which uses GitLab to collaborate across roles.\n\n> *“GitLab has become our central place to store code and issues. It's become a mission critical system for our organization.”*\n>\n> **Wayne Shelley**, DevOps integration leader, BGS\n\nIndustry experts are responding to our approach. In its [2021 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools](https://learn.gitlab.com/2021-mq-eapt), Gartner named GitLab a Leader for the first time. We’re proud of the recognition, but we’re even more excited to continue to build on our unique take on Agile planning in the future — and you’re a part of that future. Please read our planning [vision](https://about.gitlab.com/direction/plan/#our-vision-of-a-loveable-solution) and contribute!\n\n_Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools, Bill Blosen, Mike West, Deacon D.K Wan, Akis Sklavounakis, Keith Mann, Wan Fui Chan, Hassan Ennaciri, 20 April 2021_\n\n_Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose._\n\nCover image by [Alvaro Reyes](https://unsplash.com/@alvarordesign) [](https://unsplash.com/@martinsanchez?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/qWwpHwip31M)\n\n## Read more about the DevOps Platform:\n\n- [The journey to a DevOps Platform](/blog/the-journey-to-a-devops-platform/)\n\n- [How ten steps over ten years led to the DevOps Platform](/blog/how-ten-steps-over-ten-years-led-to-the-devops-platform/)\n\n- [Making the case for a DevOps platform: What data and customers say](/blog/making-the-case-for-a-devops-platform-what-data-and-customers-say/)\n\n- [Welcome to the DevOps Platform era](/blog/welcome-to-the-devops-platform-era/)\n\n- [It's time to build more accessible software. A DevOps platform can help](/blog/how-the-devops-platform-makes-building-accessible-software-easier/)\n","agile-planning",[9,700,677],{"slug":845,"featured":6,"template":680},"agile-planning-with-a-devops-platform","content:en-us:blog:agile-planning-with-a-devops-platform.yml","Agile Planning With A Devops Platform","en-us/blog/agile-planning-with-a-devops-platform.yml","en-us/blog/agile-planning-with-a-devops-platform",{"_path":851,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":852,"content":858,"config":867,"_id":869,"_type":13,"title":870,"_source":15,"_file":871,"_stem":872,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/an-agile-approach-to-documentation-and-structure",{"title":853,"description":854,"ogTitle":853,"ogDescription":854,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":855,"ogUrl":856,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":856,"schema":857},"An Agile approach to documentation and structure","Combining flexibility and structure: why we decided to use GitLab.com for all UnscrewMe documentation and code to keep an overview, always find the relevant information quickly, and easily track progress.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749670464/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlab-loves-open-source.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/an-agile-approach-to-documentation-and-structure","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"An Agile approach to documentation and structure\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Goetz Buerkle\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2017-12-13\",\n      }",{"title":853,"description":854,"authors":859,"heroImage":855,"date":861,"body":862,"category":863,"tags":864},[860],"Goetz Buerkle","2017-12-13","\n\nWith an idea and a name, I was ready to start working more seriously on\n[UnscrewMe](http://unscrewme.co.uk/), a simple wine tasting scheduler app. Well, almost ready – to avoid ending up with a\nmess of files and folders and stuff scattered across different devices, and\ncertainly never where I need them, my next objective was to set up a central\nlocation where I could store and organize everything flexibly.\n\n\u003C!-- more -->\n\n## GitLab – selecting simple tools\n\nI wanted to keep the overhead low and the management of the documents simple,\nyet extensible enough to cover everything I would need to get started, including\nsimple lists, longer notes, logo drafts, and also more structured technical\nconcepts and even invoices.\n\nBeing a [Certified Scrum Product Owner](https://www.scrumalliance.org/certifications/practitioners/cspo-certification) and using a [GitLab](/) instance at work, I decided to take advantage of the free private repositories and use GitLab.com for UnscrewMe. This combines the simplicity of “just” storing everything in files and folders, with the advantage of being able to use Markdown for more advanced formatting, including sub headings, nested lists and images. And all information can easily be accessed on any device, either via Git directly or the GitLab.com web interface, which also renders Markdown files nicely.\n\nIn addition, project management features of GitLab like [issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/), [milestones](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/) and\n[Issue Boards](/stages-devops-lifecycle/issueboard/) would provide a useful, flexible and lightweight framework to\ntrack my progress. By defining project phases and grouping all open tasks in\nvarious ways, I could get a quick overview of what I would need to do next,\nbefore I could actually launch my Minimum Viable Product (MVP).\nUsing the full power of GitLab.com, I created a “[Group](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/index.html)” and three separate\nrepositories: one for all the general documentation, one for the actual web\napplication, and a third for the pre-launch website.\n\n## Defining a flexible structure\n\nYou could of course call my folder structure flawed, as it is not always entirely\nclear where new content or document should go, but so far it works fine for me.\nI started with a high-level view and specified six broad areas:\n* ideas – for anything largely creative\n* concepts – for more detailed specifications and drafts\n* business – for business plans and similar documents focused on the business in general\n* roadmap – to define the main steps without immediately looking at all the details\n* design – basically, everything that is not text\n* finance – for invoices, contracts, etc.\n\nThese six folders give me enough structure and flexibility to get started,\nwithout having to think too hard about what should go where.\nA couple of years ago, I started prepending most files I create with dates,\nlike “2017–08–31\". I find that adding dates are a useful primary sorting\ncriteria when trying to get a quick overview, so I stuck with this approach for\nmy new project as well, even though it might not be the perfect match for all files.\n\n## Google Keep – enabling quick, low-barrier content generation\n\nWith a system mainly based on text files, I could use any editor. As I started\nusing [Google Keep](https://www.google.com/keep/) for personal notes a few\nmonths ago, I knew that it was flexible and reliable enough for my needs.\n\nI do have a subscription for a very stripped-down text editor, but I must admit,\nthat I don’t like the barely existing interface too much, and started using\nGoogle Keep for many tasks instead. The big benefit of Google Keep, above the\nother web services I used to rely on for writing, is the support of writing\nnotes offline. While these days you mostly have 4G, 3G or wifi anyway, even on\nholiday, I did find myself sometimes at events or in places without connectivity.\nAnd then, being able to write something offline, that would automatically be\nsynchronized as soon as I would be online again, proved rather useful.\n\nThe only obvious drawback for me now is, that Google Keep does not support\nMarkdown for structure and formatting. But as Markdown markup is pretty minimal\nand easy to read, this hasn’t been much of a limitation.\n\nThe notes editor is simple and fast – I do not really need anything more\nadvanced or complicated. What I do value though it the possibility to add labels,\njust a different name for tags, and colors to notes. That way I can easily\ngroup my project notes together and even find the ones I am looking for quickly\nin my main view.\n\n## Visual Studio Code – lightweight editing with Markdown preview and Git support\n\nTo get my basic notes from Google Keep into GitLab, I used [Visual Studio Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/).\nIt is a simple editor with many useful plugins, making editing and checking\nMarkdown documents very convenient and supporting Git out of the box, which was\npretty much all I needed.\n\nOften, my Google Keep notes require just a little bit of cleanup, before they\nare ready to be committed to the Git repository.\nAs I use GitLab milestones and issues to structure all the work, I could also\ntake advantage of this when adding documents to the Git repository and making\nchanges. So I also reference the relevant issues in my commit messages using\n[GitLab Flavored Markdown](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/markdown.html#gitlab-flavored-markdown-gfm) syntax.\n\nNext on my todo list was to [create a simple pre-launch website](https://medium.com/unscrewme/claiming-the-name-257b59d979b)\nto announce the new service, even before it was built. I did read a few times\nthat building a pre-launch website before starting to work on the application\ncode can help to gauge if there even is enough interest for the product. In my\ncase, I was not too concerned about this aspect, since first and foremost, I\nwanted to use my service, therefore by definition it would be worth the effort.\n\n*(I began writing this overview at [Pantry Marylebone](https://www.pantrymarylebone.com/)\nand finished it there too, a few days later. I wrote the final paragraphs there\nafter having had three wines at [108 Brasserie](http://108brasserie.com/) before:\na beautiful and well-balanced 2016 Picpoul de Pinet from Domaine Felines Jourdan\nin Languedoc in France, a surprisingly light and smooth 2016 Montepulciano\nd’Abruzzo from Il Faggio in Italy and a somewhat harsh and slightly disappointing\n2016 Beaujolais Vieilles Vignes par Vincent Fontaine from Domaine de la Rocailler, in France.)*\n\n## About the Guest Author\n\nGoetz Buerkle is currently working to launch UnscrewMe. There are so many wine\ntastings happening in London every day – UnscrewMe wants to help Londoners spend\nless time searching for wine events and more time tasting interesting wines\ninstead. [Keep up with the project](http://unscrewme.co.uk/).\n\n\n*[An Agile approach to documentation and structure](https://medium.com/unscrewme/an-agile-approach-to-documentation-and-structure-5fe4a14a6f2f) was originally published on Medium.*\n","open-source",[9,865,866],"open source","user stories",{"slug":868,"featured":6,"template":680},"an-agile-approach-to-documentation-and-structure","content:en-us:blog:an-agile-approach-to-documentation-and-structure.yml","An Agile Approach To Documentation And Structure","en-us/blog/an-agile-approach-to-documentation-and-structure.yml","en-us/blog/an-agile-approach-to-documentation-and-structure",{"_path":874,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":875,"content":881,"config":887,"_id":889,"_type":13,"title":890,"_source":15,"_file":891,"_stem":892,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/athlinks-cuts-runtime-in-half-with-giltab",{"title":876,"description":877,"ogTitle":876,"ogDescription":877,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":878,"ogUrl":879,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":879,"schema":880},"Athlinks cuts runtime in half with GitLab","Athlinks, a time management solution platform, shares how moving from Jenkins to GitLab cut CI runtimes in half.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749671909/Blog/Hero%20Images/Athlinks_running.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/athlinks-cuts-runtime-in-half-with-giltab","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Athlinks cuts runtime in half with GitLab\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Brein Matturro\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-12-17\",\n      }",{"title":876,"description":877,"authors":882,"heroImage":878,"date":884,"body":885,"category":863,"tags":886},[883],"Brein Matturro","2019-12-17","\nIf you’ve ever run a [Spartan race](https://www.spartan.com/en), then you’ve likely used Athlinks, the only suite of time management solutions for a variety of racing events. The [Athlinks](https://www.athlinks.com) platform includes race registration, timing, scoring, results -- everything from the check-in process to the orange wrist bands worn by participants. The solution stores over 300 million race results at any given time.\n\n## Athlinks previous DevOps tools run short\n\nThe Athlinks DevOps team previously had experience with several Agile planning tools, including Jira, Rally, and VersionOne. All of the tools they tried didn’t exactly fit what the team needed. They were looking for a tool that offers transparency and a voice for other parts of the business. “(We wanted) to give transparency and a voice to what engineering is working on so that other departments can have input into what is going on,” says Christopher Annannie, engineering manager, Athlinks.\n\n## Athlinks sprint to GitLab CI from Jenkins\n\nAthlinks started using GitLab CE in 2015, migrating over from GitHub. In January of 2018, the team adopted EE and after doing a GitLab CI proof of concept, they moved to Ultimate and away from [Jenkins](/blog/migrating-from-jenkins/). “We quickly discovered that we really wanted the full suite of tools for the Agile and the product side, so we went to GitLab Ultimate,” explains Aaron Rorvig, DevOps manager.\n\nThe group previously had about 300 jobs in Jenkins and now are at less than 40. “We use a wide variety of languages and technologies -- pretty much every operating system, both Android and iOS. We’re all over the place and we use GitLab CI for all of it,” Aaron says. The Athlinks team estimates a 50% savings across the board, both in code and in time spent running jobs.\n\n## A win for Athlinks collaboration and communication\n\nSince all of the issues, the code, and [CI pipelines](/blog/defend-cicd-security/) are inside of GitLab, it provides a single view from start to finish. Each team can view all the issues and the labeling helps everyone understand what stage each project is in, how much work has been done, and what the next steps are. “GitLab is not necessarily all that opinionated about how you do issue tracking,” Christopher says. Everything can be tracked, even when the teams don’t use the same issue tracking, it can all exist in one place.\n\nThe issue templates provide structure for the all departments to understand what they need to fill out. “Engineering will get to it quicker without so much back and forth before a problem is actually solved,” Christopher says.\n\nThe communication among the marketing, DevOps and engineering teams is improving. “We’re getting marketing involved in this so we get better about communicating all the new features we’ve deployed this month, so that timers, race directors, and athletes will actually know about the work we’re doing,” Christopher says.\n\nWant to learn more about Athlink’s transition from Jenkins to GitLab? Watch the presentation here:\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/Dy_a79_PsNk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\nCover image by [Ben Stern](https://unsplash.com/@benst287) on [Unsplash](https://www.unsplash.com)\n{: .note}\n",[108,700,9],{"slug":888,"featured":6,"template":680},"athlinks-cuts-runtime-in-half-with-giltab","content:en-us:blog:athlinks-cuts-runtime-in-half-with-giltab.yml","Athlinks Cuts Runtime In Half With Giltab","en-us/blog/athlinks-cuts-runtime-in-half-with-giltab.yml","en-us/blog/athlinks-cuts-runtime-in-half-with-giltab",{"_path":894,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":895,"content":901,"config":908,"_id":910,"_type":13,"title":911,"_source":15,"_file":912,"_stem":913,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/atlassian-acquires-agilecraft",{"title":896,"description":897,"ogTitle":896,"ogDescription":897,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":898,"ogUrl":899,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":899,"schema":900},"What’s your plan?"," GitLab integrates planning every step of the way","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749680500/Blog/Hero%20Images/planpost.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/atlassian-acquires-agilecraft","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"What’s your plan?\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"GitLab\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-03-18\",\n      }",{"title":896,"description":897,"authors":902,"heroImage":898,"date":904,"body":905,"category":298,"tags":906},[903],"GitLab","2019-03-18","\n\nToday’s acquisition of AgileCraft by Atlassian brings up an interesting discussion: \nWhat’s the role of planning in today’s fast-moving software development lifecycle?\n\nIn DevOps, planning can’t be an after-thought or something only thought about at \nthe beginning. [Planning needs to be agile](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/agile-delivery/), \nand integrated into what’s happening every day in the modern software shop. \nLike a quote from the Beatles song, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”\n\nGitLab has democratized planning, making it an integral part of the software \ndevelopment workflow, with out-of-the-box project management, kanban boards, \nepics, time-tracking, and agile portfolio management - with \n[much more to come](https://about.gitlab.com/direction/plan/). \nMore importantly, though, GitLab’s planning features are intimately linked to \nall of the other [stages of software development](https://about.gitlab.com/stages-devops-lifecycle/). \nDevelopers, architects, and product managers can plan and re-plan together, \ncollaboratively and concurrently, with full visibility to the entire cycle.\n\nDon’t get us wrong - AgileCraft is a deep, well-thought out enterprise planning \ntool. But with GitLab, in addition to planning, you get an entire software development lifecycle tool out of the box.\n\n",[9,907,723],"news",{"slug":909,"featured":6,"template":680},"atlassian-acquires-agilecraft","content:en-us:blog:atlassian-acquires-agilecraft.yml","Atlassian Acquires Agilecraft","en-us/blog/atlassian-acquires-agilecraft.yml","en-us/blog/atlassian-acquires-agilecraft",{"_path":915,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":916,"content":922,"config":929,"_id":931,"_type":13,"title":932,"_source":15,"_file":933,"_stem":934,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/automating-agile-workflows-with-the-gitlab-triage-gem",{"title":917,"description":918,"ogTitle":917,"ogDescription":918,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":919,"ogUrl":920,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":920,"schema":921},"Automating Agile workflows with the gitlab-triage gem","Learn how to automate repetitive tasks like triaging issues and merge requests to free up valuable developer time in our \"Getting Started with GitLab\" series.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749659525/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-getting-started-with-gitlab-banner-0497-option4-fy25.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/automating-agile-workflows-with-the-gitlab-triage-gem","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Automating Agile workflows with the gitlab-triage gem\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"GitLab\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2025-03-13\",\n      }",{"title":917,"description":918,"authors":923,"heroImage":919,"date":924,"body":925,"category":926,"tags":927},[903],"2025-03-13","*Welcome to our \"Getting started with GitLab\" series, where we help newcomers get familiar with the GitLab DevSecOps platform.*\n\nThis post dives into the [`gitlab-triage`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/ruby/gems/gitlab-triage) gem, a powerful tool that lets you create bots to automate your Agile workflow. Say goodbye to manual tasks and hello to streamlined efficiency.\n\n## Why automate your workflow?\n\nEfficiency is key in software development. Automating repetitive tasks like triaging issues and merge requests frees up valuable time for your team to focus on what matters most: building amazing software.\n\nWith `gitlab-triage`, you can:\n\n* **Ensure consistency:** Apply labels and assign issues automatically based on predefined rules.  \n* **Improve response times:** Get immediate feedback on new issues and merge requests.  \n* **Reduce manual effort:** Eliminate the need for manual triage and updates.  \n* **Boost productivity:** Free up your team to focus on coding and innovation.\n\n## Introducing the `gitlab-triage` gem\n\nThe `gitlab-triage` gem is a Ruby library that allows you to create bots that interact with your GitLab projects. These bots can automatically perform a wide range of actions, including:\n\n* **Labeling:** Automatically categorize issues and merge requests.  \n* **Commenting:** Provide updates, request information, or give feedback.  \n* **Assigning:** Assign issues and merge requests to the appropriate team members.  \n* **Closing:** Close stale or resolved issues and merge requests.  \n* **Creating:** Generate new issues based on specific events or conditions.  \n* **And much more!**\n\nCheck out the [`gitlab-triage` gem repository](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/ruby/gems/gitlab-triage). \n\n## Setting up your triage bot\n\nLet's get your first triage bot up and running!\n\n1. Install the gem. (Note: The gem command is available with Ruby programming language installed.)\n\n```bash\ngem install gitlab-triage\n```\n\n2. Get your GitLab API token.\n\n* Go to your GitLab [profile settings](https://gitlab.com/-/profile/preferences).  \n* Navigate to **Access Tokens**.  \n* Create a new token with the `api` scope.  \n* **Keep your token secure and set an expiration date for it based on when you will be done with this walkthrough!**\n\n3. Define your triage policies.\n\nCreate a file named `.triage-policies.yml` in your project's root directory. This file will contain the rules that govern your bot's behavior. Here's a simple example:\n\n```yaml\n\n---\n- name: \"Apply 'WIP' label\"\n  condition:\n    draft: true\n  action:\n    labels:\n      - status::wip\n\n- name: \"Request more information on old issue\"\n  condition:\n   date:\n    attribute: updated_at\n    condition: older_than\n    interval_type: months\n    interval: 12\n  action:\n    comment: |\n      {{author}} This issue has been open for more than 12 months, is this still an issue?\n```\n\nThis configuration defines two policies:\n\n* The first policy applies the `status::wip` label to any issue that is in draft.  \n* The second policy adds a comment to an issue that the issue has not been updated in 12 months.\n\n4. Run your bot.\n\nYou can run your bot manually using the following command:\n\n```bash\ngitlab-triage -t \u003Cyour_api_token> -p \u003Cyour_project_id>\n```\n\nReplace `\u003Cyour_api_token>` with your GitLab API token and `\u003Cyour_project_id>` with the [ID of your GitLab project](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/working_with_projects/#access-a-project-by-using-the-project-id). If you would like to see the impact of actions before they are taken, you can add the `-n` or `--dry-run` to test out the policies first.\n\n## Automating with GitLab CI/CD\n\nTo automate the execution of your triage bot, integrate it with [GitLab CI/CD](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-ci-cd-fundamentals-to-advanced-implementation/). Here's an example `.gitlab-ci.yml` configuration:\n\n```yaml\n\ntriage:\n  script:\n    - gem install gitlab-triage\n    - gitlab-triage -t $GITLAB_TOKEN -p $CI_PROJECT_ID\n  only:\n    - schedules\n```\n\nThis configuration defines a job named \"triage\" that installs the `gitlab-triage` gem and runs the bot using the `$GITLAB_TOKEN` (a predefined [CI/CD variable](https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/variables/)) and the `$CI_PROJECT_ID` variable. The `only: schedules` clause ensures that the job runs only on a schedule.\n\nTo create a [schedule](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/pipelines/schedules.html), go to your project's **CI/CD** settings and navigate to **Schedules**. Create a new schedule and define the frequency at which you want your bot to run (e.g., daily, hourly).\n\n## Advanced triage policies\n\n`gitlab-triage` offers a range of advanced features for creating more complex triage policies:\n\n* **Regular expressions:** Use regular expressions for more powerful pattern matching.  \n* **Summary policies:** Consolidate related issues into a single summary issue.  \n* **Custom actions:** Define custom actions using [Ruby code blocks](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/ruby/gems/gitlab-triage#can-i-customize) to perform more complex operations using the GitLab API.\n\nHere are two advanced real-world examples from the triage bot used by the Developer Advocacy team at GitLab. You can view the full policies in [this file](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-da/projects/devrel-bot/-/blob/master/.triage-policies.yml?ref_type=heads).\n\n```yaml\n- name: Issues where DA team member is an assignee outside DA-Meta project i.e. DevRel-Influenced\n  conditions:\n    assignee_member:\n      source: group\n      condition: member_of\n      source_id: 1008\n    state: opened\n    ruby: get_project_id != 18 \n    forbidden_labels:\n      - developer-advocacy\n  actions:   \n    labels:\n      - developer-advocacy\n      - DevRel-Influenced\n      - DA-Bot::Skip\n```\n\nThis example for issues across a group, excluding those in the project with the ID of 18, have assignees who are members of the group with ID of 1008 and do not have the label `developer-advocacy` on them. This policy helps the Developer Advocacy team at GitLab to find issues members of the team are assigned to but are not in their team’s project. This helps the team identify and keep track of contributions made outside of the team by adding the teams’ labels.\n\n```\n- name: Missing Due Dates\n  conditions:\n    ruby: missing_due_date\n    state: opened\n    labels:\n      - developer-advocacy\n    forbidden_labels:\n      - DA-Due::N/A\n      - DA-Bot::Skip\n      - DA-Status::FYI\n      - DA-Status::OnHold\n      - CFP\n      - DA-Bot::Triage\n  actions:\n    labels:\n      - DA-Bot-Auto-Due-Date\n    comment: |\n      /due #{get_current_quarter_last_date}\n```\n\nThis second example checks for all issues with the `developer-advocacy` label, which do not include labels in the forbidden labels list and when their due dates have passed. It updates the due dates automatically by commenting on the issue with a slash command and a date that is generated using Ruby.\n\nThe Ruby scripts used in the policies are defined in a separate file as shown below. This feature allows you to be flexible in working with your filters and actions. You can see functions are created for different Ruby commands that we used in our policies. \n\n```\nrequire 'json'\nrequire 'date'\nrequire \"faraday\"\nrequire 'dotenv/load'\n\nmodule DATriagePlugin\n  def last_comment_at\n    conn = Faraday.new(\n      url: notes_url+\"?sort=desc&order_by=created_at&pagination=keyset&per_page=1\",\n      headers: {'PRIVATE-TOKEN' => ENV.fetch(\"PRIV_KEY\"), 'Content-Type' => 'application/json' }\n    )\n\n    response = conn.get()\n    if response.status == 200\n      jsonData = JSON.parse(response.body)\n      if jsonData.length > 0\n        Date.parse(jsonData[0]['created_at'])\n      else\n        Date.parse(resource[:created_at])\n      end\n    else\n      Date.parse(resource[:created_at])\n    end\n  end\n\n  def notes_url\n    resource[:_links][:notes]\n  end\n\n  def get_project_id\n    resource[:project_id]\n  end\n\n  def get_current_quarter_last_date()\n    yr = Time.now.year\n    case Time.now.month\n    when 2..4\n      lm = 4\n    when 5..7\n      lm = 7\n    when 8..10\n      lm = 10\n    when 11..12\n      lm = 1\n      yr = yr + 1\n    else\n      lm = 1    \n    end\n\n    return Date.new(yr, lm, -1) \n  end\n\n  def one_week_to_due_date\n    if(resource[:due_date] == nil)\n      false\n    else\n      days_to_due = (Date.parse(resource[:due_date]) - Date.today).to_i\n      if(days_to_due > 0 && days_to_due \u003C 7)\n        true\n      else\n        false\n      end\n    end\n  end\n\n  def due_date_past\n    if(resource[:due_date] == nil)\n      false\n    else\n      Date.today > Date.parse(resource[:due_date])\n    end\n  end\n\n  def missing_due_date\n    if(resource[:due_date] == nil)\n      true\n    else\n      false\n    end\n  end\n\nend\n\nGitlab::Triage::Resource::Context.include DATriagePlugin\n\n```\nThe triage bot is executed using the command:\n\n``` \n`gitlab-triage -r ./triage_bot/issue_triage_plugin.rb --debug --token $PRIV_KEY --source-id gitlab-com --source groups`  \n```\n\n- `-r`: Passes in a  file of requirements for the performing triage. In this case we are passing in our Ruby functions.  \n- `--debug`: Prints debugging information as part of the output.  \n- `--token`: Is used to pass in a valid GitLab API token.  \n- `--source`: Specifies if the sources of the issues it will search is within a group or a project.  \n- `--source-id`: Takes in the ID of the selected source type – in this case, a group.\n\nThe GitLab [triage-ops](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/quality/triage-ops) project is another real-world example that is more complex and you can learn how to build your own triage bot.\n\n## Best practices\n\n* **Start simple:** Begin with basic policies and gradually increase complexity as needed. \n* **Test thoroughly:** Test your policies in a staging environment before deploying them to production.  \n* **Monitor regularly:** Monitor your bot's activity to ensure it's behaving as expected. \n* **Use descriptive names:** Give your policies clear and descriptive names for easy maintenance. \n* **Be mindful of the scope of your filters:** You might be tempted to filter issues across groups where thousands of issues exist. However, this can slow down the triage and also make the process fail due to rate limitations against the GitLab API.  \n* **Prioritize using labels for triages:** To avoid spamming other users, labels are a good way to perform triages without cluttering comments and issues.\n\n## Take control of your workflow\n\nWith the `gitlab-triage` gem, you can automate your GitLab workflow and unlock new levels of efficiency. Start by creating simple triage bots and gradually explore the more advanced features. You'll be amazed at how much time and effort you can save\\!\n\n> #### Want to take your learning to the next level? [Sign up for GitLab University courses](https://university.gitlab.com/). Or you can get going right away with a [free 60-day trial of GitLab Ultimate](https://about.gitlab.com/free-trial/).\n\n## \"Getting started with GitLab\" series\nRead more articles in our \"Getting started with GitLab\" series:\n\n- [How to manage users](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-how-to-manage-users/)\n- [How to import your projects to GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-how-to-import-your-projects-to-gitlab/)  \n- [Mastering project management](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-mastering-project-management/)\n- [Understanding CI/CD](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-understanding-ci-cd/)\n- [Working with CI/CD variables](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-working-with-ci-cd-variables/)\n","product",[474,928,926,9,108],"tutorial",{"slug":930,"featured":6,"template":680},"automating-agile-workflows-with-the-gitlab-triage-gem","content:en-us:blog:automating-agile-workflows-with-the-gitlab-triage-gem.yml","Automating Agile Workflows With The Gitlab Triage Gem","en-us/blog/automating-agile-workflows-with-the-gitlab-triage-gem.yml","en-us/blog/automating-agile-workflows-with-the-gitlab-triage-gem",{"_path":936,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":937,"content":943,"config":953,"_id":955,"_type":13,"title":956,"_source":15,"_file":957,"_stem":958,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/availability-postgres-patroni",{"title":938,"description":939,"ogTitle":938,"ogDescription":939,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":940,"ogUrl":941,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":941,"schema":942},"Introducing Patroni as the Postgres Failover Manager on GitLab.com","GitLab.com is introducing Patroni as the Postgres Failover Manager on GitLab.com.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749671280/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlab-gke-integration-cover.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/availability-postgres-patroni","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Introducing Patroni as the Postgres Failover Manager on GitLab.com\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Gerardo Lopez-Fernandez\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2018-12-05\",\n      }",{"title":938,"description":939,"authors":944,"heroImage":940,"date":946,"body":947,"category":948,"tags":949},[945],"Gerardo Lopez-Fernandez","2018-12-05","\n\n## Upcoming Maintenance Windows for Patroni Deployment\n\nWe are writing this post to let our community know we are planning on performing the work necessary \nto deploy [Patroni](https://github.com/zalando/patroni) as the Postgres Failover Manager on GitLab.com over two weekends: a dry-run to test\nour migration plan and tools on Saturday, Dec 8, 2018, and the actual deployment on Saturday, December\n15, 2018.\n\nDuring the maintenance windows, the following services will be unavailable:\n\n* SaaS website ([GitLab.com](https://gitlab.com/) will be offline, but [about.gitlab.com](https://about.gitlab.com/) and [docs.gitlab.com](https://docs.gitlab.com/) will still be available)\n* Git ssh\n* Git https\n* registry\n* CI/CD\n* Pages\n\n### Maintenance Window - Dry run - Saturday, December 8 at 13:00 UTC\n\nWe will perform testing and validation of our deployment procedures and tools during this maintenance\nwindow to do final readiness checks. This maintenance window should last 30 minutes.\n\n### Maintenance Window - Actual Cutover - Saturday, December 15 at 13:00 UTC\n\nOn the day of the cutover, we are planning to start at 13:00 UTC.  The time window for GitLab.com to be\nin maintenance is currently planned to be 30 minutes. Should any times for this change, we will be updating\non the channels listed below. When this window is completed GitLab.com will be running Patroni.\n\n* [GitLab Status page](https://status.gitlab.com/)\n* [GitLab Status Twitter](https://twitter.com/gitlabstatus)\n\n","engineering",[950,950,9,951,9,952],"features","bug bounty","contributors",{"slug":954,"featured":6,"template":680},"availability-postgres-patroni","content:en-us:blog:availability-postgres-patroni.yml","Availability Postgres Patroni","en-us/blog/availability-postgres-patroni.yml","en-us/blog/availability-postgres-patroni",{"_path":960,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":961,"content":966,"config":975,"_id":977,"_type":13,"title":962,"_source":15,"_file":978,"_stem":979,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/being-a-better-ally",{"title":962,"description":962,"ogTitle":962,"ogDescription":962,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":963,"ogUrl":964,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":964,"schema":965},"Being A Better Ally","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749679611/Blog/Hero%20Images/cook-county-blog-unsplash.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/being-a-better-ally","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Being A Better Ally\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"David O'Regan\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-09-09\",\n      }",{"title":962,"description":962,"authors":967,"heroImage":963,"date":969,"body":970,"category":971,"tags":972},[968],"David O'Regan","2020-09-09","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\n\nI’ve been at GitLab five months now - with every merge request committed and milestone met, GitLab team members collaborate on innovative and efficient methods of delivering some of the world's best software. Besides this, I’ve also noticed that GitLab team members do a superb job of creating an environment that allows each of our peers to contribute, be heard, and bring their whole selves to work. Once you’ve gotten a taste of being part of that kind of community you get to see how much it matters in writing good code - talented and inclusive teams are more creative, efficient, and happier in the workplace.\n\nThe Gitlab Handbook offers amazing explanations about our values and resources for living them to your best ability. One of our values ‘Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging’ has the following note on this value that I really appreciate:\n\n> “... Diversity is having a seat at the table, Inclusion is having a voice and feeling empowered to use it, and Belonging is acknowledgement of your voice being heard along with creating an environment where team members feel secure to be themselves...”\n\nAnyone can, and everyone should strive to nurture these values. For myself, as a person with intersecting levels of privilege who is not a member of an underrepresented group, allyship is a fantastic way to help build a better working environment. Though, being honest, if you asked me 6 months ago what allyship meant, I couldn't have told you. Going over the Handbook was a great start and I highly encourage it, as was working through my own [diversity training](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/diversity-and-inclusion/-/issues/127) but I also wanted to put together a small piece for anyone else getting started on their journey in allyship. Something my old bodybuilding coach [Blue Shinners](https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/big-and-beautiful-26331156.html) used to tell me came to mind when I started the learning process;\n\n> It's not complicated, but that doesn't make it easy - Blue Shinners\n\nFor context on this piece, I want to let you know the following:\nI am a white, cisgender male (pronouns: he|him|his). I also have a lot of privilege along other lines of intersectionality (e.g. heterosexual, neurotypical, a citizen of an affluent, peaceful nation, etc).\n\nI am far from an expert in the field of allyship or building inclusive work environments, so I’m relying on my lived experiences and what I’ve learned from reading and listening to others. Regarding scope, I am committed to using my position within GitLab to help foster an inclusive and diverse environment aligned with GitLab’s core values.\n\nI’ve got to say - for me, becoming a better ally looks a lot more like a patchwork of small bursts of reading, learning little bits in social interactions, being corrected here and there, apologizing, and using what I’ve learned to do better. It isn’t always tidy, but if I were to lay my journey out in general steps, it would look a little something like this:\nGetting excited about learning and listening, making space, and making spaces inclusive. Contributing to a better culture, where and how you can. If you see something, (and it’s safe for you to do so,) say something. Though most of all accept that you will make mistakes, and strive for course correction.\n\nI personally make a lot of mistakes. The uncomfortable truth about making mistakes is they are part of lifeand more part of living honestly. Alan Watts very famously said that you do not know where your choices come from when you live honestly, and this can cause you to fumble as you explore like a toddler taking their first steps. One of the most difficult things I have ever done is to honestly level the question at myself;\n\n> If you make mistakes in all other areas of life, is it possible you also make mistakes in this area?\n\nThe natural instinct is to pull back in ~~anger~~(fear), claiming you are a good person and would never intentionally set out to treat people differently based on something as shallow as how they look or present themseleves. Regardless of how you feel, making mistakes is inevitable purely due to the fact that without a well thought out dose of empathy, you simply cannot assume someone else's situation nor experience.\n\n### Getting excited about learning and listening\n\nSearch for answers - you don’t have to know everything about the historical and cultural basis of social injustice, but I know that even a few articles or YouTube videos here and there have made the difference in giving me a better foundation for understanding, open-mindedness, kindness, and better conduct.\n\nListen to your peers, partners, and colleagues when they share their experiences or important pieces of news with you - and be willing to share yours, if asked.\n\nKnow your [‘-isms’](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-ism) and learn about unconscious biases - especially your own. If you haven’t experienced certain kinds of prejudice or discrimination it may be while until you learn about them or how you unconsciously maintain them. Knowing about them lets you make an active choice in reducing toxic behaviors in shared spaces.\n\nIf you can’t find what you’re looking for in your research, don’t be afraid to ask for help. When possible, ask the appropriate person for help, like your team supervisor, or even ask in the GitLab diversity slack channel (I personally learn a lot from this channel each day).\n\nWhen the context is more specific, ask your peers - but leave room for individuals to say no or for groups to leave anonymous feedback.\n\nKnowledge is necessary to good allyship. And it’s sufficient when paired with inclusive, affirming actions. Like with any good piece of code, go for the minimum viable product - learn more, incorporate it into your daily actions, be willing to keep adding to that knowledge base and growing.\n\n### Making space, and making spaces inclusive\n\nLearn about the space you’re in and space you occupy - for myself, this journey meant coming through the understanding that software companies are overwhelmingly composed of people that look just like me. Learning more about how and why some groups are underrepresented, even in companies like GitLab, is another important step in allyship.\n\nLooking at GitLab’s values, we’re encouraged to see others succeed and help where we can. Good allyship is about doing my best to ensure that underrepresented voices are given at least as much space as my own, both by letting people know you want their contribution with affirming and inclusive language and by showing your appreciation for those contributions by giving credit and offering praise centered on their hard work.\n\nUse common sense and be kind in your interactions with your colleagues. Don’t make assumptions. Be flexible and open-minded. Be respectful of others’ privacy and get excited about what they’re willing to share with you, from their quirks to their life story and family album. These interactions create the bond GitLab team memebers share and makes this all-remote team that you love to work with.\n\n### Contribute to a better culture, where and how you can\n\nImproving the work we do at GitLab is often about your contributions, but it’s also about how good a job we do as allies to ensure that all of our ideas and contributions receive time, consideration, and credit. As a good ally, this means remembering to uplift and make space for the most marginal voices.\n\nCelebrate intersectional as well as cross-functional collaboration by considering paired-programming or mentorship with someone new. The benefit of working at GitLab is that it is teeming with talented developers from all backgrounds. When you issue or consider a request for paired programming or mentorship, center the goals and timeline to confirm you both have the time and skills to get it all in. Be willing to meet the other person where they’re at: be flexible, respectful, and accommodating of their needs in the workplace, ask them about their experiences, be willing to share yours.\n\nShare your time and your love of code with your local community - hundreds of cities worldwide have organizations and education programs that promote programming for marginalized groups and youth. Even if it’s during traditional working hours, at GitLab, we have the flexibility of working things out with our supervisor to support the events and people that won’t wait until ‘after work’. A great example of this is the [Vue Vixens](https://www.vuevixens.org/) which are one of my personal favorites.\n\nDonate to an organization or cause that is able to do the work you can’t on your own. Did you know that GitLab has a pretty great [donation matching program proposal in the makes?](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/diversity-and-inclusion/-/issues/91) It’s nice to know they’ll back you up on the causes you support.\n\nIf you see something (and it’s safe for you to do so), say something. Call out discrimination - address the behavior, without labeling the person. This comes back to empathy in the workplace. Be in the shoes of the person or group experiencing the discriminatory behaviour, and be in the shoes of the person behind the behaviour. Support the marginalized person or group, to reinforce the equal value of everyone of GitLab. Addressing someone’s discriminatory behaviour and holding them accountable gives them an opportunity to adopt, adapt, and improve.\n\nWe have a lot of options in how we respond to discriminatory behavior. I go into all interactions with my team assuming good intent, and keep in mind that we are each more than our work or individual actions. I also keep in mind that while discriminatory behavior can be addressed directly and in the moment or context, it can also be addressed indirectly, or in a 1-on-1 afterwards, which can offer a more approachable context for difficult feedback.\n\nI recognize that in an ideal world, everyone would feel comfortable calling out discriminatory behavior, but it isn’t always safe for everyone to do so - especially members of the groups being discriminated against. That’s where ally’s like myself come in - inclusive spaces are about shared work, and I have more opportunities than many to help build that.\n\nAccept that you will make mistakes, and strive for course correction in all areas.\n\n“Many would-be allies fear making mistakes that could have them labeled as “-ist” or “-ic” (racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, etc). But as an ally, you’re also affected by a system of oppression. This means that as an ally, there is much to unlearn and learn—mistakes are expected. You need to own this as fact and should be willing to embrace the daily work of doing better.”\n\nI’ve mentioned before that this is a core takeaway for developers and team leaders alike. Whether we’re creating a merge request, bringing our true selves to work, or becoming a better ally, we should do so with a low sense of shame and no ego.\n\nYou will make mistakes. I promise. We all will. But when it comes to allyship, it won’t just be a blow to the ego. It will be to the part of ourselves that loves GitLab for the people we get to work with every day and hates the idea of hurting anyone here.\n\nSo here are some notes for getting through those sticky occasions, and iterating better when someone calls out that you haven’t been the best ally:\n\n> In simple terms: say thank you, say sorry, iterate and do better.\n\nDon't:\n\n- center around yourself\n- prioritize your intention above the impact of your actions\n- deny the other person’s lived experience, derail or deflect from the issue in your apology\n- avoid arguing semantics on how the issue was brought to your attention\n- ask that person to accept inequality or microaggressions as a fact of life\n- blame them or their actions for what happened\n- retaliate against the person either actively or passively\n\nDo:\n\n- ask if they’re okay and center their experience\n- listen to what they have to say, acknowledge what happened and your role in it\n- apologize as gracefully as possible\n- understand and learn from what happened, do your homework\n- stop the behavior and modify the pattern that led to it.\n\nKeep in mind that it’s okay to ask for the person’s feedback on what you can do to be a better ally or for a clarification on what happened was problematic, but remember to center their experience and leave the other person space to refuse (fixing the behaviour is contribution you make to a more inclusive space going forward). Where I come from, it’s mandatory to add that your owe the person a pint of Guiness down at the pub after a workplace chat... maybe a coffee chat is a better call for an all-remote company though.\n\nRemember that we are more than our work or our individual behaviors. But over time, we do become associated with a track record comprising both of those things. When our colleagues do code review or call us out, it’s an opportunity for us to grow and build better habits. And as long as we continue to iterate better, our contributions to GitLab will be more meaningful and people will see us in the light of the changes we’ve made (not the small slips along the way).\n\nTL;DR\n\nBeing an ally is an ongoing journey where we have many opportunities to contribute, collaborate, learn, get feedback, and iterate better... so pretty much the same as everything else we do at GitLab. And with this one, we grow better interactions with some of the most talented developers we’ll ever get to work with.\n\nAs with every other post, this is also a collaboration... so whether it’s further resources, suggested additions, punctuation edits, or even a few callouts that I should look out for, it’s all very welcome. It's how we all grow, it’s how I hope I am becoming a better ally.\n\nCover image by [Element5 Digital](https://unsplash.com/@element5digital) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com)\n{: .note}\n\n[Join us](/jobs/) at GitLab! Or consider [trying us out](/free-trial/) for free.\n\n","unfiltered",[529,701,973,974,9],"design","releases",{"slug":976,"featured":6,"template":680},"being-a-better-ally","content:en-us:blog:being-a-better-ally.yml","en-us/blog/being-a-better-ally.yml","en-us/blog/being-a-better-ally",{"_path":981,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":982,"content":988,"config":994,"_id":996,"_type":13,"title":997,"_source":15,"_file":998,"_stem":999,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/best-practices-to-set-up-organizational-hierarchies-that-scale",{"title":983,"description":984,"ogTitle":983,"ogDescription":984,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":985,"ogUrl":986,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":986,"schema":987},"Best practices to set up organizational hierarchies that scale","Learn how to model organizational hierarchy in GitLab. Create structures with clear lines of communication, strategic alignment, and more, while following Agile principles.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750098165/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/agile_agile.png_1750098164666.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/best-practices-to-set-up-organizational-hierarchies-that-scale","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Best practices to set up organizational hierarchies that scale\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Amanda Rueda\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-07-22\",\n      }",{"title":983,"description":984,"authors":989,"heroImage":985,"date":991,"body":992,"category":842,"tags":993},[990],"Amanda Rueda","2024-07-22","Maximizing the benefits of your GitLab subscription begins with an effective organizational setup. Here’s a straightforward guide to configuring your group, subgroup, and project structure to enhance your GitLab experience.\n\n## Understanding the structure: Groups, subgroups, and projects\n\nGroups and projects allow you to model your organizational hierarchy, enabling advanced permissions management and “team of teams” planning. Use groups and subgroups for strategic planning and configuration management that cascades into subgroups and projects lower in the hierarchy.\n\nBeyond this, you can also model your value streams, enhancing project management and collaboration across your organization.\n\n- **Project level (team level)**\n    - Nested within groups or subgroups, projects are where your actual work happens. This is where repositories live, and settings specific to the project are managed. Zoom into day-to-day activities and detailed project tracking at this level.\n    - Effective project configuration helps maintain clean, organized data, which is essential for accurate reporting and analysis.\n\n- **Subgroup level (team of teams)**\n    - Subgroups provide granular permissions management and can be tailored to specific team or project needs, ensuring consistent workflows across your organization.\n    - Subgroups function as clusters of related projects, similar to how a \"team of teams\" operates in Agile.\n    - This level is ideal for managing several teams working towards a common product or service. It facilitates cross-project visibility and integration, which supports synchronization between teams to align on interdependencies and shared objectives.\n\n- **Group level (team of team of teams)**\n    - Think of groups as your organizational pillars within GitLab where broad permissions and access are managed.\n    - At the highest level, groups encompass multiple subgroups and represent the strategic tier of project management, akin to the \"team of team of teams\" in Agile.\n    - This level sets the overarching goals and strategies, defining settings and allocating resources across projects and subgroups to ensure alignment with the company's broad business objectives.\n\nBy structuring your organization with GitLab, you parallel your chosen Agile methodology, which can help you apply Agile principles more naturally across your projects. This structure promotes clear lines of communication, efficient resource management, and strategic alignment, all while maintaining the flexibility and responsiveness inherent to Agile methodologies.\n\n> Keep up with news and insights about [GitLab Agile planning](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/categories/agile-planning/).\n\n## Leveraging the GitLab inheritance model\n\nOne of GitLab's powerful features is its [inheritance model](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/tutorials/scrum_events/index.html#understanding-the-inheritance-model-in-gitlab), which allows settings, permissions, and configurations made at higher levels to automatically apply to lower levels within the hierarchy. Conversely, data at lower levels is instinctively available at higher levels in the structure. With the inheritance model, you gain visibility across your entire portfolio from within higher-level groups while providing distinct locations lower in the hierarchy for individual teams to manage their work.\n\nExamples:\n- **Create milestones and labels in your higher-level groups** to cascade down to all subgroups and projects promoting consistency and adherence to organizational standards.\n- **Issues and epics** in lower level projects and subgroups roll up your value stream hierarchy for ease of reference by program management and the executive layer.\n- **Manage user permissions at the group level or top-level subgroup** to optimize permissions and access control. This can simplify access control management and ensure that the right people have the right access across multiple projects without the need for repeated configuration.\n\nThese tips not only streamline administrative overhead but also reinforce security and compliance by ensuring that changes at the higher level consistently propagate downwards.\n\n![Organizational hierarchy diagram](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750098179/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image2_aHR0cHM6_1750098179305.png)\n\n## Best practices for GitLab setup\n\nWhen setting up your GitLab organizational hierarchy, we recommend the following options depending on your organization's needs. Self-managed customers have the option to omit the \"Company Name\" root group layer, as this extra level of organization is not necessary for self-managed deployments. This flexibility ensures that your GitLab setup is tailored to your specific organizational structure and deployment preferences.\n\n### Option 1: Permissions and access are granted at the organizational subgroup level\n\nThis option is ideal for complex permission structures or large organizations needing efficient project sharing across numerous users.\n\n#### Example structure\n\n- Organizational Group\n    - Handles broad permissions typically through integrations with corporate provisioning systems.\n    - Users are added to subgroups, which will serve as the foundation for sharing the entire group with another [group](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/manage.html#share-a-group-with-another-group) or a [project](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/members/share_project_with_groups.html) to minimize the overhead of direct user management.\n    - When creating user groups, you can utilize [group mentions](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/discussions/index.html#mentions) throughout GitLab to mention large groups of users at a time.\n\n- Development Group\n    - Provides executive-level and program-management-level visibility across all development projects at the highest development group level.\n    - Features are created at the subgroup level for access across multiple repos.\n    - Projects are created to hold development repos; this is the level for Team visibility.\n\n![organizational chart for subgroup level](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750098179/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/Image_1_aHR0cHM6_1750098179306.png)\n\n### Option 2: Permissions and access are granted at any level\nThis option is best for smaller organizations with less complex access requirements. Users are added individually to the divisional groups, subgroups, or projects as access is required. This provides direct control over project management and operational visibility.\n\n#### Highlights\n- Users can be added to a group at the top of the hierarchy or to the lower-level subgroup/project depending on the granularity of access needs. Each member would need to be individually added rather than a single task of sharing a group.\n- Executive-level and program-management-level visibility across all development projects at the highest development group level.\n- Features are created at the subgroup level for access across multiple repos.\n- Projects are created to hold development repos; this is the level for Team visibility.\n\n![Permissions granted at any level](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750098179/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/Image_2_aHR0cHM6_1750098179307.png)\n\n### Additional configuration considerations\n\n- Milestones and iterations\n    - Create group-level milestones for broad visibility or when milestones need to be shared across groups.\n    - Create milestones at the project level when the milestone is specific to a single project.\n    - For teams working across different groups, setting iterations at the parent group level is beneficial for unified tracking.\n\n- Data management\n    - Leverage GitLab's roadmaps, boards, and listing pages to pull data that reflects your organizational setup. This helps you visualize progress and plan effectively across different levels of your structure.\n    - GitLab makes data available in higher-level groups even when the data is created in lower levels.\n    - Create your views at higher levels when you want to view data across groups and projects, and at lower levels when you want to hone in on a specific group or project’s data.\n\n- Template creation\n    - Create higher-level templates to ensure they cascade to all subsequent subgroups and projects, mixing general guidelines with project-specific requirements.\n    - Templates are created within their own repository within the applicable group ([related documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/description_templates.html)).\n\n- Labels\n    - Create higher-level labels to ensure they cascade to all subsequent subgroups and projects, mixing org labels with project-specific labels.\n    - Use scoped labels to define organizational structures like teams and workflow status.\n\n![Issue board with labels](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750098179/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image3_aHR0cHM6_1750098179310.png)\n\n## Leveraging GitLab’s features for optimal performance\n\nImplementing the right structure in GitLab not only streamlines the management of your software projects but also enhances the visibility across different levels of your organization, ensuring that everyone from the top management to individual contributors has the information they need to make informed decisions.\n\n> Get started modeling organizational hierarchy with [a free 30-day trial of GitLab Ultimate](https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_source=about.gitlab.com/blog&glm_content=default-saas-trial).\n",[9,950,474],{"slug":995,"featured":6,"template":680},"best-practices-to-set-up-organizational-hierarchies-that-scale","content:en-us:blog:best-practices-to-set-up-organizational-hierarchies-that-scale.yml","Best Practices To Set Up Organizational Hierarchies That Scale","en-us/blog/best-practices-to-set-up-organizational-hierarchies-that-scale.yml","en-us/blog/best-practices-to-set-up-organizational-hierarchies-that-scale",{"_path":1001,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1002,"content":1008,"config":1014,"_id":1016,"_type":13,"title":1017,"_source":15,"_file":1018,"_stem":1019,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/beyond-application-modernization-trends",{"title":1003,"description":1004,"ogTitle":1003,"ogDescription":1004,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1005,"ogUrl":1006,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1006,"schema":1007},"Beyond trends: Committing to application modernization","How to overcome analysis paralysis and take your digital transformation efforts from theory to practice.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749671258/Blog/Hero%20Images/just-commit-blog-cover.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/beyond-application-modernization-trends","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Beyond trends: Committing to application modernization\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Erica Lindberg\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-02-25\",\n      }",{"title":1003,"description":1004,"authors":1009,"heroImage":1005,"date":1011,"body":1012,"category":698,"tags":1013},[1010],"Erica Lindberg","2019-02-25","\n\nJust commit. What’s so hard about that? In truth, there’s a reason why commitment phobia is a punchline and it’s tough to settle on a place to go to dinner, let alone make a critical choice like when or [how to start the application modernization process](/blog/application-modernization-best-practices/).\n\nFor starters, there are so many questions to ask. For example:\n\n  1. What is the status quo of each software initiative?\n  1. Which applications are driving value for the business? Which aren’t?\n  1. When and how should I break my monolith into microservices? What’s the risk?\n  1. Should I move to the cloud – private, public, hybrid?\n  1. Everyone is talking about containers and Kubernetes, do I need this?\n\nThis is by no means an exhaustive list, but a sample of what might come up when considering where and how to start a digital transformation journey. Questions, buzzwords, and trends abound, and it can be easy to get trapped by analysis paralysis until enough time has gone by that indecision has become the decision.\n\nAccording to [Forrester’s Predictions 2019](https://go.forrester.com/blogs/tag/predictions-2019/), 25 percent of firms will decelerate digital efforts in 2019. For many organizations, slowing the pace of innovation directly results in lost market share due to more nimble competitors entering their space.\n\n> “In 2019, digital transformation moves from super-wide enterprise efforts to a pragmatic, surgical portfolio view of digital investments with the goal of making incremental and necessary changes to operations. – Forrester Predictions 2019\n\nThe key to starting and committing to the application modernization process is to start small and scale up as you learn. Following trends is not going to bring the organizational change needed for a successful digital transformation. It takes practical, incremental, and iterative progress.\n\nHere are a few practical steps for getting started:\n\n## 1. Start small with a small team or innovation group and scale up from there.\n\nTrying to make a decision on how to proceed with digital transformation across your entire organization is a monumental task. You risk introducing a lot of variable change all at once that can turn chaotic if not managed well. Starting with a small team or innovation group reduces the stress and minimizes the initial impact of getting started. [Behavioral science experts call this the “pick one and go” method](https://bsci21.org/9-tips-to-avoid-paralysis-by-analysis/) for overcoming analysis paralysis. Essentially, if you are overwhelmed or unsure about all of your options, just pick one and try it. Collect feedback, evaluate the outcome, iterate, and scale up from there.\n\nWhen choosing a team or developing an innovation group, avoid thinking along legacy lines which divide teams by stages of the software lifecycle. Think about building a cross-functional team of 8–12 people who can focus on developing the culture, process, and tools needed to continuously deliver software.\n\n## 2. Make smaller changes.\n\nKeep in mind that the impetus for digital transformation and, more specifically, application modernization, is driven from a business need to deliver value to customers faster. So, making smaller changes to release faster is the single most important change you can make.\n\nAdopt the mindset: what is the smallest possible change I can make to improve something, and how do I get it out as quickly as possible? At GitLab, we call this the [minimally viable change (MVC)](/handbook/product/product-principles/#the-minimal-viable-change-mvc), and it’s what allows us to ship nearly anything within a single release. This is especially important when approaching legacy software. If you start making a ton of big changes over a few weeks, the risk of breaking something and not understanding what change caused the error grows exponentially with every change.\n\nWith an MVC mindset, you can experiment with what works best without risking downtime. Smaller changes are easier to review, understand, and roll back if necessary.\n\n## 3. Prioritize mastering continuous delivery and deployment (CD).\n\nYou have your team assembled, you’ve made MVC your mantra, and now it’s time to establish a clear goal. If you’re just [starting down the application modernization road](/blog/application-modernization-examples/), chances are that you don’t quite know what strategy is going to work for your organization yet (that’s what the innovation group is for!). What you do know is that you need to be able to ship features to production faster while maintaining stability and security. By prioritizing understanding your current deployment pipeline and how to [automate to achieve continuous delivery](/topics/continuous-delivery/), you discover how the underlying infrastructure needs to change.\n\nAuthor Gary Gruver outlines this philosophy in his book, [\"Starting and Scaling DevOps in the Enterprise\"](/resources/scaling-enterprise-devops/). He writes:\n\n> It is my personal experience that creating, documenting, automating, and optimizing deployment pipelines in large software/IT organizations is key to improving their efficiency and effectiveness. – Gary Gruver\n\nStart with a single application and document how a change goes from idea all the way to production and monitoring. This will give you a good understanding of how it’s currently operating, what its dependencies are, and how you can start to decouple.\n\nFinally, the end goal is to enable teams with [fully automated CI/CD pipelines](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/) so developers can get their code to production faster. Taking both a cultural and technological approach to change is needed to adopt DevOps methodology.\n\nAre you ready to commit to your digital transformation journey? [Get inspired and learn how Ask Media Group modernized their architecture and development with microservices, containers, and kubernetes](/webcast/cloud-native-transformation/).\n",[9,108,677],{"slug":1015,"featured":6,"template":680},"beyond-application-modernization-trends","content:en-us:blog:beyond-application-modernization-trends.yml","Beyond Application Modernization Trends","en-us/blog/beyond-application-modernization-trends.yml","en-us/blog/beyond-application-modernization-trends",{"_path":1021,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1022,"content":1028,"config":1035,"_id":1037,"_type":13,"title":1038,"_source":15,"_file":1039,"_stem":1040,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/building-gitlab-with-gitlab-expanding-our-security-certification-portfolio",{"title":1023,"description":1024,"ogTitle":1023,"ogDescription":1024,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1025,"ogUrl":1026,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1026,"schema":1027},"Building GitLab with GitLab: Expanding our security certification portfolio","Learn how the Security Compliance team uses the Agile planning and security features in the GitLab DevSecOps Platform to manage the certification process.\n\n","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749659740/Blog/Hero%20Images/building-gitlab-with-gitlab-no-type.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/building-gitlab-with-gitlab-expanding-our-security-certification-portfolio","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Building GitLab with GitLab: Expanding our security certification portfolio\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Madeline Lake\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-04-04\",\n      }",{"title":1023,"description":1024,"authors":1029,"heroImage":1025,"date":1031,"body":1032,"category":842,"tags":1033},[1030],"Madeline Lake","2024-04-04","We recently expanded [our compliance certification portfolio](https://about.gitlab.com/security/) to include the automotive industry's [TISAX](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-drives-automotive-industry-information-security-with-tisax/) and to support the issuance of the first [GitLab Dedicated](https://about.gitlab.com/dedicated/) [SOC 2 Type 2](https://www.aicpa-cima.com/topic/audit-assurance/audit-and-assurance-greater-than-soc-2). GitLab's Security Compliance team is a proponent of [dogfooding](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#dogfooding) our platform, including our integrated project management and security features, so we accomplished this expansion using the GitLab DevSecOps Platform.\n\nIn this blog, we'll share the details of how we successfully leveraged GitLab's native features to implement security controls, enabling us to scale our compliance efforts and deliver results faster. You'll also learn how you can put these features to work in your own organization.\n\n> Start using GitLab for compliance today with [a free trial](https://gitlab.com/-/trials/).\n\n## Agile planning\n\nOur security certifications structure is built upon GitLab's [Agile planning](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/agile-delivery/) features, allowing us to deliver results faster by managing requirements centrally and streamlining our workflows. Using Agile planning features also enables end-to-end visibility throughout compliance audits.\n\n1. **[Epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/), [issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/), and [labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/labels.html).** We leverage a parent epic to outline all the external certifications that are ongoing, and child epics for each individual certification. Each child epic contains issues for each work stream related to the certification, as well as evidence requests from the external auditor. Parent and child epics allow for project management and visibility across the organization on the audit cycle's current status.\n\n2. **Recurring issues.** Every audit has standard request items and tasks that need to be performed. Therefore, to increase efficiency, we have a variety of recurring issues that are automatically created for each audit cycle that populate the task and/or request details, assignee, and due date. Recurring issues can be configured in a [CI pipeline](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/pipelines/schedules.html).\n\n3. **[Labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/labels.html) and [issue boards](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html).** Labels and issue boards are used to plan, organize, and visualize workflows. The Security Compliance team leverages issue boards to not only track status, but also to track and group identified deficiencies relating to our compliance requirements. Issue boards allow for visibility of all issues related to a given program by their risk classification and current remediation status.\n\nThese Agile planning features ensure that compliance teams are able to leverage the same platform as their engineers, promoting transparency and efficient delivery of results.\n\n## Security\n\nEach of GitLab’s security certifications has security and compliance requirements that must be operating effectively to achieve certification.\n\nGitLab offers native features within the platform that enable security and the achievement of industry-standard requirements.\n\nWe leveraged these key security features for our certifications and you can, too:\n\n1. **[Merge request approval settings](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/approvals/settings.html).** These settings can be configured to limit merge request approvals, enforce segregation of duties responsibilities, and force password authentication. For our certifications, merge request approval settings were inspected for relevant projects to support the following requirements: \n    - [AICPA Trust Service Critieria (TSC)](https://www.aicpa-cima.com/resources/download/2017-trust-services-criteria-with-revised-points-of-focus-2022) CC8.1\n\n    - [ISO 27001:2022](https://www.iso.org/standard/27001) 5.3, 8.32\n\n    - [TISAX](https://portal.enx.com/en-us/tisax/) 5.2.1\n\n2. **[Protected branch settings](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/protected_branches.html#protected-branches).** These configuration settings allow administrators to set branch protections and limit what users can do based on their configured permissions. For our certifications, protected branches were inspected for relevant projects to support the following requirements: \n    - AICPA TSC CC8.1\n    - ISO 27001:2022 8.32\n    - TISAX 5.2.1, 5.2.2\n\n3. **[Code owners](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/codeowners/).** This feature specifies the users or groups responsible for specific files and directories in a repository. The CODEOWNERS file can be enabled to identify owners of a file or directory and require owners to approve changes. Code owners can be implemented in conjunction with your approval rules. For our certifications, CODEOWNERS files were inspected for relevant projects to support the following requirements:\n    - AICPA TSC CC8.1\n    - ISO 27001:2022 8.32\n    - TISAX 5.2.1\n\n4. **Static application security testing ([SAST](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/sast/))/dynamic application security testing ([DAST](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/dast/)).** A part of using GitLab CI/CD, SAST and DAST are available to check your source code for known vulnerabilities. For our certifications, We leveraged SAST/DAST to support the following requirements:\n    - AICPA TSC CC3.2, CC7.1, CC9.2\n    - ISO 27001:2022 8.28, 8.29\n    - TISAX 5.2.5\n\n5. [Audit events](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/audit_events.html). This feature is used to track important events, including who performed what action and when. Audit events can be used to support the following requirements:\n    - AICPA TSC CC8.1\n    - ISO 27001:2022 8.15, 8.16\n    - TISAX 5.2.4\n\n## Get started today\nGitLab makes compliance easier than ever. Agile planning enables end-to-end visibility throughout the audit. and security is integrated into the design of the product, leading to faster, more comprehensive achievement of compliance requirements.\n\nHere at GitLab we are always pursuing the expansion of our security certification portfolio to give our customers and community additional assurance as well as additional transparency into our information security practices.\n\n> Have a certification you’d like to see us work towards? Have questions about how your organization can set up your GitLab instance to utilize our compliance features? Drop us a line by emailing customer-assurance@gitlab.com, we’d love to hear from you!\n\n## More Building GitLab with GitLab\n\n* [Building GitLab with GitLab: How GitLab.com inspired Dedicated](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/building-gitlab-with-gitlabcom-how-gitlab-inspired-dedicated/)\n* [Building GitLab with GitLab: Web API Fuzz Testing](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/building-gitlab-with-gitlab-api-fuzzing-workflow/)\n* [Building GitLab with GitLab: Why there is no MLOps without DevSecOps](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/there-is-no-mlops-without-devsecops/)\n* [Building GitLab with GitLab: Stress-testing Product Analytics](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/building-gitlab-with-gitlab-stress-testing-product-analytics/)",[9,701,1034],"embedded DevOps",{"slug":1036,"featured":6,"template":680},"building-gitlab-with-gitlab-expanding-our-security-certification-portfolio","content:en-us:blog:building-gitlab-with-gitlab-expanding-our-security-certification-portfolio.yml","Building Gitlab With Gitlab Expanding Our Security Certification Portfolio","en-us/blog/building-gitlab-with-gitlab-expanding-our-security-certification-portfolio.yml","en-us/blog/building-gitlab-with-gitlab-expanding-our-security-certification-portfolio",{"_path":1042,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1043,"content":1049,"config":1057,"_id":1059,"_type":13,"title":1060,"_source":15,"_file":1061,"_stem":1062,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/container-network-security-is-important",{"title":1044,"description":1045,"ogTitle":1044,"ogDescription":1045,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1046,"ogUrl":1047,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1047,"schema":1048},"How to secure your Kubernetes pods using GitLab Container Network Security","We help you get started with securing your Kubernetes cluster using Cilium, a GitLab-managed application.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749681687/Blog/Hero%20Images/diane-helentjaris-TYk0YQbog9g-unsplash.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/container-network-security-is-important","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How to secure your Kubernetes pods using GitLab Container Network Security\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Fernando Diaz\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-10-23\",\n      }",{"title":1044,"description":1045,"authors":1050,"heroImage":1046,"date":1052,"body":1053,"category":701,"tags":1054},[1051],"Fernando Diaz","2020-10-23","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\nKubernetes does not come secure out of the box. There is a lot of configuration needed\nto achieve a secure cluster. One important security configuration to consider is how pods\ncommunicate with each other. This is where Network Policies come into play, making sure that\nyour pods are not exchanging data with unknown or malicious sources, which can compromise\nyour cluster.\n\n[Network Policies](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/services-networking/network-policies/) are rules on how pods can communicate\nwith other pods as well as endpoints. They are pretty much a firewall for your internal cluster network.\n\nGitLab provides Container Network Security using [Cilium](https://cilium.io/) as a [GitLab-managed application](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/clusters/applications.html#install-cilium-using-gitlab-cicd).\nCilium is a CNI [network plugin](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/extend-kubernetes/compute-storage-net/network-plugins/) for Kubernetes that can be used to implement support for Network Policies.\n\nThe video below provides an introduction on how to easily implement Network Policies from GitLab,\nas well as a demo on testing Network Policies:\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/45Q__T42ZMA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\n## Network Policies in action\n\nThere are many different ways of configuring Network Policies within your Kubernetes cluster. You can configure\nthe `ingress from` as well as the `egress to` traffic. There are four kinds of selectors\nwhich can be used to configure traffic between pods:\n\n- podSelector: Selects provided pods in the same namespace\n- namespaceSelector: Selects all pods on given namespace\n- podSelector & namespaceSelector: Selects provided pods in given namespace\n- ipBlock: Blocks external [IP CIDR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classless_Inter-Domain_Routing) ranges provided\n\nMore information on the behavior of \"to\" and \"from\" selectors can be found in the [Kubernetes documentation](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/services-networking/network-policies/#behavior-of-to-and-from-selectors).\n\nBelow is an example of a Network Policy that only allows ingress traffic\nto pod with label `app: \"notes\"` from pods with label `access: \"true\"`.\n\n```yaml\napiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1\nkind: NetworkPolicy\nmetadata:\n  name: access-notes\nspec:\n  podSelector:\n    matchLabels:\n      app: \"notes\"\n  ingress:\n  - from:\n    - podSelector:\n        matchLabels:\n          access: \"true\"\n```\n\n## Installing Cilium as a GitLab-managed application\n\nCilium is provided by GitLab as a managed application, meaning\nthat GitLab installs and upgrades Cilium for you. There is no need\nto worry about how to get Cilium up and running. Cilium as well as your Network\nPolicies can be configured as needed.\n\nIn order to install and configure Cilium as a GitLab managed application, you can follow the steps provided in\nthe [GitLab cluster applications documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/clusters/applications.html#install-cilium-using-gitlab-cicd).\nThis sample project [Simply Simple Notes](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-examples/security/simply-simple-notes), is configured to use Cilium. It will install Cilium on the Kubernetes cluster associated with the project.\n\n[This guide](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/declare-network-policy/) can be used to test your Network Policies once Cilium has been installed.\n\n## Threat monitoring dashboard\n\nBy default Cilium installs with Hubble, a monitoring daemon which collects packet flow metrics per namespace. These\nmetrics are sent to the GitLab [Threat Monitoring dashboard](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/threat_monitoring/).\n\n![threat monitoring packet metrics](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/container-network-security/packet-metrics.png)\nPacket Metrics displayed in the Threat Management dashboard\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nThe packet flow metrics collected are:\n- The total number of inbound and outbound packets for the given time period\n- The proportion of packets dropped according to the configured policies\n- The average rate per-second of forwarded and dropped packets for the requested time interval\n\nWithin the Threat Monitoring dashboard, you can also view and configure the Network Policies in your project. This makes it easy to navigate\nyour container network configuration in one interface.\n\n![threat monitoring Network Policies](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/container-network-security/network-policy.png)\nNetwork Policies displayed in the Threat Management dashboard\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nNetwork Policies can also be created and edited through an intuitive UI. You can just select the network rules you wish to use and the YAML will be automatically created and applied to your cluster. This eliminates the need to edit the complicated YAML structure for Network Policies directly, and allows you to make sure the correct rules are being applied without confusion.\n\nNetwork Rules can be created using the following rule types:\n- Labels\n- Entities\n- IP/CIDR\n- DNS\n- Level 4\n\n![threat monitoring policy creation](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/container-network-security/policy-creation.png)\nPolicy being created in the Threat Management dashboard\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n## Learn more about GitLab Security\n\nI hope this blog can help get you started with Network Policies in Kubernetes. Check out some other\nways GitLab can help with security.\n\n- [How application security engineers can use GitLab to secure their projects](/blog/secure-stage-for-appsec/)\n- [How to capitalize on GitLab Security tools with external CI](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/integration/jenkins.html)\n- [What you need to know about Kubernetes RBAC](/blog/understanding-kubernestes-rbac/)\n\nCover image by [Diane Helentjaris](https://unsplash.com/@dhelentjaris) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/TYk0YQbog9g)\n{: .note}\n",[701,676,1055,9,1056],"kubernetes","testing",{"slug":1058,"featured":6,"template":680},"container-network-security-is-important","content:en-us:blog:container-network-security-is-important.yml","Container Network Security Is Important","en-us/blog/container-network-security-is-important.yml","en-us/blog/container-network-security-is-important",{"_path":1064,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1065,"content":1071,"config":1076,"_id":1078,"_type":13,"title":1079,"_source":15,"_file":1080,"_stem":1081,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/developing-a-successful-devops-strategy",{"title":1066,"description":1067,"ogTitle":1066,"ogDescription":1067,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1068,"ogUrl":1069,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1069,"schema":1070},"Developing a successful DevOps strategy","Here's what it takes to build a DevOps practice that works for everyone on the team.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749667540/Blog/Hero%20Images/devops-team-structure.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/developing-a-successful-devops-strategy","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Developing a successful DevOps strategy\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"GitLab\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2022-03-09\",\n      }",{"title":1066,"description":1067,"authors":1072,"heroImage":1068,"date":1073,"body":1074,"category":674,"tags":1075},[903],"2022-03-09","Some 60% of developers are releasing code 2x faster than before, [thanks to DevOps](https://learn.gitlab.com/c/2021-devsecops-report?x=u5RjB), and a majority of respondents to our 2021 Global DevSecOps Survey said their teams develop software using DevOps or DevSecOps.\n\n[DevOps](/topics/devops/) has had a direct impact on many businesses. Here’s what it takes to develop a successful DevOps strategy.\n\n## What is DevOps?\n\nDevOps is a set of practices that combines dev and ops to create safer software faster.\n\nThe main DevOps principles are automation, [continuous integration and delivery](/topics/ci-cd/) and responding quickly to feedback. Others are agile planning, infrastructure as code (IaC), containerization and microservices. Also, building in quality assurance and security with development and operations through the application lifecycle is important. Incorporating security into a DevOps team is referred to as [DevSecOps](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/devsecops/).\n\nEnabling the speed of delivery while maintaining high software quality requires an [organizational culture shift](https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/devops-a-complete-guide) that automates and integrates the efforts of the development and ops teams – two groups that traditionally practiced separately from each other, or in silos.\nBut the best DevOps processes and cultures extend beyond development and operations to incorporate input from all application stakeholders – including platform and infrastructure engineering, security, compliance, governance, risk management, line-of-business, end users and customers – into the software development lifecycle. \n\n## What are the benefits of a successful DevOps strategy?\n\nA successful DevOps strategy puts the focus on the customer. It’s not enough to focus on developing good software because this approach justifies prolonged development and release deadlines. It also overlooks the most critical factor: the consumer of the software. Your customer doesn’t care much about the process – they just want a quality product that will address their problem.  A successful DevOps strategy puts the team in the consumer’s shoes.\n\nAnother benefit of DevOps is that it allows a variety of teams, such as operations, security or project management, to work in an [Agile](/topics/agile-delivery/) setting. While development teams have become more Agile over the years, this occurred in isolation; operations teams have found it challenging to keep up and cannot release software at the same rate. DevOps brings these teams together and accelerates the delivery of software, while keeping the quality high.\n\nShorter development cycles with DevOps produce more frequent code releases, which in turn, makes it easier to spot code defects.\n\n## What key elements make DevOps successful?\n\nLike in most situations, **communication** is key to making a DevOps strategy successful. No business team can function without it, and that goes for a DevOps team. A good DevOps strategy incorporates feedback from developers, co-workers, and key stakeholders when building new systems.\nIT roles used to be more structured and defined, and as mentioned, professionals became used to working in silos. But DevOps has changed that model and work has become more **collaborative**. Teams now need to clearly communicate expectations, requirements and deadlines.\n\nDevOps is about a willingness to **change**. Teams must let go of some of their traditional practices and be open-minded to shifting their focus away from one deliverable and onto the next as business needs and capabilities evolve and change.\n\nTeams must also **accept failure** but not get discouraged by it. Some failure is to be expected, and the concept of [“fail fast”](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/testing/fail_fast_testing.html) (so you know there’s a problem soon enough to fix it easily) is at the heart of DevOps. They should embrace the possibilities that come from trying new techniques, and not be afraid to get creative. The top teams are those that work together, exchange ideas and push the boundaries of how they work and write more creative code.\n\n## Tips for creating a DevOps roadmap\n\nHaving a standard roadmap provides a DevOps team with a high-level, strategic blueprint of what the company envisions for the product. It’s a valuable reference point for any stakeholder during the software lifecycle. A roadmap also lets ops know when the development team will have a piece of code ready for testing.\n\nWhen creating a DevOps roadmap, make sure to clearly define the objectives and goals. Ask the team what [the collective purpose is for the roadmap](https://www.productplan.com/learn/create-a-devops-roadmap/). Objectives might include:\n\n- Improving engineering and ops teams coordination\n- Creating a single source of truth\n- Building an archive of development and release practices that people can refer to over time that are based on the most effective processes. This will help improve DevOps efforts going forward.\n\nFocused, short-term goals and plans should be established. Organizations typically plan their product roadmaps between 2 and 6 months out.\n\nA common mistake businesses make when building roadmaps is to use text only. By just using word processing documents or spreadsheets, stakeholders won’t get a clear understanding of what’s a high priority, which initiatives are dependent on others and who’s responsible for what.\n\nVisual roadmaps, complete with color-coding and bars, helps stakeholders more easily understand product plans. Roadmaps should also be kept current to reflect changes within the company’s culture and business model.\n\n## What are some common challenges associated with DevOps?\n\nChange isn’t easy and the merging of development and operations may cause a few clashes, but those involved must keep in mind that building a successful DevOps team requires this integration and collaboration between both sides. \nMake a gradual move into DevOps by starting with a small product or component and build from there.\n\nThere can also be challenges with deciding what tools to use, since there are so many available. This makes selecting a tool hard, especially if there’s a lack of knowledge about the technology behind it. Using a [DevOps platform](/topics/devops-platform/) can streamline all these choices as all of the moving parts of DevOps will be available and integrated in one single offering. \n\n[Momentum for DevOps](/blog/a-snapshot-of-modern-devops-practices-today/) is clearly growing because organizations are eager to take advantage of delivering software in shorter development cycles, while enhancing innovation in more stable operating environments and with performance-driven employee teams.",[677,700,9],{"slug":1077,"featured":6,"template":680},"developing-a-successful-devops-strategy","content:en-us:blog:developing-a-successful-devops-strategy.yml","Developing A Successful Devops Strategy","en-us/blog/developing-a-successful-devops-strategy.yml","en-us/blog/developing-a-successful-devops-strategy",{"_path":1083,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1084,"content":1090,"config":1096,"_id":1098,"_type":13,"title":1099,"_source":15,"_file":1100,"_stem":1101,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/directed-acyclic-graph",{"title":1085,"description":1086,"ogTitle":1085,"ogDescription":1086,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1087,"ogUrl":1088,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1088,"schema":1089},"Get faster and more flexible pipelines with a Directed Acyclic Graph","A Directed Acyclic Graph will let you run pipeline steps out of order, break the stage sequencing, and allow jobs to relate to each other directly.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749681298/Blog/Hero%20Images/james-eades-bfwhP9xodvE-unsplash.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/directed-acyclic-graph","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Get faster and more flexible pipelines with a Directed Acyclic Graph\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Itzik Gan Baruch\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-05-12\",\n      }",{"title":1085,"description":1086,"authors":1091,"heroImage":1087,"date":1093,"body":1094,"category":948,"tags":1095},[1092],"Itzik Gan Baruch","2020-05-12","\n\nRecently GitLab released an exciting feature that reduces the pipeline running times and enables more flexibility in the order jobs are running. The feature, Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), is free and available on GitLab.com and the self-managed versions. \n\n### Pipeline Jobs and Stages \n\nIn a typical [CI/CD pipeline](/topics/ci-cd/) you have multiple stages, which represent an automation of the [DevOps process](/topics/devops/) such as build, test, package, config, and deploy. Each stage is made up of one or more jobs. In the [CI/CD configuration file, .gitlab-ci.yml](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/quick_start/#what-is-gitlab-ciyml) you define the order of your stages. Usually the the pipeline will start with the build jobs; after all build jobs completed, test jobs will start, then jobs from the next stage will run, and so on. \n\nWhile this order makes a lot of sense, in some cases this might slow down the overall execution time. Imagine the build stage consists of task A which completes in 1 min, and task B which is very slow (say 5 mins). Task C is in the test stage but it depends on task A only. Still, task C must wait 5 minutes before it can be executed, resulting in a waste of 4 minutes.  \n\n![stage sequencing ](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/DAG/pipeline_diagram.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\n### Meet Directed Acyclic Graph\n\nDAG will allow you to run pipeline steps out of order, breaking the stage sequencing and allowing jobs to relate to each other directly no matter which stage they belong to. \n\nWith DAG, jobs can start to run immediately after their dependent jobs completed even if some jobs in the previous stage are still running. This new feature speeds up the CI/CD process and helps complete the deployment sooner.  \n\nIn the below example, a project generates both Android, iOS, and web apps in a multi-stage pipeline. The iOS tests started as soon as the iOS build passed rather than waiting for all the Android and web builds to pass too. It was the same for the iOS deployment – it completed after the iOS tests passed without waiting for the other test to complete. The total compute time might be the same, but the wall-clock time is different. In more complicated cases, it's possible to significantly reduce the overall wall-clock time of the pipeline by declaring exactly which jobs depend on which other jobs.\n\n![Build, test and deploy stages](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/DAG-blog.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\n### Defining dependent jobs\n\nThe .gitlab-ci.yml file introduces a new keyword: [needs](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/#needs) which gets a parameter on an array of jobs that it depends on. \n\n```\nios:\n  stage: build\n  script:\n    - echo \"build ios...\"\n\n\nios_test:\n  stage: test\n  script:\n    - echo \"test something...\"\n  needs: [\"ios\"]\n```\n\nThe ```ios_test``` job, which is part of the ```test``` stage, will start immediately after the ```ios``` job, which is in the ```build``` stage, and it will complete regardless of the status of other jobs in the ```build``` stage. \n\n### Where is it useful? \n\nThis can be valuable for the increasingly popular [monorepo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monorepo) pattern where you have different folders in your repo that can build, test, and maybe even deploy independently, just like in the above example where the iOS, Android and web apps can be built, test and deployed individually. \n\nAnother usage could be when your pipeline contains some heavy tests that take a lot of time to execute. It would make more sense to start those tests as soon as possible, rather than wait for not relevant tasks to complete and only then start them. \n\n### You can also watch a demo of DAG  below:\n\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/9EHcQd3x_Sw\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen>\u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\nCover image by [James Eades](https://unsplash.com/photos/bfwhP9xodvE) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/)\n{: .note}\n\n\n",[108,9],{"slug":1097,"featured":6,"template":680},"directed-acyclic-graph","content:en-us:blog:directed-acyclic-graph.yml","Directed Acyclic Graph","en-us/blog/directed-acyclic-graph.yml","en-us/blog/directed-acyclic-graph",{"_path":1103,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1104,"content":1110,"config":1116,"_id":1118,"_type":13,"title":1119,"_source":15,"_file":1120,"_stem":1121,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/ditch-your-legacy-planning-tool-get-agile-with-gitlab",{"title":1105,"description":1106,"ogTitle":1105,"ogDescription":1106,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1107,"ogUrl":1108,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1108,"schema":1109},"Ditch your legacy planning tool: Get Agile with GitLab","Discover how Agile planning in a DevSecOps platform unlocks traceability from idea to implementation, providing a holistic view of your strategy in action.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099116/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%282%29_6IiTrEHgXVZcOI2rcPfg21_1750099116301.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/ditch-your-legacy-planning-tool-get-agile-with-gitlab","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Ditch your legacy planning tool: Get Agile with GitLab\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Amanda Rueda\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-03-14\",\n      }",{"title":1105,"description":1106,"authors":1111,"heroImage":1107,"date":1112,"body":1113,"category":842,"tags":1114},[990],"2024-03-14","When organizations are trying to get a better handle on their software development workflows — struggling with bottlenecks and silos, not being able to integrate customer feedback fast enough, and lacking project visibility — they just might turn to Agile planning. It’s a solid way to increase collaboration, foster iterations, and speed value delivery.\n\nAgile planning, though, works even better when done in conjunction with a DevSecOps platform and the methodologies that come along with it. There’s no need to choose one or the other. In fact, they are designed to work together, and both focus on continuous improvement, collaboration, and team empowerment. A DevSecOps platform helps you bring an Agile mindset to software delivery.\n\n> [Contact our sales team](https://about.gitlab.com/sales/) to get started with GitLab Agile planning today!\n\n### What problems can Agile planning and a DevSecOps platform tackle?\n\nFirst off, let’s look at some challenges teams take on with a combination of Agile planning tools and a DevSecOps platform:\n\n- Inefficiencies and bottlenecks - With context switching between a multitude of tools and a lack of visibility into teams’ work and workflows, it’s hard to see bottlenecks where time and effort is being wasted.\n- Silos and lack of collaboration - If planning and development are happening in different places and with different tools, it’s much more difficult for teams to work together to improve efficiency and deployment speed.\n- Problems scaling up - When teams and workflows are growing, it can be difficult to enable cross-functional work that will keep up with increasing demands.\n- Problems with communication - When stakeholders don’t have insight and the ability to comment in the early planning stage of a project, engaging with them becomes inefficient and their valuable views are lost.\n- Losing track of resources - Without visibility into how teams’ time  and work are allocated, it’s easy to lose sight of how valuable resources are being allocated — or even wasted.\n- Keeping up with reports - Without automation to help teams keep up with progress reports, it can be highly taxing to get needed, organized reports on time.\n\nBoth Agile planning tools and a DevSecOps platform focus on bringing customer-facing teams, product teams, and development teams together to accelerate customer feedback into production and speed up development through iterations. Each one works really well, but together they’re even more powerful.\n\n### Learning from Iron Mountain\n\n[Iron Mountain Inc.](https://about.gitlab.com/customers/iron-mountain/), a U.S.-based enterprise information management services company, has embraced Agile methods, but was looking to simplify their fragmented tooling to gain a single view of software development workflows. With an eye on reducing the costs associated with infrastructure management, while also securely increasing production velocity, the company, which has more than 225,000 customers worldwide, adopted a DevSecOps platform to scale their Agile framework. The platform enabled their Agile methodologies, and Agile supported their evolution to DevOps.\n\n“GitLab has provided us with the foundation and platform to enable our scaled Agile framework,” says Hayelom Tadesse, Iron Mountain’s vice president of enterprise technology. “We are able to collaborate within our Enterprise IT teams and our key stakeholders.”\n\n### How Agile planning + a DevSecOps platform helps organizations\n\nAgile is a software development mindset that calls for iterative changes and updates. Instead of creating an initial, one-and-only plan that is seen all the way through the software development lifecycle, Agile planning leaves room to adapt through the development phase, based on feedback from cross-functional teams and customers. Simply put, Agile planning comes into play in every phase of development.\n\nAnd an end-to-end DevSecOps platform fosters collaboration, breaks down silos, and offers visibility into what is happening throughout the software development lifecycle.\nWhen you incorporate Agile planning inside the framework of a DevSecOps platform, it’s easier and more efficient to plan, organize, track, and measure work.\n\nBy [combining Agile and a DevSecOps platform](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-enterprise-agile-planning-add-on-for-all-roles/), organizations can:\n- **Optimize workflows** by enabling a unified view of DevSecOps metrics to resolve process bottlenecks and achieve business goals faster. A DevSecOps platform, like GitLab, can solve challenges such as fragmented tooling, gaps that block development and operations communications, administrative burdens, and difficulties with efficiently securing complex pipeline deployments.\n- **Unlock collaboration** to break down silos and drive organizational outcomes. Cross-functional teams work side-by-side in GitLab, fostering open communication and real-time feedback. By sharing ideas and iterating on work from the inception of ideas to deployment to production, everyone remains on the same page.\n- **Simplify design work** since design teams can share mockups, gather feedback, and ensure software alignment with business objectives, all within a single platform.\n- **Enable value stream management** by empowering teams with metrics and insights. A platform helps teams ship better software faster and focus on delivering customer value.\n- **Gain actionable insights** to drive continuous improvement across the entire software delivery process. By bringing Agile planning into a DevSecOps platform, code merges are effortlessly linked to issues, ensuring complete visibility and a user-friendly view of a project’s current status.\n\nIntegrated Agile capabilities bring teams together, fostering a culture of collaboration, transparency, and efficiency. And, within a single platform, it empowers teams to work together, deliver value faster, and ultimately, create software that truly matters.\n\nTake a look at how GitLab can help you plan and track work across the software development lifecycle, removing inefficiencies and scaling software delivery:\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/7ICcIaDsVc8?si=5_rf2KLyoE5kuIAM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\n> [Contact our sales team](https://about.gitlab.com/sales/) to get started with GitLab Agile planning today!\n",[9,1115,474],"DevSecOps",{"slug":1117,"featured":90,"template":680},"ditch-your-legacy-planning-tool-get-agile-with-gitlab","content:en-us:blog:ditch-your-legacy-planning-tool-get-agile-with-gitlab.yml","Ditch Your Legacy Planning Tool Get Agile With Gitlab","en-us/blog/ditch-your-legacy-planning-tool-get-agile-with-gitlab.yml","en-us/blog/ditch-your-legacy-planning-tool-get-agile-with-gitlab",{"_path":1123,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1124,"content":1130,"config":1137,"_id":1139,"_type":13,"title":1140,"_source":15,"_file":1141,"_stem":1142,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/dotfiles-document-and-automate-your-macbook-setup",{"title":1125,"description":1126,"ogTitle":1125,"ogDescription":1126,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1127,"ogUrl":1128,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1128,"schema":1129},"dotfiles - Document and automate your Macbook setup","Document and automate your Macbook setup with installing tools and well-known configuration settings. Follow best practices from a developer’s point of view.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749664102/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlab-values-cover.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/dotfiles-document-and-automate-your-macbook-setup","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"dotfiles - Document and automate your Macbook setup\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Michael Friedrich\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-04-17\",\n      }",{"title":1125,"description":1126,"authors":1131,"heroImage":1127,"date":1133,"body":1134,"category":971,"tags":1135},[1132],"Michael Friedrich","2020-04-17","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\n\n## What are dotfiles?\n\nWhat are dotfiles? Put simply, a dotfile is a file that starts with a dot (.), which differentiates it from other file types. Beyond that, a dotfile is a way for software developers to be more productive. Dotfiles are configuration files that help a variety of programs manage their functionality. Dotfiles are hidden by default in a Unix-based system. \n\nDotfiles can be used to set environment variables, define shell aliases, configure editors and other command-line tools, and much more. They are typically stored in the home directory of a user and are loaded when the user logs in, or when a new shell is opened.\n\nSome examples of dotfiles you may have encountered before (or not) include:\n\n* .vimrc\n* .bash_profile or .bashrc \n* .config\n* .gitconfig\n* .zshrc\n\n## Why use dotfiles?\n\nWhy use dotfiles? When I first started working on Windows, Linux and macOS many years ago, there was this steep learning curve. Not everything on the system had a good default for improved productivity, often tools were missing to create your own work environment.\n\nAt first glance, I started writing blog posts and shared my findings with everyone. This had the benefit that I exactly knew where these snippets can be found. Many years ago, systems were not so reliable and often a full operating system reinstall worked better than troubleshooting existing problems.\n\nAfter some years, many best practices had been documented in blog posts and were hard to apply in one go. Especially with working in many areas for development, professional services, ops and support, different settings and tools have been applied. At that point I had created a wiki page with text and screenshots.\n\nThe wiki page allowed for many revisions, and was kept in the internal Confluence since it contained company sensitive information. I often was asked how my Linux and macOS setup looks like and if I could share best practices.\n\nThen I learned that users share their configuration and setup commands in a Git repository which is called “dotfiles”. At first glance, a dotfile is a hidden file on a Linux/Unix system, containing tool specific settings. Common tools are Git, vim, bash storing their configuration in a dotfile in the user’s home directory.\nThese dotfiles were enriched with scripts to install additional software via package managers, and to apply certain runtime configuration after the work environment was setup the first time.\n\n## dotfiles on my Macbook\n\nMy first steps with dotfiles started at the point where updating the Confluence wiki became troublesome. It also was the only left bastion where I could not write documentation in Markdown. Within the dotfiles Git repository, best practice always has been a `README.md` file which describes more details and tips. Copying snippets and scripts for everyone also has become easier. Users can even fork the repository and use this as a basis for their own work environments.\n\nNavigate into my [dotfiles repository](https://gitlab.com/dnsmichi/dotfiles) to learn more. The following sections highlight some of my daily best practices as a Developer Evangelist at GitLab.\n\n\n### ZSH with OhMyZSH\n\nmacOS Catalina uses ZSH by default. Therefore I was looking into best practices and soon learned about OhMyZSH as shell framework. It comes with nice plugins which provide a native Git shell integration as well as exporting credentials as environment variables.\n\nIn addition to the built-in functionality, it is easy to add custom aliases and settings. Avoid clutter inside the main `.zshrc` file, instead extend `.oh-my-zsh/custom/aliases.zsh` for example. The following alias allows to clean up the local git branches very easily:\n\n```sh\n# Delete all remote tracking Git branches where the upstream branch has been deleted\nalias git_prune=\"git fetch --prune && git branch -vv | grep 'origin/.*: gone]' | awk '{print \\$1}' | xargs git branch -d\"\n```\n### Git configuration\n\nMy Git configuration is rather simple. The reason I keep it inside the dotfiles repository is that I always forget about the Git CLI commands to set them properly. Over the years, all my preferred customizations have been applied in Git itself. The only minimalistic addons are a custom `git log` command and the credential helper setting. I need that for storing the GitLab personal token and not being asked by `git push/pull` all the time.\n\n```sh\n$ cat ~/.gitconfig\n\n[user]\n\tname = Michael Friedrich\n\temail = mfriedrich@gitlab.com\n        signingkey = D14A1F16\n[alias]\n        l  = log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset %C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)\u003C%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit --date=relative --\n[credential]\n\thelper = osxkeychain\n```\n\nThe Git shell prompt integration is done with OhMyZSH as plugin. Previously I had done this with a customized Bash profile. I decided to go for ZSH with macOS Catalina and my new job at GitLab. \n\n### vim configuration\n\nEven with habits changed to using VS Code/Atom or the Web IDE, I am still very fast with vim, especially with spell checking included. I've been carrying this `.vimrc` file around for more than 10 years now and it always helped :) Here is the best of - there is more inside with syntax highlighting and restoring the cursor on re-open.\n\n\n```sh\nset viminfo='20,\u003C1000,s1000,:20,%,n~/.viminfo “ Increase buffer size for search\nset history=50            \" keep 50 lines of command line history\nset ruler                      \" show the cursor position all the time\nset nofixeol                 \" don't fix end-of-line errors\n\"set background=dark\nset background=light\nset showcmd              \" Show (partial) command in status line.\nset showmatch           \" Show matching brackets.\n```\n\n\n### Install favorite software and tools\n\nHomebrew is my favorite package manager on macOS. It ranges from adding simple tools like “htop” to applications not available in the app store like “Gimp”.\n\nIn order to keep things simple, the `brew_once.sh` script takes care of installing Homebrew, enabling the cask system for applications and installs wget/curl to setup OhMyZsh.\n\n```sh\n./brew_once.sh\n```\n\nAdditional software is installed with the “`brew.sh` script. This can be re-run any time to ensure the same state is applied. This will be useful if an application was accidentally removed. Please fork the repository and adjust everything for your likings!\n\n```sh\n./brew.sh\n```\n\nThe script takes care of installing the following:\n\n* GNU utils (sed, awk, tar, sha256sum). The macOS utils differ a bit and may break scripts made for Linux.\n* System tools (htop, pidof, pstree, grep, screen, nmap, ssh-copy-id, tree)\n* Images (imagemagick) for easy conversions\n* Archive and Git (git, git-lfs, p7zip, xz, tig, hub)\n* JSON (jq, jo)\n* Development (Ruby, Python, Go, Redis)\n* Applications as cask (Java, Atom, VS Code, Firefox, VLC, Gimp, Vagrant)\n\n\n### Enhanced Workflows with Alfred\n\n[Alfred](https://www.alfredapp.com/) is not only a Spotlight replacement for opening applications or searching files. The major selling points are custom workflows accessible by quick typing. Picking HTML color codes, querying DNS records or copying emojis all over the place have become easier with quick shortcuts.\n\nTired of locking your screen on macOS? `Cmd+Space, l, Enter` after Alfred has learned that `l` means `lock`. Yep, it remembers the most often typed commands.\n\n![Alfred Workflow Dig GitLab.com IPv6](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/alfred_workflow_dig_gitlab.com_aaaa.png){: .shadow}\n\n\n## Trackpad and keyboard\n\nI always used to have a mouse with me for my previous notebooks, and the change to the trackpad always worried me. Move the mouse, click here and on it goes. When I got my first iPad, I got introduced to just tapping and approving. \n\nI’ve learned that this setting can be enabled on macOS too for the trackpad which is my preferred input method since then. In order to automate this setting, run the following CLI commands:\n\n```sh\ndefaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Clicking -bool true\ndefaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 1\ndefaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 1\n```\n\nAnother thing I prefer using - the right click for accessing the actions toolbar. By default, the secondary click is available with two fingers. My improved workflow prefers the right bottom corner of the trackpad. You can either change this inside the trackpad preferences or run these CLI commands:\n\n```sh\ndefaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad TrackpadCornerSecondaryClick -int 2\ndefaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad TrackpadRightClick -bool true\ndefaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.trackpad.trackpadCornerClickBehavior -int 1\ndefaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.trackpad.enableSecondaryClick -bool true\n```\n\nLast but not least using `tab` for changing the focus area in windows is a must have. This is hidden in the keyboard shortcut settings as `use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls`.\n\n```sh\ndefaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleKeyboardUIMode -int 3\n```\n\nAdditional ideas and commands can be found in [this repository](https://github.com/herrbischoff/awesome-macos-command-line).\n\n## Documentation\n\nEverything else is stored in the GitLab repository, including the documentation in Markdown format. Additional screenshots can be put there too into the `doc/images` directory for example.\nThere is no need to carry an extra wiki page around and everyone can access the repository via URL. You can also download the whole archive and work offline.\n\nThe best thing about my dotfiles repository - it is open source and we can learn, share, suggest together :-)\nDo you have a cool idea for making this even more convenient? Fork the [repository](https://gitlab.com/dnsmichi/dotfiles) and send a merge request please!\n",[1136,1136,9,9],"cloud native",{"slug":1138,"featured":6,"template":680},"dotfiles-document-and-automate-your-macbook-setup","content:en-us:blog:dotfiles-document-and-automate-your-macbook-setup.yml","Dotfiles Document And Automate Your Macbook Setup","en-us/blog/dotfiles-document-and-automate-your-macbook-setup.yml","en-us/blog/dotfiles-document-and-automate-your-macbook-setup",{"_path":1144,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1145,"content":1151,"config":1156,"_id":1158,"_type":13,"title":1159,"_source":15,"_file":1160,"_stem":1161,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/efficient-devsecops-nine-tips-shift-left",{"title":1146,"description":1147,"ogTitle":1146,"ogDescription":1147,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1148,"ogUrl":1149,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1149,"schema":1150},"DevSecOps basics: 9 tips for shifting left","Here's how to create an efficient DevSecOps practice and shift your security left.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749663602/Blog/Hero%20Images/efficient-devsecops-9-tips.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/efficient-devsecops-nine-tips-shift-left","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"DevSecOps basics: 9 tips for shifting left\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Vanessa Wegner\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-06-23\",\n      }",{"title":1146,"description":1147,"authors":1152,"heroImage":1148,"date":1153,"body":1154,"category":698,"tags":1155},[695],"2020-06-23","\n_This is the first in a five-part series on getting started with [DevSecOps](/topics/devsecops/). Part two outlines the steps needed to create [silo-free collaboration](/blog/achieve-devsecops-collaboration/). Part three looks at the importance of [automated security testing](/blog/devsecops-security-automation/). And part four explains how to [build a strong security culture](/blog/security-culture-devsecops/) to support your DevSecOps efforts._\n\nSpeed is required to stay competitive – nearly 83% of our [2020 Global DevSecOps Survey](/developer-survey/) respondents said they’re releasing code faster than ever with DevOps. With the pace of work accelerating, some important details are easily overlooked or underestimated – like security. \n\nThink back to the last several projects your team has launched. Did security testing begin late in your software development lifecycle (SDLC)? Was too much time wasted on friction between siloed development and security? Was the project delayed due to inefficient handoff between teams, lack of visibility across systems, or lack of planning and consideration?\n\nAll of these are symptoms of outdated security practices trying to fit into your DevOps or Agile methodologies. Upgrade your organization to DevSecOps by [shifting left](/topics/ci-cd/shift-left-devops/): Bring security to the front of your development pipeline. \n\n## Security is changing – with a long way to go\n\nSecurity respondents in our 2020 Global DevSecOps Survey report changes in their roles: Being increasingly included as part of a cross-functional team focused on security (27.73%), becoming more involved in the day-to-day/more hands on (26.94%), and focusing more on compliance (22.55%). Only 19.95% report that their role is not changing.\n\nIt’s evident that companies are beginning to shift their security practices, but security testing remains a source of frustration: Over 42% of survey respondents said that testing happens too late in the lifecycle. This may be due to conflicting opinions on who is responsible for security. Nearly 33% of respondents said the security team is responsible, while almost as many people (29%) said that everyone was responsible. \n\nHowever, it’s difficult for everyone to be responsible when developers aren’t provided with the proper tools and resources to assess the security of their code: Surprisingly, static [application security](/topics/devsecops/) testing (SAST) is still not a common developer tool: Less than 19% of companies surveyed in this year’s DevSecOps report put SAST scan results into a pipeline report that developers can access, and over 60% of developers don’t actually run SAST scans. \n\n## The importance of collaboration between security and development teams \n\nSecurity is a top priority in DevOps methodology because security breaches are troublesome and expensive, and the threats are persistent. Historically dev and sec [have not gotten along](/blog/developer-security-divide/), and when communication between groups is poor, it can be easier for security vulnerabilities to take hold. Also, dev and sec [rarely agree on who owns security](/blog/gitlabs-2022-global-devsecops-survey-security-is-the-top-concern-investment/), which is a problem seen time and again in GitLab’s Annual DevSecOps Surveys.\n\nOur survey isn’t the only one finding strife between the teams. The [Ponemon Institute Research report](https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeronorth.io%2Fresource%2Fponemon-report-revealing-the-cultural-divide-between-application-security-and-development%2F&data=04%7C01%7CHeather.Rubash%40netspi.com%7C5db8edd20731475c73e908d8868a4116%7C47bfc77a6733477ba2b2ecf6b199e835%7C0%7C0%7C637407275653430081%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=l7TP5PRZjCs1PqCV6JBrPVNMFQuLyBt%2BIOot6rUb5gw%3D&reserved=0) indicated that 71 percent of AppSec professionals believe security isn’t taken seriously by devs; specifically, they believe developers aren’t building in security at a sufficiently early stage. \n\nBut, when security and development teams collaborate early and often on security scanning for their code, there are a number of improvements, including:\n\n- Improved code quality \n- Fewer time-consuming and costly fixes\n- Full visibility of security measures for the whole organization\n- Minimized risk of security breaches\n- Top-notch security testing\n\nSecurity tools and automation can only take teams so far. There is no “set it and forget it” option when it comes to security. There needs to still be a human at the wheel. Collaboration between development and security teams needs to be as much of a priority as security itself. DevSecOps needs to be a culture, not just a practice.\n\nTo remove team siloes around security, here are a few considerations:\n\n1. **Understand what is driving each respective team.** The motivations behind the choices significantly affect how DevSecOps efforts turn out. \n2. **Do the big things together.** Auditing existing security tools, processes, and places where automation is or isn’t in place should be a group effort, not an individual team effort.\n3. **Define security objectives and responsibilities at every stage of the SDLC.** Early scanning and testing are vital to security, and everyone can be part of checking that these security checks are happening. \n4. **Plan and execute a comprehensive security training plan.** Have clear guidelines on security goals and steps to follow in case of an active threat. \n5. **Consider creating a [security champions program](/blog/why-security-champions/).**\n\n### Key to efficient security: Clarity\n\nCommunication cannot be understated when it comes to shifting left. Moving security forward in the software lifecycle won’t help anyone if your team doesn’t understand their responsibilities and expectations. Document any and all role changes when shifting your security practices, and then make sure that all parties have the tools necessary to get the job done. \n\n## What is shifting left?\n\nShift left is a DevOps testing concept to speed up development while at the same time improving code quality. Think of the code development process as starting on the “left” with development and ending on the “right” with deployment, so shifting the testing stage left means moving it from the end of the process to close to the beginning. Shifting left is made far easier with test automation.\n\n### 3 Important reasons to shift left\n\n1. **More code gets tested.** By bringing security forward in the SDLC, you provide more opportunities for code to be scanned and vulnerabilities to be remediated. By automating static application security testing (SAST) at every code commit, for example, you can at least ensure that all code has been scanned once.\n1. **Planning becomes more well-rounded.** Shifting left is not just about technology – it’s also about people. Bring a security DRI into your initial planning meeting to make sure you account for security needs in all stages of the SDLC. This will help streamline end-of-cycle security reviews, reduce friction between teams, and increase the likelihood of hitting your deadline with a secure product.\n1. **Better accountability among non-security team members.** Shifting left lets your team know that everyone is now expected to take security seriously and make it a part of their daily work. \n\n## 9 Tips for efficient DevSecOps\n\n1. Measure time lost in dealing with vulnerabilities after code is merged. Next, look for a pattern in the type or source of those security vulnerabilities, and make adjustments for improvement.\n2. Identify pain points and software risks between development and security, create a plan to resolve them, and then execute on that plan. \n3. Make small code changes. Smaller updates are easier to review and secure and can be launched more quickly than monolithic project changes.\n4. Automate and integrate security scans. Make scans ubiquitous so that every secure code change is reviewed and security flaws are found at their source of creation.\n5. Build security scans into the developer's workflow. Integrated security enables developers to find and fix vulnerabilities before the code ever leaves their hands. This also reduces the volume of open-source vulnerabilities sent to the security team, streamlining their review.\n6. Give developers access to SAST and DAST reports. While this is important for remediation, it's also a valuable tool to help developers build secure coding practices.\n7. Reduce or eliminate any waterfall-style security processes within your SDLC. You should always be able to change direction as needs arise: Keep your organization and your security controls nimble.\n8. Give the security team visibility into both resolved and unresolved vulnerabilities in code, where the vulnerabilities reside, who created them, and their status for remediation.\n9. Streamline your toolchain so that employees can focus their attention on a single interface: A single source of truth.\n\n_How efficient are your DevSecOps practices? [Take our DevSecOps Maturity Assessment to find out.](https://about.gitlab.com/resources/devsecops-methodology-assessment/)_\n\n**Learn more about DevSecOps:**\n\n[How to harden your GitLab instance](/blog/gitlab-instance-security-best-practices/)\n\n[Make your toolchain more secure](/blog/toolchain-security-with-gitlab/)\n\n[Our goals with Zero Trust](/blog/zero-trust-at-gitlab-problems-goals-challenges/)\n\nCover image by [Marc Sendra Martorell](https://unsplash.com/@marcsm) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/-Vqn2WrfxTQ)\n{: .note}\n",[9,700,677,701],{"slug":1157,"featured":6,"template":680},"efficient-devsecops-nine-tips-shift-left","content:en-us:blog:efficient-devsecops-nine-tips-shift-left.yml","Efficient Devsecops Nine Tips Shift Left","en-us/blog/efficient-devsecops-nine-tips-shift-left.yml","en-us/blog/efficient-devsecops-nine-tips-shift-left",{"_path":1163,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1164,"content":1170,"config":1175,"_id":1177,"_type":13,"title":1178,"_source":15,"_file":1179,"_stem":1180,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/enhancing-gitlab-with-improved-data-filtering-and-visualizations",{"title":1165,"description":1166,"ogTitle":1165,"ogDescription":1166,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1167,"ogUrl":1168,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1168,"schema":1169},"Enhancing GitLab with improved data filtering and visualizations","Discover how GitLab's new data views will streamline your workflow and power decision-making.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099097/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/agile_agile.png_1750099097133.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/enhancing-gitlab-with-improved-data-filtering-and-visualizations","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Enhancing GitLab with improved data filtering and visualizations\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Amanda Rueda\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-03-05\",\n      }",{"title":1165,"description":1166,"authors":1171,"heroImage":1167,"date":1172,"body":1173,"category":842,"tags":1174},[990],"2024-03-05","In the hectic world of product management, quick access, refinement, and visualization of data are essential to drive efficiency and productivity forward. Our recent exploration into the needs of product managers uncovered a vital link between their success and their ability to make data-driven decisions. Conversely, the drain on time and development resources emerged as a significant deterrent to high performance.\n\nRecognizing the critical role of data in strategic decision-making and prioritization, we're excited to announce an upcoming initiative, [Improved Data Filtering and Visualization](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5516). This initiative focuses on the usability, flexibility, and efficiency of GitLab's planning views, simplifying how users interact with, recall, and share project data.\n\n## Streamlining data interaction and retrieval\n\nWe're focusing on consolidating multiple views into a unified platform, eliminating confusing navigation, and enabling users to create complex queries in a user-friendly manner. This approach not only makes data more accessible but also empowers users to visualize it in formats that best suit their needs. By providing a single hub for data access and presentation, we're making it easier for users to obtain critical information they need to make more informed, data-driven decisions quickly, leading to streamlined workflows and elevated project outcomes.\n\n### The evolution from multiple views to a single, configurable experience\n\nHere is what it looks like when you evolve from multiple views to a single, configurable experience:\n\n![Image of moving from multiple views to a single view](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099112/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image1_aHR0cHM6_1750099112252.png)\n\n## Transforming workflows with real-world applications\n\nImagine a scenario where you must review the progress of multiple interconnected projects. Traditionally, this would involve navigating through various parts of GitLab, each with its own set of filters and views. With our Improved Data Filtering and Visualization initiative, you will now access a consolidated view that allows for creating intuitive queries. This new view can display issues and epics in a nested format, providing the hierarchical context you need to understand your project structure fully. What's more, you will have the ability to easily switch to a roadmap or board view as your use case demands.\n\nAnother example involves a development team planning their upcoming sprint. Instead of juggling between different pages for issues, epics, and boards, the team can utilize a single, customized view that allows them to view the context of related work items, update the status of work without opening multiple tabs, and understand work item dependencies. This saves precious synchronous time for the team and creates an efficient workflow by bringing visibility teams need to the forefront.\n\n## Engage with us!\n\nAs we venture into this transformative initiative, your insights and feedback will become the backbone of our progress. We're not merely enhancing features; we're on a mission to revolutionize how product planning can be successful within GitLab. Your insights will help turn this ambitious vision into reality.\n\nDelve into our proposed feature iterations [detailed within our initiative](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5516#feature-iterations) and leave your comments on the epic. Your perspective on these enhancements is invaluable, helping us refine our approach and ensure it aligns with your needs and expectations.\n\nThis is more than a call to action — it's an invitation to shape the future of GitLab together. Share your feedback, suggestions, and visions with us!\n\n## Leverage Agile planning with GitLab\n\nBuilding on our commitment to streamlining workflows with the Improved Data Filtering and Visualization initiative, it's worth highlighting that GitLab also deeply integrates Agile delivery principles to enhance software development lifecycles. Discover how GitLab bridges strategy with execution, enabling teams to adopt Agile methodologies like Scrum and Kanban, and scale with frameworks such as [SAFe](https://scaledagileframework.com/) and [LeSS](https://less.works/less/framework).\n\n> Explore more about [enhancing Agile Delivery with GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/agile-delivery/) and drive faster value creation.\n",[9,474,700,926],{"slug":1176,"featured":6,"template":680},"enhancing-gitlab-with-improved-data-filtering-and-visualizations","content:en-us:blog:enhancing-gitlab-with-improved-data-filtering-and-visualizations.yml","Enhancing Gitlab With Improved Data Filtering And Visualizations","en-us/blog/enhancing-gitlab-with-improved-data-filtering-and-visualizations.yml","en-us/blog/enhancing-gitlab-with-improved-data-filtering-and-visualizations",{"_path":1182,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1183,"content":1189,"config":1195,"_id":1197,"_type":13,"title":1198,"_source":15,"_file":1199,"_stem":1200,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/epics-roadmap",{"title":1184,"description":1185,"ogTitle":1184,"ogDescription":1185,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1186,"ogUrl":1187,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1187,"schema":1188},"Coming in 11.3: Seamless top-down and bottom-up planning with epics and roadmap","See how you can plan and track larger initiatives even more easily with milestone dates integrated into epics.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749672146/Blog/Hero%20Images/epics-issues-milestones-planning.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/epics-roadmap","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Coming in 11.3: Seamless top-down and bottom-up planning with epics and roadmap\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Victor Wu\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2018-08-23\",\n      }",{"title":1184,"description":1185,"authors":1190,"heroImage":1186,"date":1192,"body":1193,"category":298,"tags":1194},[1191],"Victor Wu","2018-08-23","\n\n[Epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/) and [roadmap](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/roadmap/)\n are two newer features in [GitLab Ultimate](/pricing/) and [GitLab.com Gold](/pricing/#gitlab-com). Used together, your team\n can plan and track larger initiatives. On September 22, we're shipping a new feature\n which we will help you transition seamlessly between top-down and bottom-up planning.\n\n## First things first: epics vs. issues vs. roadmap\n\nAn epic is similar to an [issue](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/) in that it\nrecords a proposed scope of work to be done, allows for team members to discuss that scope,\nand then is tracked and updated over time as that work is actually implemented.\n\nHowever, an epic exists at the [group](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/index.html) level (as opposed to an issue, which exists at the [project](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/index.html) level). So\nimmediately you see that an epic is designed to reflect a larger scope, and higher level of discussion\ncompared to an issue. Additionally, you can [attach any number of issues to an epic](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/epic_issues.html#assign-an-issue-to-the-epic), with the idea that\nthe epic's scope decomposes into those individual issues.\n\n![epic](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/epic-view.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nSince an epic is designed to scope work over a longer period of time (several issues' worth),\na timeline-based view in the form of a [roadmap](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/roadmap/)\n is also useful: it serves as a visualization to anticipate that work, and track it as it's\n progressively completed. So the roadmap, also scoped at the group level, presents all the\n epics in time for that group.\n\nYou can apply [group labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/labels.html#project-labels-and-group-labels)\n to epics, making it easy to quickly narrow down to the epics you care about, whether you\n are looking at a list view or a roadmap view.\n\n| Epics list | Roadmap |\n| --- | --- |\n| ![roadmap](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/epic-list-view.png){: .shadow} | ![roadmap](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/roadmap-view.png){: .shadow} |\n\n## Long-term vs short-term planning\n\nWhen planning any initiative, uncertainty, by definition, increases further out in\nthe future. You don't know how many resources you will have. You don't know if previous\ndependent work will be finished. You don't know if the market and your customers will change\nsuch that you won't even need that planned out initiative at all.\n\nConversely, the nearer-term future is much more certain. You have a good handle of the work\nthat should be accomplished and that it can be completed within the next few weeks, up to a\nmonth or so.\n\nAnd of course, the work you are doing now, and have already completed in the past, has zero\nuncertainty. You can't change the past.\n\nEpics and roadmap help you plan and track work in all these cases:\n\n### Long-term future: top-down planning\n\nWhen planning far in the future, we use _top-down planning_. We have strategic initiatives\nthat we want to achieve, with approximate scope and timelines. So in this case, you would\ncreate an epic, and assign `Fixed` dates (a planned start date and planned finish date) to it.\nThe epic would appear in the roadmap view, and you would be able to see it positioned further\nin the future.\n\nThis helps high-level planning, such as starting discussions with various departments in\nyour organizations, or presenting a strategic roadmap to your executive leadership. By creating the\nepic early on, it provides a collaborative space for all stakeholders to discuss feasibility\nand further detailed ideas.\n\n### Short-term future: bottom-up planning\n\nWhen planning for the nearer-term future, we use _bottom-up_ planning. So suppose the epic\nyou created previously with fixed dates has gained some traction within your organization.\nPeople are excited about the prospects and want to flesh out detailed designs and implementation\nsteps. You and your team would then start creating issues and attach them to the epic.\n\nEventually, you have scoped out the detailed work in the issues and even assigned milestones to them,\nindicating when they are planned to be worked on. Now, instead of having to manually update the epic\nto reflect the milestone dates, you would simply choose `From milestones` in the epic sidebar. In this\ncase, the epic planned start date becomes a dynamic date reflecting the earliest start date across all\nthe epic's assigned milestones. The same goes for the epic's planned end date too.\n\nThis functionality is coming in GitLab 11.3 – you can [view the original issue here](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/6470).\n\nAdditionally, the [roadmap bar edges will reflect the fixed or dynamic start and end dates](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/6471) accordingly.\n\n![inherited-dates](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/inherited-dates.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nSo with this design, you are in control when you want to seamlessly transition an epic from a\ntop-down planning scenario, to a bottom-up one. The roadmap reflects these dates automatically too,\nso that all your epics are shown together in one view.\n\nPhoto by [Christopher Machicoane-Hurtaud](https://unsplash.com/photos/ewZkOqjl2Ys?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/ewZkOqjl2Ys?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)\n{: .note}\n",[9,950,784,723],{"slug":1196,"featured":6,"template":680},"epics-roadmap","content:en-us:blog:epics-roadmap.yml","Epics Roadmap","en-us/blog/epics-roadmap.yml","en-us/blog/epics-roadmap",{"_path":1202,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1203,"content":1209,"config":1214,"_id":1216,"_type":13,"title":1217,"_source":15,"_file":1218,"_stem":1219,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/epics-three-features-accelerate-your-workflow",{"title":1204,"description":1205,"ogTitle":1204,"ogDescription":1205,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1206,"ogUrl":1207,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1207,"schema":1208},"3 Major improvements coming to GitLab Epics","Explore three new features of GitLab Epics to enhance your workflow.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749671891/Blog/Hero%20Images/epicsimprovements.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/epics-three-features-accelerate-your-workflow","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"3 Major improvements coming to GitLab Epics\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Suri Patel\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-01-21\",\n      }",{"title":1204,"description":1205,"authors":1210,"heroImage":1206,"date":1211,"body":1212,"category":907,"tags":1213},[740],"2020-01-21","\n[Epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics) allow teams to organize work into a useful collection of [issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues), enabling proper planning to hit larger targets or function features. The [Plan:Portfolio Management team](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/development/dev/plan/product-planning/) has been tinkering away to improve GitLab Epics. \n\n## How planning with epics provides insight  \n\nEpics group themed items to work at different levels, depending on the individual working on the project. Product managers, engineers, and leadership all require different information from projects, and epics enable teams to stay connected without getting lost in a sea of issues.\n\n> “Epics are collections of work that move teams towards a goal and can be business or engineer focused. Operations teams might need to take a closer look at meeting customer needs, solving a problem, or rolling out a feature. An engineer might care about the very specific pieces of work they need to do to accomplish something, to release the next segment, or to put up the next MVC. Epics allow you to organize work, providing visibility at the right level. Different teams are all connected and related with each other, so we're able to stay lockstep in our proper zones.” – [Keanon O'Keefe](/company/team/#kokeefe), Senior Product Manager\n\nEpics break down information silos, since team members can quickly access information across a project. Without epics, teams may have to trudge through thousands of issues to identify relevant data. Cleanly sorting issues into epics results in an increase in visibility and a reduction in cycle time.\n\n## Three improvements \n\nWhen we [released GitLab Epics in 11.3](/blog/epics-roadmap/), our [MVC](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#minimal-viable-change-mvc) offered simple functionality and a roadmap. In recent months, we’ve started to iterate on those original MVCs to provide real value versus function. We're working on three significant iterations on epics to help teams enhance their workflow.\n\n### 1. Create issues from epics\n\nUsers can now create issues directly from epics, removing the step of navigating to a new tab before switching back to relate the issue to the epic. \n\n![A screenshot of a webpage that shows a button called create new issue](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/createanissuefromepic.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nThis improvement allows users to create a new issue directly from an epic.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nWith this improvement, users can create issues that correspond to a given epic, enabling them to break down a project into more digestible vertical feature slices.\n\n#### A quality of life improvement \n\nThe Plan:Portfolio team received user feedback that it was frustrating to manually create and relate issues in separate tabs. These additional steps disrupted workflow and didn’t meet expectations on how to efficiently iterate on a roadmap. With this quality of life improvement, users can now quickly iterate on the issues that comprise the larger epic.\n\nBy automatically relating issues to epics, users will no longer “lose” issues if they forget to manually relate them. This feature saves teams time and simplifies organization and planning.\n\n_Follow our progress by visiting [the issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/issues/5419)_\n\n### 2. Weight and progress on roadmaps\n\nWhen viewing a roadmap, users can quickly understand the completion progress of each item. This information helps teams determine whether an epic is on track to be completed by the assigned end date.\n\nIf issues aren't groomed regularly, especially when it comes to issue weights, it can be difficult to trust any progress completion data on a roadmap, because it may not consider the historical velocity of the team implementing it. With this improvement, teams can quickly retrieve accurate, reliable data.\n\n#### An increase in visibility\n\nThis feature gives teams the ability to look at the roadmap and immediately recognize whether a project is behind or ahead of schedule. Previously, users had to manually calculate progress and estimate whether goals were attainable. This new view helps teams report progress outwards, allocate additional support to lagging items, and gain better visibility into the progression towards goals.\n\n![A screenshot of a webpage that shows projects and the corresponding progress and due date](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/weightandprogressepics.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nThe new view will allow users to see quickly whether a project is on track.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n> “Team members can self-serve information. And from a product manager’s perspective, especially when you look at a company like ours in which we’re all remote, if I need an update that’s not documented in an issue, I might have to wait until one of my engineers in APAC comes online to answer the question. If everything is demonstrated on a roadmap from a progress complete perspective, that can help me answer questions to customers or upper management on where things are at, without having to wait for a response from somebody else.”  – Keanon O'Keefe\n\nThe idea is that it saves time, because a manager, director, or executive who looks at this roadmap has instant insight into progress. They don't have to ping the engineering manager who may then need to ping the developers. We’ve reduced the necessary steps in communicating progress and the ability to share information.\n\n**Tip**: This feature depends on leveraging [the weight option](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/issue_weight.html). Keanon recommends weighting every issue assigned to an epic to provide the most accurate representation of the amount of work associated and your progress.\n\n_Follow our progress by visiting [the issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/issues/5164)_\n\n### 3. Expand epics on roadmaps to view hierarchy\n\nChild epics are now displayed under their parent epics on the roadmap, enabling users to view the hierarchy of work. With this feature, users can get a detailed view of the work involved over a timeline. Because users can view hierarchy, they’re able to quickly see related work to track progress and determine whether an overall project will meet a goal. \n\n![A screenshot of a webpage that shows a parent epic and the child epics, with corresponding progress and due dates](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/expandepicsinroadmap.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nThis feature gives users a detailed view of work involved over the project timeline.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n> “What this change will do is allow you to look at a parent epic and actually click on it so that it expands kind of like a drawer. It will show the parent epic, which might be something that someone at an executive or director level cares about, while individual teams or engineering managers can view more granular details with child epics.” – Keanon O'Keefe\n\nThis improvement complements weights and progress on roadmaps, since it provides even more ways to view data and details. \n\n#### An ordered approach\n\nFrom an organizational standpoint, this iteration enables teams to properly sequence their plans. For example, teams that need to build a section of the backend before starting work on the frontend can quickly determine whether they’re on track to meet timelines or how much more work needs to be completed before another team can begin their work. This is our first step in empowering teams to sequence their work, and it’s an opportunity to allow teams to tailor the view of the roadmap to the audience.\n\n“We have a great set of designers, engineering managers, developers, and product people in Plan. I'm very impressed at how quickly everybody rallied together to move things forward. Many of these iterations are difficult from a design perspective, and I’m impressed with how the team approaches challenges and determines how to get the right data and visual at the right level, while allowing teams to drill down or drill up easily.” – Keanon O'Keefe\n\n**Tip**: It’s important to assign start and due dates to epics, whether you leverage the dates that are inherited or ones you set manually, so that child epics are properly displayed on the roadmap in relation to their parent.\n\n_Follow our progress by visiting [the issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/issues/7077)_\n\n### What’s next for GitLab Epics?\n\nThe team is just getting started with its improvements to GitLab Epics. This is an area that we’re committed to accelerating, and we want to offer the most effective tools for product and portfolio management. “We’ve built out a strong team, and we’re hitting our stride and reaching our potential for releasing functionality,” says Keanon. \n\nOne of the next opportunities the Plan:Portfolio Management team will undertake is collaborating with Plan:Certify on [dependency mapping](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/issues/2035), which will enable teams to surface dependencies on the roadmap. With dependency mapping, development and operations teams can view a sequence of work, identify blockers, and understand whether they’ll meet target deadlines. This feature will help larger organizations plan multiple projects simultaneously, see dependencies, and identify a critical path of work. \n\n> “We are just getting started with delivering tools that offer functionality between different groups. We have some exciting features coming soon.” – Keanon O'Keefe\n\nIf you’re interested in learning more about the team’s direction, please read more about the vision for Epics.\n\n_Thank you to [Keanon O'Keefe](/company/team/#kokeefe), Senior Product Manager, Plan:Portfolio Management, for contributing to this post._\n\nCover image by [Maarten van den Heuvel ](https://unsplash.com/@mvdheuvel?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/8EzNkvLQosk)\n{: .note}\n",[9,700,723],{"slug":1215,"featured":6,"template":680},"epics-three-features-accelerate-your-workflow","content:en-us:blog:epics-three-features-accelerate-your-workflow.yml","Epics Three Features Accelerate Your Workflow","en-us/blog/epics-three-features-accelerate-your-workflow.yml","en-us/blog/epics-three-features-accelerate-your-workflow",{"_path":1221,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1222,"content":1228,"config":1234,"_id":1236,"_type":13,"title":1237,"_source":15,"_file":1238,"_stem":1239,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/external-postgresql-servers-should-be-upgraded-to-latest-version",{"title":1223,"description":1224,"ogTitle":1223,"ogDescription":1224,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1225,"ogUrl":1226,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1226,"schema":1227},"External PostgreSQL 12 and 13 servers should be upgraded to the latest minor version","External PostgreSQL 12.7- and 13.3- servers used with GitLab should be upgraded to the latest minor version.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749669673/Blog/Hero%20Images/engineering.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/external-postgresql-servers-should-be-upgraded-to-latest-version","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"External PostgreSQL 12 and 13 servers should be upgraded to the latest minor version\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Yannis Roussos\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2022-06-23\",\n      }",{"title":1223,"description":1224,"authors":1229,"heroImage":1225,"date":1231,"body":1232,"category":298,"tags":1233},[1230],"Yannis Roussos","2022-06-23","\n\nA bug in certain versions of PostgreSQL, called the `use-after-free bug`, can cause segmentation faults. If you are affected, you should upgrade. The affected PostgreSQL versions are:\n\n- PostgreSQL 12 versions earlier than 12.7. The bug was patched in [PostgreSQL 12.7](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/release/12.7/).\n- PostgreSQL 13 versions earlier than 13.3. The bug was patched in [PostgreSQL 13.3](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/release/13.3/).\n\nWhich versions of GitLab could be affected?\n\n- GitLab EE versions 14.9 and later are affected, if your version of PostgreSQL is an affected version.\n- GitLab CE versions 15.1 and later are affected, if your version of PostgreSQL is an affected version.\n- Omnibus GitLab instances using a bundled PostgreSQL server are not affected as they ship with [patched versions of PostgreSQL](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/package_information/postgresql_versions.html), and no further action is needed.\n\nWe strongly recommend all instances using an affected PostgreSQL version to upgrade to the latest minor version for PostgreSQL version 12 or 13.\n\nFor more detailed information, review our [issue on this problem](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/364763).\n",[9,952],{"slug":1235,"featured":6,"template":680},"external-postgresql-servers-should-be-upgraded-to-latest-version","content:en-us:blog:external-postgresql-servers-should-be-upgraded-to-latest-version.yml","External Postgresql Servers Should Be Upgraded To Latest Version","en-us/blog/external-postgresql-servers-should-be-upgraded-to-latest-version.yml","en-us/blog/external-postgresql-servers-should-be-upgraded-to-latest-version",{"_path":1241,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1242,"content":1248,"config":1254,"_id":1256,"_type":13,"title":1257,"_source":15,"_file":1258,"_stem":1259,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/first-look-the-new-agile-planning-experience-in-gitlab",{"title":1243,"description":1244,"ogTitle":1243,"ogDescription":1244,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1245,"ogUrl":1246,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1246,"schema":1247},"First look: The new Agile planning experience in GitLab","Learn about new capabilities, including a brand-new framework, that will support a more unified and flexible user experience – and find out what's coming next.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099072/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/agile_agile.png_1750099072322.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/first-look-the-new-agile-planning-experience-in-gitlab","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"First look: The new Agile planning experience in GitLab\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Melissa Ushakov\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-06-18\",\n      }",{"title":1243,"description":1244,"authors":1249,"heroImage":1245,"date":1251,"body":1252,"category":842,"tags":1253},[1250],"Melissa Ushakov","2024-06-18","In today's fast-paced world, GitLab customers rely on our [Agile planning features](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/agile-delivery/) to consistently deliver value to their users. By leveraging GitLab's issues, sub-epics, and epics, leaders gain a clear view of organizational activities, enabling them to make strategic decisions that align with their business goals. At GitLab, understanding and adapting to our customers' needs is core to our mission. As our customers' needs evolve, so must our approach, prompting us to enhance our existing functionalities to serve them better.\n\nGitLab has embarked on a journey to advance our [Agile planning](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/categories/agile-planning/) capabilities and unlock a new level of collaboration and shared awareness from tasks to goals. In this article, you'll learn about our approach to Agile planning, what you can expect to change in the next few releases, and our exciting long-term vision.\n\n## The need for a new approach\n\nToday, [epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/) and [issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/) exist as separate experiences. For example, epics don’t have assignees and issues are not supported at the group level. These differences create friction for team leaders who work with issues and epics and expect similar functionality to be available for a seamless workflow and effective Agile planning. The lack of uniformity can also cause confusion among team members and ultimately hinder productivity. We understand that these differences make the Agile planning experience in GitLab more challenging than it should be.\n\n![Image of challenges in Agile planning](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099086/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image1_aHR0cHM6_1750099086456.png)\n\n\u003Ccenter>\u003Ci>Inconsistencies between issues and epics can introduce friction to user workflows.\u003C/i>\u003C/center>\n\n\u003Cp>\n\nConsistency is not the only challenge with the current Agile planning experience in GitLab. Our user base feedback and market analysis point to the need for more flexibility to represent an organization’s unique way of working. Many Agile and strategic frameworks in the market inform an organization's processes. Our approach is to provide a flexible solution that can adapt to your needs while supporting common, out-of-the-box frameworks. One example of a widely adopted framework is \"Objectives and Key Results,\" which helps leaders tie operational work to strategic objectives. Epics and issues alone could not support our customers' growing need for more types of planning objects to represent their organization’s workflow.\n\nYour input has been invaluable in shaping our strategy to center on a unified experience; as a result, we created the Work Items framework to reimagine our current issue and epic implementation and pave the way for the future. This new model will allow us to provide a more consistent experience for our existing Agile planning objects, improving the day-to-day experience for Agile teams using GitLab. It will also facilitate the introduction of new features and improvements more rapidly, as the unified architecture simplifies development and maintenance. The Work Items framework is crucial to delivering a more powerful, flexible, and user-friendly Agile planning experience in GitLab.\n\n![Work Items framework](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099086/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image3_aHR0cHM6_1750099086457.png)\n\n\u003Ccenter>\u003Ci>The Work Items framework provides a starting point for existing planning objects and sets a foundation for new types.\u003C/i>\u003C/center>\n\n## Iterating while rebuilding\n\nProtecting our users from disruption was a top priority as we rebuilt our Agile planning capabilities. Many users rely on epics and issues for business-critical processes in their organization, so an uninterrupted experience was paramount. We also wanted to keep true to GitLab’s iteration value to ensure and deliver value incrementally. Tasks were introduced and are powered by the Work Items framework, allowing us to provide net new value to our users while we build the capabilities needed for issues and epics over time. Tasks have had incredible adoption and have provided a way for us to get invaluable feedback about the new work items experience.\n\n![Tasks in the Work Items framework](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099086/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image4_aHR0cHM6_1750099086459.png)\n\n\u003Ccenter>\u003Ci>Tasks provide a way to decompose issues and were the first item to use the Work Items framework.\u003C/i>\u003C/center>\n\n## Exciting updates coming\n\nWe are excited to announce a refreshed epics and issues experience in GitLab – powered by the Work Items framework – is coming later this year. Existing epic and issue data, APIs, webhooks, and URLs will continue to work as expected. You will not need to do anything to prepare or to take advantage of the new functionality. After the transition, you will notice a refreshed look and feel on the detail page and additional capabilities for epics, such as assignees, health status, and more!\n\n![Issues and epics in the Work Items framework](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099086/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image5_aHR0cHM6_1750099086461.png)\n\n\u003Ccenter>\u003Ci>The Work Items framework will drive consistency for issues and epics.\u003C/i>\u003C/center>\n\n \u003Cp>\n\nThis is just the beginning of our journey! Over the next few months, we will release long-awaited functionality, including custom fields and configurable statuses, to provide additional flexibility in your planning workflows. We also plan to update our lists, boards, and roadmaps experience to give you more ways to interact with and visualize your planning data.\n\n![Status and priority fields](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099086/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image2_aHR0cHM6_1750099086463.png)\n\n\u003Ccenter>\u003Ci>Status and priority are newly planned fields to help streamline planning. Custom fields can meet various use cases like value scores and approval processes. \u003C/i>\u003C/center>\n\n## Getting started with GitLab\n\nWe can’t wait for you to experience these enhancements. They’re designed to take your Agile planning to the next level. Stay tuned for more updates, and get ready to harness the full potential of GitLab’s innovative capabilities!\n\n> The Enterprise Agile Planning add-on is available to GitLab Ultimate subscriptions. Please [contact your GitLab sales representative](https://about.gitlab.com/sales/) for more information.\n\n_Disclaimer: This blog contains information related to upcoming products, features, and functionality. It is important to note that the information in this blog post is for informational purposes only. Please do not rely on this information for purchasing or planning purposes. As with all projects, the items mentioned in this blog and linked pages are subject to change or delay. The development, release, and timing of any products, features, or functionality remain at the sole discretion of GitLab._\n",[9,950],{"slug":1255,"featured":90,"template":680},"first-look-the-new-agile-planning-experience-in-gitlab","content:en-us:blog:first-look-the-new-agile-planning-experience-in-gitlab.yml","First Look The New Agile Planning Experience In Gitlab","en-us/blog/first-look-the-new-agile-planning-experience-in-gitlab.yml","en-us/blog/first-look-the-new-agile-planning-experience-in-gitlab",{"_path":1261,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1262,"content":1268,"config":1273,"_id":1275,"_type":13,"title":1276,"_source":15,"_file":1277,"_stem":1278,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/five-reasons-to-simplify-agile-planning-tool-configuration-gitlab",{"title":1263,"description":1264,"ogTitle":1263,"ogDescription":1264,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1265,"ogUrl":1266,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1266,"schema":1267},"5 reasons to simplify your agile planning tool configuration with GitLab","Get more from your agile planning with a platform that supports automation, protects the user experience, and reduces time spent on tool configurations.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749665084/Blog/Hero%20Images/agile.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/five-reasons-to-simplify-agile-planning-tool-configuration-gitlab","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"5 reasons to simplify your agile planning tool configuration with GitLab\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Melissa Ushakov\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2023-10-17\",\n      }",{"title":1263,"description":1264,"authors":1269,"heroImage":1265,"date":1270,"body":1271,"category":842,"tags":1272},[1250],"2023-10-17","\nAgile planning tools offer an opportunity to guide team members through a workflow and to follow best practices. In some agile planning tools, like Atlassian Jira, this is done by configuring enforced status workflows for agile planning work items. However, enforced status workflows can slow response times, impact team autonomy, and have other negative effects. Instead, let's explore how a single DevSecOps platform with built-in agile tooling can simplify the process — and how GitLab can help.\n\n## What are enforced status workflows?\nEnforced status workflows define the statuses a work item can be in, the allowed status transitions, the data elements needed to perform a status transition, and which users can perform a status transition. In a typical Jira-user scenario, developers have to manually fill in required data and advance an item through a prescribed status workflow that may not account for exceptions. Enforced workflows in an agile planning tool can limit creativity and unnecessarily block progress when exceptions are encountered, hindering the team's ability to respond swiftly to changing priorities and limiting their autonomy in delivering the best business outcomes.\n\n![status workflows](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-09-26-say-no-to-complex-status-enforcements-in-your-agile-planning-tool/status_workflow_example.png){: .shadow.small.center}\nExample of an enforced workflow preventing certain status transitions\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n\n## Guiding users through a workflow with GitLab\nHere are five ways GitLab simplifies your agile planning tool configuration.\n\n### 1. Statuses are enforced close to the work for better efficiency.\nCompliance and security checks are necessary, and organizations should ensure that work goes through the proper reviews and that the right team members are involved. Agile planning work items are an artifact that helps align the scope of work of a deliverable, and the work to make that scope a reality happens in downstream in merge requests. Many times, enforcements are better suited to be applied through [approval rules](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/approvals/rules.html), [compliance pipelines](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/compliance_frameworks.html#compliance-pipelines), or [deployment approvals](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/environments/deployment_approvals.html). This leads to a greater assurance that the code changes have followed the right process, which matters most. For example, instead of having an enforced status transition in your work items for a security review, you can create [merge request approval rules](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/approvals/rules.html), setting the members of your security team as approvers. [Deployment approvals](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/environments/deployment_approvals.html) can be set up so that your quality assurance lead needs to approve the deployment to specific environments.\n\n![status workflows](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-09-26-say-no-to-complex-status-enforcements-in-your-agile-planning-tool/unified_approval_rules_v16_0.png){: .shadow.small.center}\nThe production environment requires five total approvals, and allows deployments from only the \"Very Important Group\" and the user administrator.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n\n### 2. Automation improves data quality.\nThis may seem counterintuitive, but when you place too many restrictions on what data entry is allowed, people stop updating their work items, leading to poor data quality. Working through exceptions to the process is cumbersome, and users need to misreport activity to close the work item when work is done. For example, it's common for users in a tool with workflow enforcements to quickly advance an issue through statuses that didn’t happen so that it could be closed when work has been completed. What if you could intelligently derive the status of work instead of relying on people updating issues? With [GitLab triage](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/ruby/gems/gitlab-triage), automation can add or remove labels, set a health status based on downstream DevOps activity, and more. Your developers can spend more time on product innovation and driving your business objectives forward instead of manually updating details, which automation can handle. \n\n![bot labels](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-09-26-say-no-to-complex-status-enforcements-in-your-agile-planning-tool/gitlab_bot_health.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nUpdate health with automation\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n\n![bot health](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-09-26-say-no-to-complex-status-enforcements-in-your-agile-planning-tool/gitlab_bot_labels.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nUpdate labels with automation\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n\n### 3. The user experience is protected.\nAt GitLab, we prioritize [convention over configuration](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/product-principles/#convention-over-configuration) as one of our product principles to deliver exceptional user experiences. This is why GitLab avoids using heavy-handed enforced status workflows in agile planning tools, which end users often dislike. These workflows create friction and hinder your team's productivity. Instead, teams should encourage transparency by explaining the importance of each step in the process, fostering understanding and buy-in. GitLab enables teams to represent a status flow with boards that help to understand the intended flow. A simplified planning tool setup within the DevSecOps platform drives collaboration, transparency, and trust across all roles, leading to a better full-team experience where developers can deliver more value faster.\n\n![workflow board](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-09-26-say-no-to-complex-status-enforcements-in-your-agile-planning-tool/workflow_board.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nBoards guide your team through a sequence of statuses\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n\n### 4. Developer tool integration is simplified.\nOrganizations often have a rich ecosystem of tools, and the inability to fully integrate with a critical tool like your agile planning solution limits efficiency and flexibility, potentially leading to time-consuming manual processes. When your status process flow is too restrictive, it is almost impossible to update data from an integration accurately, leading to data mismatches between systems. Other vendors, like Atlassian, have resorted to advising against updating data via an integration. At GitLab, we embrace developer tool preferences and have a comprehensive [suite of APIs and webhooks](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/).\n\n### 5. Time spent on tool configuration is reduced.\nAgile planning tools require close management of configurations. The more prescriptive you make workflows, the more time you have to spend tending to those configurations. With GitLab, automated workflow controls require less effort and enable greater team autonomy. By embracing GitLab's flexible configuration options, teams can spend less time on agile planning tool management and innovate more efficiently. \n\n## Getting started with GitLab\nWith a simplified agile planning tool setup in GitLab that takes advantages of modern DevSecOps practices, you can increase efficiency, encourage collaboration, and get to market faster – all while improving the developer experience.\n\nGet started today with the [Jira importer](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/jira.html).\n",[9,474,1115,926],{"slug":1274,"featured":6,"template":680},"five-reasons-to-simplify-agile-planning-tool-configuration-gitlab","content:en-us:blog:five-reasons-to-simplify-agile-planning-tool-configuration-gitlab.yml","Five Reasons To Simplify Agile Planning Tool Configuration Gitlab","en-us/blog/five-reasons-to-simplify-agile-planning-tool-configuration-gitlab.yml","en-us/blog/five-reasons-to-simplify-agile-planning-tool-configuration-gitlab",{"_path":1280,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1281,"content":1287,"config":1293,"_id":1295,"_type":13,"title":1296,"_source":15,"_file":1297,"_stem":1298,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/get-to-know-the-gitlab-wiki-for-effective-knowledge-management",{"title":1282,"description":1283,"ogTitle":1282,"ogDescription":1283,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1284,"ogUrl":1285,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1285,"schema":1286},"Get to know the GitLab Wiki for effective knowledge management","The GitLab Wiki helps organizations benefit from Agile planning and knowledge management. Learn best practices for using this powerful tool in your DevSecOps environment.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749660011/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945__21_.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/get-to-know-the-gitlab-wiki-for-effective-knowledge-management","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Get to know the GitLab Wiki for effective knowledge management\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Matthew Macfarlane\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-07-17\",\n      }",{"title":1282,"description":1283,"authors":1288,"heroImage":1284,"date":1290,"body":1291,"category":842,"tags":1292},[1289],"Matthew Macfarlane","2024-07-17","Effective knowledge management is a cornerstone of Agile planning success for organizations across all industries. The [GitLab Wiki](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/wiki/), part of the GitLab DevSecOps platform, is a powerful tool that supports this endeavor. With the GitLab Wiki, teams can streamline [Agile planning](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/agile-delivery/) processes, enhance collaboration, and ensure that valuable information is accessible and up to date, all within a single platform. In this article, you will learn how to harness the GitLab Wiki for effective knowledge management.\n\n## What is the GitLab Wiki?\n\nThe GitLab Wiki is available at both the Project and Group levels, and allows teams to create, organize, and share documentation directly within their GitLab instances. It's a flexible and user-friendly wiki that supports multiple formats, including Markdown, RDoc, AsciiDoc, and Org, making it easy to present information in a readable manner.\n\n## Benefits of using GitLab Wiki for knowledge management\n\nThere are numerous benefits to using the GitLab Wiki for knowledge management as part of an overall Agile planning strategy. Here are four examples:\n\n1. **Centralized information repository:** The GitLab Wiki serves as a single source of truth where all knowledge can be stored. This centralization ensures that team members can easily find the information they need without having to leave the platform for an external solution.\n2. **Collaboration and accessibility:** Being integrated into GitLab helps to foster collaboration and ensures that everyone has access to the latest information.\n3. **Version control:** The GitLab Wiki is bolstered by GitLab's robust version control system. This means every change is tracked, and previous versions can be restored if necessary. This is crucial for maintaining the integrity of documentation over time.\n4. **Templates:** Templates ensure that the content across different pages maintains a consistent format and style, making the documentation more professional and easier to navigate. Templates also save time by providing a predefined structure that can be reused. This reduces the effort required to create new pages or update existing ones.\n\n## Best practices for knowledge management in the GitLab Wiki\n\nHere are five best practices to follow when using the GitLab Wiki:\n\n1. **Organize content logically:** Structure your wiki with clear, logical pages and sub-pages. Use categories to group related information and ensure that the hierarchy is intuitive. This makes it easier for users to navigate and find what you need.\n2. **Standardize documentation practices:** Establish and enforce guidelines for documentation, including consistent formatting, naming conventions, and content structure. Templates, as mentioned before, can help with this.\n3. **Perform regular updates and reviews:** Unlike an issue or epic, wiki pages never close. To ensure the accuracy of wiki pages it's important to schedule regular reviews and updates. Encourage team members to contribute updates as they encounter changes in their work.\n4. **Encourage collaboration:** Foster a culture where team members are encouraged to contribute to the Wiki. This could be through regular knowledge-sharing sessions, incentives for contributions, or integrating documentation updates into daily workflows.\n5. **Link wiki pages to issues and epics:** Use GitLab’s auto-complete capability to link wiki pages with issues and epics. Linking can help your team better locate and reference information throughout a project's lifecycle.\n\n## Get started with the GitLab Wiki\n\nThe GitLab Wiki helps organizations follow Agile planning principles and attain effective knowledge management by ensuring documentation remains a valuable resource. Leveraging GitLab Wiki for knowledge management not only enhances productivity but also fosters a culture of continuous learning and improvement.\n\nIncorporate these strategies into your GitLab Wiki practice and watch as your team's efficiency and collaboration reach new heights. To learn more about the GitLab Wiki, check out [our documentation wiki](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/wiki/).\n\n> Try the GitLab Wiki for yourself with a [free 30-day trial of GitLab Ultimate](https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_source=about.gitlab.com/blog&glm_content=default-saas-trial).",[9,474,926],{"slug":1294,"featured":6,"template":680},"get-to-know-the-gitlab-wiki-for-effective-knowledge-management","content:en-us:blog:get-to-know-the-gitlab-wiki-for-effective-knowledge-management.yml","Get To Know The Gitlab Wiki For Effective Knowledge Management","en-us/blog/get-to-know-the-gitlab-wiki-for-effective-knowledge-management.yml","en-us/blog/get-to-know-the-gitlab-wiki-for-effective-knowledge-management",{"_path":1300,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1301,"content":1307,"config":1313,"_id":1315,"_type":13,"title":1316,"_source":15,"_file":1317,"_stem":1318,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-how-to-manage-users",{"title":1302,"description":1303,"ogTitle":1302,"ogDescription":1303,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1304,"ogUrl":1305,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1305,"schema":1306},"Getting started with GitLab: How to manage users","Learn how to manage users using groups, roles, and permissions. Walk through the setup of secure collaboration with proper project access.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097273/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-getting-started-with-gitlab-banner-0497-option4-fy25_cFwd8DYFLekdnOLmbbChp_1750097273817.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-how-to-manage-users","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Getting started with GitLab: How to manage users\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Abubakar Siddiq Ango\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2025-01-14\",\n      }",{"title":1302,"description":1303,"authors":1308,"heroImage":1304,"date":1310,"body":1311,"category":926,"tags":1312},[1309],"Abubakar Siddiq Ango","2025-01-14","*Welcome to our \"Getting started with GitLab\" series, where we help newcomers get familiar with the GitLab DevSecOps platform.*\n\nEnsuring a safe, compliant, and collaborative environment starts with the most basic of tasks - managing users. In this tutorial, we show you how to establish project members, assign roles and permissions, and create groups and subgroups.\n\nNote: To follow along with this tutorial, you should have a GitLab account either through GitLab.com or your organization's self-managed instance. If you need help, visit our fundamentals area on [GitLab University](https://university.gitlab.com/).\n\nLet's get started.\n\nWhen you create GitLab users, they only have access to [their private projects, public projects, and projects set with internal visibility](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/public_access.html). For the purposes of this tutorial, your project is super secret and only invited members should have access to it – at varying permissions settings. To ensure this, you can invite users as [members of the project](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/members/).\n\n## Project members\n\n![Project members screen](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097278/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image1_aHR0cHM6_1750097278487.png)\n\nGitLab users can be invited to a project and [assigned a role](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/permissions.html), which determines what they can do in the project. The owner of a project can delegate administrative tasks to other users as maintainers, who can do almost everything an owner does, aside from changes to a project such as deleting, archiving, or transferring a project.\n\n![Invite members screen](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097278/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image2_aHR0cHM6_1750097278487.png)\n\n[Maintainers](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/permissions.html#roles) of the project can invite other members as developers who have access to all the features to create, build, and deploy software. Users who are not developers but need project management access can be invited to the project as [planners](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/introducing-gitlabs-new-planner-role-for-agile-planning-teams/), reporters, and guests with varying levels of permissions. These roles can also be used to determine who can make changes to certain branches with [protected branches](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/repository/branches/protected.html).\n\nIf you are working with contractors or your use requires user permissions to expire, you can set an expiry date after which the user loses access to the project. Project members can also be identified as direct or indirect members, based on their [membership type](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/members/#membership-types). Direct members are invited directly into the project, whereas indirect members are often inherited from a [GitLab group](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/) a project belongs to.\n\nNow, let's look at Group memberships.\n\n## Group memberships\n\nGroups in GitLab can be a top level created at the root of a GitLab instance like the [gitlab.com/gitlab-org](http://gitlab.com/gitlab-org). which is a parent group used to organize other subgroups like [gitlab.com/gitlab-org/charts](http://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/charts). Groups are useful even if you only have one project.\n\nGroups can be used for different reasons:\n\n- organizing similar or related projects  \n- organizing users into groups for better team coordination\n\nWhen using groups to organize users, you can organize teams in groups and [invite a group to a project](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/members/sharing_projects_groups.html) with a specific role for an entire team. You can have a `dev` group for the developers of the team, `pm` group for the project managers and `leads` for team leads. When inviting the groups, `dev` can be assigned the Developer role, `pm` the Planner role, and `leads` the Maintainer role. \n\n![Invite a group screen](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097279/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image3_aHR0cHM6_1750097278488.png)\n\nMembers of each group can be can be added or removed without needing to update project permissions. This is particularly useful when your team has grown to have several projects. However, it is important to [observe best practices](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/members/sharing_projects_groups.html#setting-up-a-group-for-collaboration) for using groups for collaboration.\n\nAnother helpful aspect of having users organized in groups is that you can [mention](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/discussions/#mentions) the entire group in issues, merge requests, or comments, which makes keeping an entire team informed easier.\n\n### Create subgroups\n\n[Subgroups](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/subgroups/) can be used to further organize users in a group and you can keep adding subgroups up to 20 nested levels. Users in a subgroup inherit the the permissions they have in a parent group. If you want to grant a user in a subgroup a role higher than what they inherited, you will need to [invite them to the subgroup](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/subgroups/#override-ancestor-group-membership) with the new higher role. Note: You can not give them a lower role in the subgroup.\n\n### Manage groups\n\nGroup Owners have several management options to determine how users function in a group. For instance, you can set how a user can request access to a group, enable/disable [group mentions](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/manage.html#disable-group-mentions), [restrict access](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/manage.html#turn-on-restricted-access), or [moderate users](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/moderate_users.html), among other options. An exciting new feature, which is still under development at the time of this article's publication, is the [automatic removal of dormant users](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/moderate_users.html#automatically-remove-dormant-members) after a minimum of 90 days and a maximum of five years. This will help keep groups clean and better manage the release of license seats.\n\n## Learn more\n\nManaging users on GitLab depends on your use case. If your organization is larger with more advanced workflows and user management, GitLab provides more advanced ways to [manage enterprise users](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/enterprise_user/index.html). You can also explore more options on how to [manage your organization](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/set_up_organization.html) and with [GitLab Ultimate](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/ultimate/), you get more granularity and compliance features.\n\n> #### Want to take your learning to the next level? [Sign up for GitLab University courses](https://university.gitlab.com/). Or you can get going right away with [a free 60-day trial of GitLab Ultimate](https://about.gitlab.com/free-trial/).\n\n## \"Getting started with GitLab\" series\nRead more articles in our \"Getting started with GitLab\" series:\n\n- [How to import your projects to GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-how-to-import-your-projects-to-gitlab/)  \n- [Mastering project management](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-mastering-project-management/)\n- [Automating Agile workflows with the gitlab-triage gem](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/automating-agile-workflows-with-the-gitlab-triage-gem/)\n- [Understanding CI/CD](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-understanding-ci-cd/)\n- [Working with CI/CD variables](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-working-with-ci-cd-variables/)\n",[474,950,928,9,926],{"slug":1314,"featured":90,"template":680},"getting-started-with-gitlab-how-to-manage-users","content:en-us:blog:getting-started-with-gitlab-how-to-manage-users.yml","Getting Started With Gitlab How To Manage Users","en-us/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-how-to-manage-users.yml","en-us/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-how-to-manage-users",{"_path":1320,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1321,"content":1327,"config":1332,"_id":1334,"_type":13,"title":1335,"_source":15,"_file":1336,"_stem":1337,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-mastering-project-management",{"title":1322,"description":1323,"ogTitle":1322,"ogDescription":1323,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1324,"ogUrl":1325,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1325,"schema":1326},"Getting started with GitLab: Mastering project management","Discover the key components of project management and how to put them to use for better organization and tracking.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097294/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-getting-started-with-gitlab-banner-0497-option4-fy25_cFwd8DYFLekdnOLmbbChp_1750097293924.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-mastering-project-management","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Getting started with GitLab: Mastering project management\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"GitLab\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2025-02-11\",\n      }",{"title":1322,"description":1323,"authors":1328,"heroImage":1324,"date":1329,"body":1330,"category":926,"tags":1331},[903],"2025-02-11","*Welcome to our \"Getting started with GitLab\" series, where we help newcomers get familiar with the GitLab DevSecOps platform.*\n\nGitLab is much more than just a place to store your code. It is an AI-powered DevSecOps platform with tools to help you plan, organize, track, and successfully deliver your projects. This post will guide you through GitLab's key project management features and show you how to leverage them effectively.\n\n## Why GitLab for project management?\n\nImagine having your code repository, issue tracker, and communication platform all seamlessly integrated in one place. That's the power of GitLab. By centralizing everything, you can streamline your workflow, enhance collaboration, and keep your projects moving forward. No more jumping between different tools and losing track of information. GitLab brings it all together, making it easier to manage your projects from start to finish.\n\n## Key components of GitLab project management\n\nLet's break down the essential elements:\n\n* [Epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/): Think of epics as the big picture. They represent major features, overarching goals, or long-term initiatives within your project. Need to revamp your website? That's an epic! Epics help you organize your work into larger, manageable chunks.  \n* [Issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/): Issues are the individual tasks or work items that contribute to your project goals. Each issue represents a specific action, like \"design the homepage\" or \"write the 'about us' page.\" Issues are the building blocks of your project, and they provide a clear way to track individual tasks.  \n* [Labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/labels.html): Labels are like tags that help you categorize and filter your work. You can use labels to indicate priority (e.g., high, medium, low), status (e.g., to do, in progress, done), or assign issues to specific teams or individuals. Labels provide a flexible way to organize and prioritize your work.  \n* Boards: GitLab's issue boards are your visual workspace. They provide a Kanban-style view of your project, allowing you to see the status of all your issues at a glance. Drag and drop issues across different lists (e.g., \"To Do,\" \"Doing,\" \"Done\") to visualize your workflow and track progress. In GitLab, you can create boards for [issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html) and [Epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/epic_boards.html).  \n* [Milestones](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/): Milestones mark significant checkpoints or target dates within your project. They help you track progress towards specific goals and deadlines. For example, you might have milestones for completing a major feature, releasing a beta version, or launching the final product.  \n* [Tasks](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/tasks.html): For those extra granular steps, break down your issues into smaller tasks. This helps with delegation, clarifies individual responsibilities, and ensures nothing gets overlooked. Tasks provide a way to create checklists within issues, making it easier to track progress on complex tasks.\n\n## Deep dive into the features\n\n### 1. Epics: The big picture\n\n* Creating epics: Navigate to your group's \"Epics\" menu under “Plan”. Click **New epic** and give it a descriptive title and a clear description outlining the goal. You can also specify the start and end date of the epic – this is useful when using [Roadmaps](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/roadmap/).\n\n![Epic creation page](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097301/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image1_aHR0cHM6_1750097300817.png)\n\n* [Roadmaps](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/roadmap/): Add your epics to a roadmap to visualize your project timeline and long-term goals. Roadmaps provide a bird's-eye view of your project plan, making it easy to see the big picture and track progress towards major milestones.\n\n![Roadmap view](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097301/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image8_aHR0cHM6_1750097300818.png)\n\n### 2. Issues: Getting things done\n\n* Creating issues: In your project, go to the \"Issues\" menu under “Plan” and click **New issue**. Provide a concise and descriptive title like \"Design Homepage Wireframes,\" assign it to a team member, set a due date, and add a detailed description outlining the task's requirements.  \n* GitLab Duo: You can leverage the power of [GitLab Duo to create detailed issue descriptions](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/managing_issues.html#populate-an-issue-with-issue-description-generation) with just a little hint of what you want to achieve.  \n* Weighting: Estimate the effort required for each issue by assigning weights. This helps with planning and prioritization. For example, a simple task might have a weight of **1**, while a more complex task might have a weight of **5**.\n\n![Issue with weight of 4 assigned](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097301/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image4_aHR0cHM6_1750097300819.png)\n\n### 3. Labels: Organizing your work\n\n* Creating labels: Go to your project's \"Issues\" tab and click Labels. Create custom labels with clear names to categorize your issues. For example, create labels like **Priority: High**, **Status: In Progress**, or **Team: Design**. Apply these labels to your issues to keep them organized and easily filterable.\n\n![Labels screen](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097301/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image6_aHR0cHM6_1750097300820.png)\n\n### 4. Boards: Visualizing your workflow\n\n* Kanban boards: GitLab's boards provide a Kanban-style view of your project. Create lists like \"To Do,\" \"Doing,\" and \"Done\" to represent the stages of your workflow. Drag and drop issues across these lists to visualize their progress.\n* Customizing boards: Tailor your boards to match your specific workflow. Add more columns, filter issues by labels or assignees, and set up swim lanes to categorize issues by epics or other criteria.\n\n![Visualize workflow with issue boards](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097301/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image2_aHR0cHM6_1750097300820.png)\n\n### 5. Tasks: Breaking down the work\n\n* Creating tasks: Within an issue, use the checklist markdown syntax to create a task list. Each item in the list represents a smaller step within the larger issue. For example, in the issue \"Design Homepage Wireframes,\" you might have tasks like \"Sketch initial concepts,\" \"Create digital wireframes,\" and \"Get feedback from stakeholders.\" To create a Task, click on the **Add** button in the \"Child Items\" section of an issue’s page. Then, enter the title of the task, and click **Create Task**.\n\n![Issue with create task button](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097301/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image7_aHR0cHM6_1750097300822.png)\n\n### 6. Milestones: Tracking progress\n* Setting milestones: Define milestones to mark significant points in your project, like completing a specific feature or reaching a key deadline. Give your milestones clear titles and due dates.\n* Associating with issues: Link issues and epics to milestones to track progress towards those goals. This helps you see how individual tasks contribute to the overall project plan.\nCreating a milestone: Under the \"Plan\" dropdown menu, click on **Milestones > New milestone**. Specify the milestone title, description, and start and due dates.\n\n![New milestone screen](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097301/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image5_aHR0cHM6_1750097300823.png)\n\n\u003Cbr>\u003C/br>\n\n![New page wtih milestone on it](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097301/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image3_aHR0cHM6_1750097300823.png)\n\n### 7. [Iterations](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/iterations/): Working in sprints\n\n* Defining iterations: If you're using an Agile workflow, define iterations (sprints) with specific start and end dates. This helps you break down your work into smaller, more manageable time boxes.  \n* Assigning issues: Assign issues to iterations to plan your work in shorter cycles and focus on delivering incremental value.\n\n### 8. [Time tracking](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/time_tracking.html): Measuring effort\n\n* Logging time: Within an issue, use the \"/spend\" quick action followed by the time spent (e.g., \"/spend 2h 30m\") to log your work. This helps you track the actual time spent on each task.  \n* Analyzing data: Generate time tracking reports to gain insights into project progress, team efficiency, and identify potential bottlenecks.\n\n![Time tracking report](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097301/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image9_aHR0cHM6_1750097300824.png)\n\n### 9. Dependencies: Managing workflow\n\n* [Linking issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/related_issues.html): Create dependencies between issues to ensure tasks are completed in the correct order. For example, if issue A must be completed before issue B can begin, you can create a dependency between them. This helps you visualize the workflow and avoid potential roadblocks.\n\n### 10. Templates: Streamlining issue creation\n\n* [Creating templates](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/description_templates.html): Create issue templates to standardize the information captured for common tasks, saving you time and ensuring consistency. For example, you could create a template for bug reports that includes fields for steps to reproduce expected behavior and actual behavior.\n\n### Collaboration is key\n\nGitLab fosters collaboration through the following:\n\n* [Comments](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/discussions/): Discuss issues and epics directly within GitLab. Use comments to provide updates, ask questions, and share feedback.  \n* [Mentions](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/discussions/#mentions): Use **@** to mention specific team members and notify them of updates or request their input.  \n* Discussions: Engage in threaded discussions within issues and epics to brainstorm ideas, solve problems together, and keep everyone informed.\n\n### Ready to get started?\n\nNow that you've explored the power of GitLab's project management features, it's time to put them into practice! Create a sample project, experiment with different features, and discover how GitLab can transform your workflow. You can also learn more about how GitLab can help you facilitate [Kanban](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/tutorials/kanban/) and [Scrum](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/tutorials/scrum_events/) in the GitLab documentation.\n\n> #### Want to take your learning to the next level? [Sign up for GitLab University courses](https://university.gitlab.com/). Or you can get going right away with a [free 60-day trial of GitLab Ultimate](https://about.gitlab.com/free-trial/).\n\n## \"Getting started with GitLab\" series\nRead more articles in our \"Getting started with GitLab\" series:\n\n- [How to manage users](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-how-to-manage-users/)\n- [How to import your projects to GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-how-to-import-your-projects-to-gitlab/)  \n- [Automating Agile workflows with the gitlab-triage gem](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/automating-agile-workflows-with-the-gitlab-triage-gem/)\n- [Understanding CI/CD](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-understanding-ci-cd/)\n- [Working with CI/CD variables](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-working-with-ci-cd-variables/)",[928,926,474,9],{"slug":1333,"featured":6,"template":680},"getting-started-with-gitlab-mastering-project-management","content:en-us:blog:getting-started-with-gitlab-mastering-project-management.yml","Getting Started With Gitlab Mastering Project Management","en-us/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-mastering-project-management.yml","en-us/blog/getting-started-with-gitlab-mastering-project-management",{"_path":1339,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1340,"content":1346,"config":1353,"_id":1355,"_type":13,"title":1356,"_source":15,"_file":1357,"_stem":1358,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/getting-started-with-value-streams-dashboard",{"title":1341,"description":1342,"ogTitle":1341,"ogDescription":1342,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1343,"ogUrl":1344,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1344,"schema":1345},"Getting started with the new GitLab Value Streams Dashboard","Benchmark your value stream lifecycle, DORA, and vulnerabilities metrics to gain valuable insights and uncover patterns for continuous improvements.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749671793/Blog/Hero%20Images/16_0-cover-image.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-value-streams-dashboard","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Getting started with the new GitLab Value Streams Dashboard\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Haim Snir\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2023-06-12\",\n      }",{"title":1341,"description":1342,"authors":1347,"heroImage":1343,"date":1349,"body":1350,"category":948,"tags":1351},[1348],"Haim Snir","2023-06-12","\n\n\u003Ci>This is part two of our multipart series introducing you to the capabilities within GitLab Value Stream Management and the Value Streams Dashboard. In part one, [learn about the Total Time Chart](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/value-stream-total-time-chart/) and how to simplify top-down optimization flow with Value Stream Management.\u003C/i>\n\nGetting started with GitLab [Value Streams Dashboard](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/value_streams_dashboard.html), a customizable dashboard that enables decision-makers to identify trends, patterns, and opportunities for digital transformation improvements, is easy. If you're already using GitLab Value Stream Management, simply navigate to your project's or group's Analytics tab, and within [Value stream analytics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/#view-value-stream-analytics), click on the \"Value Streams Dashboard - DORA\" link. This will open a new page with the Value Streams Dashboard.\n\n![image of DORA Metrics console](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/vsdCover.png){: .shadow}\nDORA metrics comparison panel\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nGitLab Value Stream Management allows customers to visualize their end-to-end DevSecOps workstreams, manage their software development processes, and gain insight into how digital transformation and technological investments are delivering value and driving business results. GitLab Value Stream Management is able to do this because GitLab provides an entire DevOps platform as a single application and, therefore, holds all the data needed to provide end-to-end visibility throughout the entire software development lifecycle. So now your decisions rely on actual data rather than blind estimation or gut feelings. Additionally, because GitLab is the place where work happens, GitLab Value Stream Management insights are also actionable, allowing your users to move from \"understanding\" to \"fixing\" at any time, from within their workflow and without losing context.\n\nThe centralized UI in Value Streams Dashboard acts as the single source of truth (SSOT), where all stakeholders can access and view the same set of metrics that are relevant to the organization. The SSOT views ensure consistency, eliminate discrepancies, and provide a reliable and unified source of data for decision-making and analysis.\n\nThe first iteration of the GitLab Value Streams Dashboard was focused on enabling teams to continuously improve software delivery workflows by benchmarking [value stream lifecycle metrics, DORA metrics, and vulnerabilities metrics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/value_streams_dashboard.html#dashboard-metrics-and-drill-down-reports). One of the key features is a new DevSecOps metrics comparison panel that displays the metrics for a group or project in the month-to-date, last month, the month before, and the past 180 days.\n\nThis comparison enables managers to track team improvements in the context of the other DevSecOps metrics to find patterns or trends over time. The data is presented in a clear and concise manner, ensuring that you can quickly grasp the significance of the metrics.\n\n![The Value Streams Dashboard helps you get a high-level custom view over multiple DevOps metrics and understand whether they are improving month-over-month](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-05-18_vsd_1.gif){: .shadow}\nValue Streams Dashboard metrics comparison panel\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nAdditionally, from each metric you can drill down to a detailed report to investigate the underlying data, understand what is affecting the team performance, and identify actionable insights.\n\nWe understand that every organization has its own set of subgroups and projects, each with specific processes and terminology. That's why we designed our dashboard to be flexible and adaptable. Users have the power to [customize](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/value_streams_dashboard.html#customize-the-dashboard-panels) their dashboard by including panels from different subgroups or projects. \n\nTracking and comparing these metrics over a period of time helps teams catch downward trends early, drill down into individual projects/metrics, take remedial actions to maintain their software delivery performance, and track progress of their innovation investments. Value Streams Dashboard's intuitive interface reduces the learning curve and eliminates the need for extensive training. Everyone can now immediately leverage the platform's unified data store power, maximizing their productivity and saving precious time and resources.\n\n## Value Streams Dashboard roadmap\nWe are just getting started with delivering new capabilities in our Value Streams Dashboard. The roadmap includes planned features and functionality that will continue to improve decision-making and operational efficiencies.\n\nSome of the capabilities we plan to focus on next include:\n\n- adding an [executive-level summary](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/9558) of key metrics related to software performance and flow of value across the organization\n- adding a [\"DORA Performers score\"](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/10416) panel with the DORA metrics health from all the organization's groups and projects\n- adding [filter by label to the comparison panel](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/388890) - we recognize that every team does not follow the same flow so we are adding them to slice and dice the dashboard views with GitLab labels as filters\n\nTo help us improve the Value Stream Management Dashboard, please share feedback about your experience in this [survey](https://gitlab.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_50guMGNU2HhLeT4).\n\n## Learn more\n* Find out what's next on the [Value Stream Management direction page](https://about.gitlab.com/direction/plan/value_stream_management/#whats-next-and-why).\n\n* Learn how to use the new dashboard using the [Value Streams Dashboard documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/value_streams_dashboard.html).\n\n* Watch this short video on Value Streams Dashboards:\n\n\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/EA9Sbks27g4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen>\u003C/iframe>\n\nCheck out part three of this multipart series: \"[GitLab's 3 steps to optimizing software value streams](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/three-steps-to-optimize-software-value-streams/)\".\n\n\u003Ci>Disclaimer: This blog contains information related to upcoming products, features, and functionality. It is important to note that the information in this blog post is for informational purposes only. Please do not rely on this information for purchasing or planning purposes. As with all projects, the items mentioned in this blog and linked pages are subject to change or delay. The development, release, and timing of any products, features, or functionality remain at the sole discretion of GitLab.\u003C/i>\n",[928,950,1352,723,9],"performance",{"slug":1354,"featured":6,"template":680},"getting-started-with-value-streams-dashboard","content:en-us:blog:getting-started-with-value-streams-dashboard.yml","Getting Started With Value Streams Dashboard","en-us/blog/getting-started-with-value-streams-dashboard.yml","en-us/blog/getting-started-with-value-streams-dashboard",{"_path":1360,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1361,"content":1366,"config":1371,"_id":1373,"_type":13,"title":1374,"_source":15,"_file":1375,"_stem":1376,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-and-redhat-automation",{"title":1362,"description":1363,"ogTitle":1362,"ogDescription":1363,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":713,"ogUrl":1364,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1364,"schema":1365},"GitLab and Red Hat: Automation to enhance secure software development","How our closer relationship with Red Hat will boost deployment automation.","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-and-redhat-automation","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"GitLab and Red Hat: Automation to enhance secure software development\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Vick Kelkar\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-04-29\",\n      }",{"title":1362,"description":1363,"authors":1367,"heroImage":713,"date":1368,"body":1369,"category":907,"tags":1370},[718],"2020-04-29","\n\nWe're working towards a closer relationship with Red Hat and we're excited about the possibilities. We think developers can reduce time spent coding while still increase productivity with technologies from GitLab and Red Hat. Here's what you need to know.\n\n### Why GitLab?\n\nGitLab enables both the developers and operations teams to apply [DevOps](/topics/devops/) practices using a single application. Using one tool for the entire application’s lifecycle, i.e. right from development and deployment to operations, allows the organization to achieve operational efficiency and reduce deployment cycle times.\n\nGitLab not only provides source code management ([SCM](/solutions/source-code-management/)) but it also offers CI/CD to make streamlined deployments to a container platform like Red Hat OpenShift while maintaining visibility into the deployment pipelines. Furthermore, with [AutoDevOps](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/), the GitLab application also addresses the organization’s security requirements through scanning and dependency mapping for the developed application. The ability to check the license of software being used, before deploying it in a production environment, helps organizations reduce their [compliance risks](/solutions/compliance/).\n\n### Why GitLab with Red Hat?\n\nRed Hat has a number of technologies in its portfolio. At the core is Red Hat Enterprise Linux ([RHEL](https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enterprise-linux)), an enterprise-grade Linux operating system (OS) platform used by many Fortune 500 companies that can be deployed across the hybrid cloud, from bare-metal and virtual servers to private and public cloud environments. RHEL makes it easier for the operations team to manage the upgrades, security patches and life cycles of servers being used to run applications like GitLab. Red Hat also provides the industry’s most comprehensive enterprise Kubernetes platform in Red Hat OpenShift. OpenShift is uniquely positioned to run a containerized application on a public or private cloud.\n\nGitLab can accelerate software development and deployment of applications while RHEL can act as the more secure, fully managed OS that can scale with the application. The inclusion of new DevOps tools in Red Hat’s hybrid cloud technologies like [service mesh](https://www.openshift.com/blog/red-hat-openshift-service-mesh-is-now-available-what-you-should-know) empowers developers to iterate faster on a foundation of trusted enterprise Linux.\n\nThe GitLab solution, which includes [CI/CD workflow](/topics/ci-cd/), an AutoDevOps workflow, a container registry, and Kubernetes integration can be deployed on RHEL using [install](/install/) instructions and you can find out more about GitLab SaaS pricing model [here](/pricing/#gitlab-com). You can read our sales [FAQ](/sales/#faq) or contact our [sales team](/sales/) if you have questions about the offering.\n\nGitLab can be deployed on RHEL-based machines to provide organizations with DevOps infrastructure and collaboration tools. Our collaboration with Red Hat doesn't stop as a supported platform for the GitLab Server but Red Hat OpenShift can also be a target for our CI/CD and Auto DevOps workflows. Application container images can be pushed to our registry and used to deploy applications into Red Hat OpenShift.\n\n### What’s Next?\n\nAs GitLab and Red Hat increase their collaboration, we plan to announce the availability of GitLab Runner Operator for OpenShift in the near future. At GitLab, we have an [engineering epic](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/2068) underway to develop first-class support for OpenShift.\n\nWith the upcoming product integrations with Red Hat, GitLab is striving to increase collaboration in the organization, increase developer velocity and reduce friction between teams, regardless of the deployment models of VMs or containers. The overarching goal is to help organizations improve their [DevSecOps](/solutions/security-compliance/) posture while significantly reducing security and compliance risks.\n\n### Resources\n\n- [GitOps:The Future of Infrastructure Automation - A panel discussion with Weaveworks, HashiCorp, Red Hat, and GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/why/gitops-infrastructure-automation/)\n- [RHEL 8 Install documentation](https://about.gitlab.com/install/#centos-8)\n- [and RHEL 7 Install documentation](https://about.gitlab.com/install/#centos-7)\n- [GitLab on Microsoft Azure](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/install/azure/)\n- [Try OpenShift](https://www.openshift.com/try)\n",[9,108,1136,677,1055],{"slug":1372,"featured":6,"template":680},"gitlab-and-redhat-automation","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-and-redhat-automation.yml","Gitlab And Redhat Automation","en-us/blog/gitlab-and-redhat-automation.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-and-redhat-automation",{"_path":1378,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1379,"content":1385,"config":1392,"_id":1394,"_type":13,"title":1395,"_source":15,"_file":1396,"_stem":1397,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-ci-event-workflows",{"title":1380,"description":1381,"ogTitle":1380,"ogDescription":1381,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1382,"ogUrl":1383,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1383,"schema":1384},"Event-based CI workflows in GitLab","Learn about a proof of concept to automate more with GitLab CI workflows and share your feedback.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749669444/Blog/Hero%20Images/kelly-sikkema-lFtttcsx5Vk-unsplash.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-ci-event-workflows","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Event-based CI workflows in GitLab\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Grzegorz Bizon\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Jackie Porter\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2022-08-03\",\n      }",{"title":1380,"description":1381,"authors":1386,"heroImage":1382,"date":1389,"body":1390,"category":298,"tags":1391},[1387,1388],"Grzegorz Bizon","Jackie Porter","2022-08-03","\n\nMaybe you have been in a position where there are specific tasks that must kick off in your software development process based on events in the platform or other systems. Perhaps you are even a GitLab CI user and love the flexibility that pipelines offer for project automation and want to be able to extend this to other types of items. Out of the [July 2022 Verify Stage Hackathon](/blog/verify-week-hackathon/), a proof of concept for CI workflows has been released and we are looking for feedback on ways this feature can help make your life easier. \n\n## What are CI worfklows?\n\nThe idea behind the [proof of concept](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/91244) is to instrument an event-based service to trigger pipelines. The current instrumentation features a definition of this service in the `.gitlab-ci.yml` and a hook into the existing [webhooks](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/integrations/webhook_events.html) GitLab provides today. These components make up the `workflow` definition. \n\n## What can CI workflows do?\n\nThe possibilities for CI workflows are endless. If you wanted to triage issues, a workflow can be set on issue creation. Let’s say you want to automatically run pipelines based on merge request state changes - just use a workflow even in `.gitlab-ci.yml` to start a pipeline when a merge request is made “ready” or someone approved your code in it. \n\nHere is a brief overview of the proof of concept in action: \n\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/cwfRI9m3rRs\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\n## What’s next?\n\nGitLab CI workflows are one component of a broader [GitLab workflow](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/8349) and automation goals. Up next, we are looking to [formally instrument CI workflows via GitLab](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/363384). We also are looking ahead to [Platform Events](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/355658) or [Cloud Events](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/335095), which help extend the number of events to trigger various automations from beyond the existing webhooks/system hooks. \n\nIs this something that you are interested in or have feedback on? Tag `@dhershkovitch` on our [GitLab CI Workflows Issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/363384). \n\nCover image by [Kelly Sikkema](https://unsplash.com/photos/lFtttcsx5Vk) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com)\n{: .note}\n",[950,926,9],{"slug":1393,"featured":6,"template":680},"gitlab-ci-event-workflows","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-ci-event-workflows.yml","Gitlab Ci Event Workflows","en-us/blog/gitlab-ci-event-workflows.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-ci-event-workflows",{"_path":1399,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1400,"content":1406,"config":1412,"_id":1414,"_type":13,"title":1415,"_source":15,"_file":1416,"_stem":1417,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-december-2019-meetups",{"title":1401,"description":1402,"ogTitle":1401,"ogDescription":1402,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1403,"ogUrl":1404,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1404,"schema":1405},"Where to find a GitLab Meetup in December: México City, Wellington, Nigeria, São Paolo, MSP, Chicago, Geneva","Don't miss your last chance to attend a GitLab meetup in 2019!","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749679712/Blog/Hero%20Images/0919meetups.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-december-2019-meetups","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Where to find a GitLab Meetup in December: México City, Wellington, Nigeria, São Paolo, MSP, Chicago, Geneva\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"John Coghlan\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-12-05\",\n      }",{"title":1401,"description":1402,"authors":1407,"heroImage":1403,"date":1409,"body":1410,"category":971,"tags":1411},[1408],"John Coghlan","2019-12-05","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\n\nGitLab's community is critical to our success and meetups are important for our community. They give our community members a chance to engage with each other, make new connections, and better educate themselves about the power of GitLab. \n\nThanks to an amazing group of meetup organizers, GitLab has a network of [36 meetup groups](https://www.meetup.com/pro/gitlab) with more than 7,700 members around the world. In 2019, our organizers hosted more than 100 events. We expect the numbers of organizers, groups, meetup members, and events to grow significantly in 2020.\n\nIf you'd like to attend a GitLab Meetup, you can see our December meetups listed below. No event in your area? Our [Meetup Pro](https://www.meetup.com/pro/gitlab) page will show you if we have a group near you. No group near you? Why not try starting your own GitLab Meetup in 2020? We'll be happy to support you along your journey. Take a look at the [GitLab Meetups page](/community/meetups) or reach out to [me](https://twitter.com/john_cogs/) to learn how GitLab can help you start a meetup in your area.\n\n![December 2019 Meetups Map](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/dec2019meetups.jpeg){: .shadow}\n\n#### México City GitLab Meetup\n\nOn December 7 in México City, join the community for part two of an intro to GitLab series. If you missed part one, you're still encouraged to attend! Details and RSVP on [Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/Mexico-City-GitLab-Meetup/events/266371707/).\n\n#### GitLab Meetup ANZ\n\nJoin us for this Lunch and Learn Lab Session on December 10 in Wellington, NZ. You will break into small groups and develop your understanding and skills through hands-on practical use of GitLab. Bring a laptop! Details and RSVP on [Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/GitLabANZ/events/266416769/).\n\n#### GitLab Nigeria Community\n\nThe GitLab Nigeria Community will gather on December 11 in Abraka for an Introduction to Git with GitLab workshop. Details and RSVP on [Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/GitLab-Nigeria-Community/events/266953770/).\n\n#### GitLab Nigeria Community\n\nJoin this meetup in Bauchi, Nigeria to learn about Version Control and Project Management with GitLab. Details and RSVP on [Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/GitLab-Nigeria-Community/events/266288194/).\n\n#### São Paulo GitLab Meetup\n\nLearn about GitLab CI and GitOps at this meetup in São Paolo on December 12. Details and RSVP on [Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/Sao-Paulo-GitLab-Meetup/events/266582056/).\n\n#### GitLab MSP User Group\n\nThe GitLab MSP User Group is meeting for the first time on December 12. Hear talks from two GitLab customers on their DevOps journeys along with recaps of KubeCon and re:Invent from event attendees. Details and RSVP on [Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/GitLab-MSP-Meetup/events/266644322/).\n\n#### GitLab Chicago User Community\n\nEase into the Holidays and come learn how easy it is to run your own feature-rich, self-managed GitLab CI/CD! This meetup on December 19 in Chicago will be the first for the group. Details and RSVP on [Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/GitLab-Chicago-User-Community/events/266588713/).\n\n#### Docker Geneva\n\nOn December 19 in Geneva, you can see a live demo and learn how GitLab AutoDevOps supports builds, tests, and deployments on Kubernetes. Details and RSVP on [Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/Docker-Geneva/events/266891129/).\n\n#### GitLab Nigeria Community\n\nBring your laptop for a day of learning about Git, GitLab, collaboration and community at this meetup on December 21 in Warri. Details and RSVP on [Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/GitLab-Nigeria-Community/events/266715018/).\n",[9,9,9],{"slug":1413,"featured":6,"template":680},"gitlab-december-2019-meetups","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-december-2019-meetups.yml","Gitlab December 2019 Meetups","en-us/blog/gitlab-december-2019-meetups.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-december-2019-meetups",{"_path":1419,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1420,"content":1425,"config":1431,"_id":1433,"_type":13,"title":1434,"_source":15,"_file":1435,"_stem":1436,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-enterprise-agile-planning-add-on-for-all-roles",{"title":1421,"description":1422,"ogTitle":1421,"ogDescription":1422,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1265,"ogUrl":1423,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1423,"schema":1424},"Beyond Devs: GitLab Enterprise Agile Planning add-on for all roles","Our new add-on helps you bring non-technical users into the same DevSecOps platform where engineers build, test, secure, and deploy code.","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-enterprise-agile-planning-add-on-for-all-roles","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Beyond Devs: GitLab Enterprise Agile Planning add-on for all roles\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Justin Farris\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Melissa Ushakov\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2023-11-16\",\n      }",{"title":1421,"description":1422,"authors":1426,"heroImage":1265,"date":1428,"body":1429,"category":842,"tags":1430},[1427,1250],"Justin Farris","2023-11-16","Bringing teams together supercharges collaboration. Now you can take this a step further with a new GitLab Enterprise Agile Planning add-on that helps you bring non-technical users into the same DevSecOps platform where engineers build, test, secure, and deploy code.\n\nThe add-on enables you to support cross-team collaboration between developers and non-developers without having to purchase full GitLab licenses for non-engineering team members.\n\nWith additional Agile Planning seats ([$15 per user/month](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/)), non-engineering team members can participate in planning workflows, measure software delivery velocity and impact with Value Stream Analytics, and utilize executive dashboards to drive organizational visibility. \n\n> This new Enterprise Agile Planning add-on is available to GitLab Ultimate subscriptions. Please contact your [GitLab sales representative](https://about.gitlab.com/sales/) for more information.\n\nAgile planning is most powerful when it extends its reach beyond developers to include stakeholders like product managers, designers, marketing, and sales teams. Here are three ways GitLab can bring value to your entire software development process:\n\n## 1. Scale up as your team grows\n\nGitLab's Enterprise Agile Planning capabilities are designed to grow with your organization. As your teams expand, so do your needs for Agile planning capabilities and cross-team collaboration. As a unified platform with a single data store, GitLab provides different stakeholders within the organization with a curated view of project status, enabling teams to track progress, identify bottlenecks, and make informed decisions. GitLab supports multi-year and cross-team planning workflows, enabling you to do strategic and tactical planning within a single tool. These efficient cross-team workflows help projects move faster from concept to delivery, ensuring a competitive edge in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.\n\n![EpicTree](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749677087/Blog/Content%20Images/EpicTree.png)\n\n> Migrating from Jira? [Learn more here](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/tips-for-a-successful-jira-to-gitlab-migration/).\n\n## 2. Bring compliance closer to development \n\nGitLab ensures that compliance checks and enforcements are automated and seamlessly integrated into software development, making the process more efficient and transparent, and less error-prone. In GitLab, compliance checks like [approval rules](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/approvals/rules.html), [compliance pipelines](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/compliance_frameworks.html#compliance-pipelines), and [deployment approvals](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/environments/deployment_approvals.html) are closer to the code as part of developers’ natural workflow, rather than a separate workflow or within a separate issue-tracking tool. With GitLab, reviewers can more easily review the updates in the context of the change and developers can receive more rapid feedback. \n\n![Approvals rules](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749677088/Blog/Content%20Images/Approvals_rules.png)\n\n> Learn more about [GitLab Enterprise Agile Planning](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/agile-delivery/).\n\n## 3. Eliminate time-consuming configurations\n\nMany Agile planning tools are highly customizable. That can be great for building highly complex and sophisticated workflows, but that complexity can also be a maintenance hazard. Spending time on tool maintenance limits innovation and creates friction in your team’s day-to-day work. GitLab prioritizes convention over configuration to deliver exceptional user experiences that work as-is by default while also giving flexible configuration options so that teams can spend less time on maintenance and more time on innovation. A simplified planning tool within the DevSecOps platform where code is built and delivered drives collaboration, transparency, and trust across all roles, leading to a better cross-team experience to build software faster. \n\n> Are you ready for the Atlassian Server end of life? Learn more about [the benefits of migrating from Atlassian to GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/move-to-gitlab-from-atlassian/). \n\n## Get started with GitLab Enterprise Agile Planning\n\nIn true GitLab fashion, we continue to [rapidly iterate on our Enterprise Agile Planning capabilities](https://about.gitlab.com/direction/plan/). When you’re ready to get started, [we’re here to help](https://about.gitlab.com/sales/).\n",[9,1115,474],{"slug":1432,"featured":90,"template":680},"gitlab-enterprise-agile-planning-add-on-for-all-roles","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-enterprise-agile-planning-add-on-for-all-roles.yml","Gitlab Enterprise Agile Planning Add On For All Roles","en-us/blog/gitlab-enterprise-agile-planning-add-on-for-all-roles.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-enterprise-agile-planning-add-on-for-all-roles",{"_path":1438,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1439,"content":1445,"config":1452,"_id":1454,"_type":13,"title":1455,"_source":15,"_file":1456,"_stem":1457,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-for-agile-portfolio-planning-project-management",{"title":1440,"description":1441,"ogTitle":1440,"ogDescription":1441,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1442,"ogUrl":1443,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1443,"schema":1444},"How to use GitLab for Agile portfolio planning and project management","GitLab provides features that are flexible enough to be used for scaled Agile portfolio planning and project management, regardless of the framework you choose.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749669575/Blog/Hero%20Images/agilemultipleteams.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-for-agile-portfolio-planning-project-management","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How to use GitLab for Agile portfolio planning and project management\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Victor Hernandez\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Julie Byrne\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-11-11\",\n      }",{"title":1440,"description":1441,"authors":1446,"heroImage":1442,"date":1449,"body":1450,"category":948,"tags":1451},[1447,1448],"Victor Hernandez","Julie Byrne","2020-11-11","\nMany organizations using GitLab want to understand how to best apply the various features to support [Agile project and portfolio management](/solutions/agile-delivery/) processes (PPM) at scale. These organizations use different Agile frameworks. In a previous blog post, we outlined [an approach for using GitLab for Agile software development](/blog/gitlab-for-agile-software-development/). Since the original post, we've continued to enhance functionality for lean/Agile portfolio planning and Agile project management. In this blog post, we’re updating recommendations for using Agile based on these enhancements and we describe how these features can be utilized for a variety of different scaling frameworks.\n\n## Agile software development at scale\n\nFirst, let’s take a look at a typical scaling model of [Agile software development](/topics/agile-delivery/) beyond the individual team level. Whether you’ve adopted a specific scaling framework such as the [Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)](https://www.scaledagileframework.com/), [Disciplined Agile (DA)](https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile), [Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)](https://less.works/), or [Spotify](https://medium.com/scaled-agile-framework/exploring-key-elements-of-spotifys-agile-scaling-model-471d2a23d7ea), most scaling models have similarities in their approach, organizing Agile teams into teams of teams, and even into teams of teams of teams.\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/team-teams2.png){: .medium.center}\n\nTypically, scaling frameworks use these types of labels to describe each level:\n\n| **Level** | **Common Names** | **Description** |\n| ----- | ----- | ----- |\n| Team | Scrum team, Kanban team, Squad | A cross functional group (including BA, Dev, Test, and other supporting roles) implementing stories and bug fixes for an application or set of applications|\n| Team of Teams | Program, Release Train, Tribe | A set of teams who plan together and coordinate efforts to implement features for a system involving one or more applications |\n| Team of Teams of Teams | Portfolio, Business Unit, Alliance | One or more programs with a shared set of strategic goals and themes, typically funded with a single budget |\n\nNow that we've reviewed the different levels of Agile at scale, let’s next think about what types of data and visibility are required for agility at each level.\n\nThe scrum master/project manager/tribe lead, product owner, and team members are part of the Team level that is focused on short-term planning, typically weekly to monthly. They will want:\n\n- A board view to show flow of work\n- Current and upcoming iteration plan\n- A task list for each work item\n- Visibility into team progress\n- Team predictability\n\nThe program manager/release train engineer, product manager/product area lead, and design lead guide the Team of Teams, with a focus is on mid-range planning, monthly to quarterly (or potentially a bit longer). They will want visibility into:\n\n- A prioritized feature list with anticipated business value captured\n- Feature roadmap\n- View of mid-range plan\n- Epic health\n- Progress against plan\n- Program predictability\n\nFinally, portfolio managers, business leaders, and chief architects perform strategic long-term planning, typically quarterly to annually or longer, at the Team of Teams of Teams level. They will want to see:\n\n- A list of long-term epics/initiatives/business projects, categorized by theme and/or strategic goals\n- The long-term strategic roadmap\n\n## How can we best support these needs using GitLab?\n\nFirst, we need to understand what GitLab object types to use for support the appropriate visibility at each level.\n\n| **GitLab Structure** | **Team** | **Team of Teams** | **Team of Teams of Teams** |\n| ----- | ----- | ----- | -----  |\n| Org structure | Project or sub-sub-group | Sub-group | Top level group |\n| Work items | Issue | Child epic | Parent epic |\n| Time boxes | Iteration | Milestone | Roadmap across milestones |\n\nIn GitLab, epics can be defined in a hierarchy to break down long-term epics into a set of shorter-term epics that can each be delivered by a single Team-of-Teams. While we will use a single parent-child epic hierarchy in this blog to keep things simple, you can use more levels of nesting. The lowest level of epic in the hierarchy would be linked to a set of issues to define the work each team will do in order to implement that epic. GitLab is very flexible and does not enforce a hierarchy. For example, when there are cases when an epic should be tracked at the portfolio level but be decomposed directly into issues, with no features in between, GitLab will allow you to do that linking directly without having to create dummy features in the middle.\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/epic_hierarchy2.png){: .medium.center}\n\nWe recommend using [scoped labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/labels.html#scoped-labels) to define epic types, e.g., you might define long-term epics to be portfolio epics, and decompose them into shorter-term features. Using _epic::portfolio-epic_ and _epic::feature_ will allow you to appropriately categorize and filter a list of epics and make sure that each epic exists in the appropriate location.\n\nA [group](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/) can be used to organize projects. And groups can be nested, e.g., a parent group can contain multiple child groups, and each child group can have its own subgroups, etc. A GitLab [project](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/) contains a single source code repository, issue tracker, and associated tools and functionality in order to collaborate on software development for that repository.\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/group_project2.png){: .medium.center}\n\nNote: Group permissions are propagated down the tree from the top-level, so, e.g., a maintainer in the top-level group will have maintainer permissions in the entire group hierarchy.\n\nWe recommend that you use a nested group hierarchy to define your scaled organizational structure for Team of Teams of Teams, Team of Teams, and Teams. For example, consider an electronic banking program that is part of the digital services portfolio for a financial services provider. The electronic banking program might have separate teams that work on web, mobile, backend, and middleware. You would use a parent group for the digital services portfolio, a sub-group for the electronic banking program, and a separate project within the sub-group for each team.\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/group_project_example.png){: .medium.center}\n\nGenerally speaking, parent epics would be defined within the top-level group since they define work that can span the sub-groups. Each parent epic would be broken down into multiple child epics, each of which is defined within the appropriate child group (representing a Team-of-Teams).\n\nThe example above is simple in that each Agile team is working on a single repository. But what if that’s not the case?\n\n- If a single team works exclusively on multiple repositories (but no other team works on the them), then create a sub-group for the team, and include each repo as a project.\n- If multiple teams work on a collection of repositories, use the Team of Teams group for collaboration across all Teams in all projects, and use individual scoped labels for each team to track their issues on filtered boards.\n\nGitLab provides an [issue tracker](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/) for any types of issues you want to manage and track. Typically, for Agile software development teams, these would be things like user stories and defects. We recommend that you use [scoped labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/labels.html#scoped-labels) to define the different issue types, for ease of filtering and reporting. The great news is that you can have as many or as few issue types as you see fit. GitLab does not provide the ability to define a custom schema for each issue type as that tends to complicate both administration and usage of issues and gets in the way of software development. Instead, use [custom issue templates](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/description_templates.html#creating-issue-templates) to provide guidance to the end user on what types of information should be captured for each issue type, and even to set labels automatically on the issue as it is created.\n\nGitLab makes project status reporting easy with the issue [health status](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/#health-status). Each issue can have a status of `On Track`, `Needs Attention`, or `At Risk`. The health statuses of all issues for an epic are reported within the epic details for a quick snapshot of the health of the overall epic.\n\nFinally, we have to define timeboxes to use for our planning cadences. We tend to use [milestones](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/) for our mid-range planning, i.e., a quarterly development plan. Define the milestone at the highest group level that will be using that cadence, e.g., if the entire portfolio plans on a quarterly basis, then the planning milestone should be defined at the top-level group level. If each team of teams plans on a different mid-range cadence, then you would want to define separate milestones at each child group level. Note that milestones get added directly to issues, so the projects that will use the milestones must be within the group hierarchy where the milestone is defined. One other consideration is that an issue can only have a single milestone associated with it, so it’s a good idea to align on the best use of milestones across the Team of Teams before starting to use them.\n\nWe recently released our [iterations MVC](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/4012) in GitLab! This allows you to define, at the group or individual project level, short-term cadences that a team or set of teams uses for planning and tracking their work. While, as an MVC, iteration functionality is not yet as robust as milestones, we do have plans for enhancements including using iterations on boards, filtering issue lists by iteration, and burnup/burndown charts. You can view the epic [Iterations in GitLab](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/2422) to learn more about planned enhancements. And that doesn’t mean Kanban teams are out of luck. We innately support Kanban in GitLab, too, with issue boards, so you can have a mix of iteration based teams and continuous flow teams working together.\n\n## Agile PPM: putting it all together\n\nHere’s how the GitLab features come together to support Agile at scale to allow planning from the highest level down to the individual team, and to provide visibility, traceability, and reporting at each level:\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/epic_hierarchy.png){: .medium.center}\n\nYou can also check out the video below to see how the structure comes together in GitLab.\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/5J0bonGoECs\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\n## Read more about Agile at GitLab\n\n- [See more information about our Agile delivery solution](/solutions/agile-delivery/)\n- [Build your Agile roadmap in GitLab](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/roadmap/)\n- [Learn how to create iterations](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/iterations/)\n\nCover image by [Martin Sanchez](https://unsplash.com/@martinsanchez?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/MD6E2Sv__iA)\n{: .note}\n",[9,950,723,700],{"slug":1453,"featured":6,"template":680},"gitlab-for-agile-portfolio-planning-project-management","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-for-agile-portfolio-planning-project-management.yml","Gitlab For Agile Portfolio Planning Project Management","en-us/blog/gitlab-for-agile-portfolio-planning-project-management.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-for-agile-portfolio-planning-project-management",{"_path":1459,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1460,"content":1466,"config":1472,"_id":1474,"_type":13,"title":1475,"_source":15,"_file":1476,"_stem":1477,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-for-agile-software-development",{"title":1461,"description":1462,"ogTitle":1461,"ogDescription":1462,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1463,"ogUrl":1464,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1464,"schema":1465},"How to use GitLab for Agile software development","How Agile artifacts map to GitLab features and how an Agile iteration looks in GitLab.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097459/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%2821%29_2pdp2MNB7SoP4MhhiI1WIa_1750097459157.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-for-agile-software-development","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How to use GitLab for Agile software development\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Victor Wu\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Amanda Rueda\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2018-03-05\",\n      }",{"title":1461,"description":1462,"authors":1467,"heroImage":1463,"date":1468,"body":1469,"category":842,"tags":1470,"updatedDate":1471},[1191,990],"2018-03-05","Ever wondered if GitLab supports [Agile methodology](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/agile-delivery/)? If you're considering using GitLab it might not be obvious how the DevSecOps platform's features correspond with Agile artifacts, so we've broken it down for you.\n\nAgile is one of the most important and transformative methodologies introduced to the software engineering discipline in recent decades. While not everyone can agree on the detailed terminology of Agile concepts, it has nonetheless made a significant positive impact on software development teams efficiently creating customer-centric products through [Agile software development](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/agile-delivery/) and delivery processes.\n\nGitLab is designed to be flexible enough to adapt to your software development methodology, whether Agile or influenced by it. In this post, we'll show a simple mapping of Agile artifacts to GitLab features, and explain how customers have successfully run high-performing [Agile software delivery teams](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/agile-delivery/) with GitLab.\n\n## Mapping Agile artifacts to GitLab features\n\n### Agile artifact → GitLab feature\n\n- User story –> [Issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/)\n- Task –> [Tasks](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/tasks.html)\n- Epic –> [Epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/)\n- Points and estimation –> [Issue weight](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/issue_weight.html)\n- Product backlog –> [Issue boards](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html)\n- Sprint/iteration –> [Iterations](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/iterations/)\n- Agile board –> [Issue boards](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html)\n- Team workload –> [Issue boards](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html)\n- Burndown chart –> [Burndown charts](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/burndown_and_burnup_charts.html)\n\n## An Agile iteration with GitLab\n\n### User stories → GitLab Issues\n\nIn Agile software development methodology, you often start with a user story that captures a single feature to deliver business value for users. In GitLab, an [issue](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/) serves this purpose with ease. GitLab Issues are essential for Agile teams, providing an effective method to manage tasks and projects. Software developers can create, assign, and track issues, ensuring clear accountability and progress visibility. Issues come with robust metadata such as assignee, iteration, weight, and labels, which enhances task prioritization and workflow management throughout the software development process. Additionally, team collaboration on issues is streamlined with discussion threads, attachments, and real-time updates, enabling effective communication and teamwork.\n\n![screenshot of a GitLab Issue](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097468/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image1_aHR0cHM6_1750097468371.png)\n\nThe GitLab Issue has a title and a description area in the middle, providing a space to document any details, such as the business value and relevant personas in a user story. The sidebar at the right provides integration with other Agile-compatible features like the epic parent that the issue belongs to, the iteration in which the issue is to be worked on, and the weight of the issue, reflecting the estimated effort.\n\n### Task → Tasks\n\nOften, a user story is further separated into individual tasks. GitLab [Tasks](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/tasks.html) streamline project management by allowing Agile teams to break down user stories into discrete pieces of work. This feature supports the Agile framework by enabling software developers to create, assign, and track tasks within their projects. By integrating task management directly into GitLab, teams can maintain a cohesive workflow, ensuring all software development project activities are easily tracked and managed.\n\n![screenshot showing precise task management and project tracking using GitLab](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097469/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image3_aHR0cHM6_1750097468372.png)\n\nEnhance user value by enabling precise task management and project tracking using GitLab. Tasks are equipped with the same metadata as issues, including assignee, iteration, weight, labels, time tracking, and collaboration features. This comprehensive feature set allows Agile teams and project managers to manage workloads effectively, prioritize tasks, and ensure seamless collaboration among software developers.\n\n### Epics → GitLab Epics\nIn the other direction, some Agile practitioners specify an abstraction above user stories, often called an epic, that indicates a larger user flow consisting of multiple features. In GitLab, an [epic](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/) also contains a title and description, much like an issue, but it allows you to attach multiple child issues to it to indicate that hierarchy.\n\n![screenshot of nested GitLab Epics](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097469/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image7_aHR0cHM6_1750097468374.png)\n\nGitLab Epics allows Agile teams to organize and manage large projects efficiently by nesting epics up to nine layers deep. This hierarchical structure provides a clear view of the project's roadmap, helping software developers and project managers break down complex initiatives into manageable components. By utilizing child and [linked epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/linked_epics.html), teams can better track progress, dependencies, and project milestones, enhancing collaboration and ensuring cohesive agile delivery.\n\n### Product backlog → GitLab Issue Boards\n\nThe product or business owners typically create these user stories to reflect the needs of the business and customers. They are prioritized in a product backlog to capture urgency and desired order of development. The product owner communicates with stakeholders to determine the priorities and constantly refines the backlog.  In GitLab, an [issue board](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html) organized with iterations as lists offers a drag-and-drop workflow experience that allows you to effortlessly prioritize your backlog and assign stories to an upcoming sprint.\n\n![Gif of GitLab Issue Board](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097469/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/WIP_limit_aHR0cHM6_1750097468376.gif)\n\n### Sprints → GitLab iterations\n\nA sprint represents a finite time period in which the work is to be completed, which may be a week, a few weeks, or perhaps a month or more. The product owner and the development team meet to decide the work that is in scope for the upcoming sprint. GitLab's [iterations](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/iterations/) feature supports this: Assign iterations a start date and a due date to capture the time period of the iteration. The team then puts issues into the sprint by assigning them to that particular iteration.\n\nBy using iterations, you leverage GitLab’s enhanced capabilities for Agile project management, providing better visibility and control over your Agile planning and delivery.\n\n### Points and estimation → GitLab issue weight\n\nAlso in this meeting, user stories are communicated, and the level of technical effort is estimated for each in-scope user story. In GitLab, issues have a [weight](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/issue_weight.html) attribute, which you would use to indicate the estimated effort.\n\nIn this meeting (or in subsequent ones), user stories are further broken down to technical deliverables, sometimes documenting technical plans and architecture. In GitLab, this information can be documented in the issue, or in the [merge request description](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/), as the merge request is often the place where technical collaboration happens.\n\nDuring the sprint (GitLab iteration), software development team members pick up user stories to work on, one by one. In GitLab, issues have assignees. So you would [assign](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/multiple_assignees_for_issues.html) yourself to an issue to reflect that you are now working on it. We'd recommend that you [create an empty and linked-to-issue merge request](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/) right away to start the technical collaboration process, even before creating a single line of code.\n\n### Agile board → GitLab Issue Boards\n\nThroughout the sprint, issues move through various stages, such as `Ready for dev`, `In dev`, `In QA`, `In review`, `Done`, depending on the workflow in your particular organization. Typically these are columns in an Agile board. In GitLab, [issue boards](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html) allow you to define your stages and enable you to move issues through them. The team can [configure the board](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html#board-with-configuration) with respect to the iteration and other relevant attributes. During daily stand-ups, the team looks at the board together, to see the status of the sprint from a workflow perspective.\n\n![screenshot of GitLab Issue Board](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097469/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image6_aHR0cHM6_1750097468378.png)\n\nThe GitLab Issue Board also pulls in issues dynamically, similar to the GitLab issue list. But it allows for more flexible workflows. You can set up individual lists in the board, to reflect Agile board stages. Your team can then control and track user stories as they move from for example, `Ready for dev`, all the way to `Released to production`.\n\n### Team workload → GitLab Issue Boards\n\nAgile teams can optimize their workflows by creating issue boards with lists scoped to assignees in GitLab. This feature allows you to visualize the distribution of tasks among team members, enhancing Agile delivery. To set it up, navigate to your project or group, create a new board in the \"Boards\" section, and [add lists](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html#create-a-new-list) for each assignee. Assign issues to team members, and they will automatically appear in the corresponding lists. This dynamic view empowers balanced workloads and effective task management.\n\n![Screenshot of organized GitLab Issue Board](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097469/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image5_aHR0cHM6_1750097468380.png)\n\nOrganize an issue board by assignee or by squad using [scoped labels]. GitLab’s Issue Board is incredibly diverse and supports workflows across the software development lifecycle.\n\n### Burndown charts → GitLab Burndown Charts\n\nThe development team wants to know if they are on track in real time, and mitigate risks as they arise. GitLab provides [burndown charts](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/burndown_and_burnup_charts.html), allowing the team to visualize the work scoped in the current sprint \"burning down\" as they are being completed.\n\nToward the end of the sprint, the development team demos completed features to various stakeholders. With GitLab, this process is made simple using [Review Apps](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/review_apps/index.html) so that even code not yet released to production, but in various testing, staging or UAT environments can be demoed. Review Apps and [CI/CD features](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/) are integrated with the merge request itself.\n\nThese same tools are useful for Developers and QA roles to maintain software quality, whether through automated testing with CI/CD, or manual testing in a Review App environment.\n\n![Screenshot of GitLab Burndown Chart](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097469/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image8_aHR0cHM6_1750097468381.png)\n\nThe GitLab Burndown Chart allows a team to track scoped work \"burning down,\" as they are being completed in a sprint. This allows you to react to risks sooner and adapt accordingly, for example, informing your business stakeholders that certain features are anticipated to be delayed to a future sprint.\n\nTeam retrospectives at the end of the sprint can be documented in GitLab’s [wiki](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/wiki/index.html), so that lessons learned and action items are tracked over time. During the actual retrospective, the team can look at the [iteration report](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/iterations/#iteration-report), which displays the burndown chart and other statistics of the completed sprint.\n\n## Start your Agile journey with GitLab\nReady to elevate your Agile project management? GitLab offers a comprehensive suite of features tailored to Agile teams, software developers, and project managers, ensuring seamless collaboration and efficient workflows. Explore our pricing options, start a free trial and discover how GitLab can transform your Agile delivery processes.\n\n> [Learn more about GitLab Agile planning](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) and get started on your journey today!\n",[9,950,723,700],"2024-07-09",{"slug":1473,"featured":6,"template":680},"gitlab-for-agile-software-development","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-for-agile-software-development.yml","Gitlab For Agile Software Development","en-us/blog/gitlab-for-agile-software-development.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-for-agile-software-development",{"_path":1479,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1480,"content":1486,"config":1492,"_id":1494,"_type":13,"title":1495,"_source":15,"_file":1496,"_stem":1497,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-identified-by-gartner-as-eapt-visionary",{"title":1481,"description":1482,"ogTitle":1481,"ogDescription":1482,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1483,"ogUrl":1484,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1484,"schema":1485},"GitLab named a ‘Visionary’ in 2019 Gartner Enterprise Agile Planning Tool Magic Quadrant","We're happy to announce GitLab has been named a 'Visionary' in Gartner's EAPT Magic Quadrant.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749680619/Blog/Hero%20Images/construction-blueprint.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-identified-by-gartner-as-eapt-visionary","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"GitLab named a ‘Visionary’ in 2019 Gartner Enterprise Agile Planning Tool Magic Quadrant\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"John Jeremiah\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-05-22\",\n      }",{"title":1481,"description":1482,"authors":1487,"heroImage":1483,"date":1489,"body":1490,"category":298,"tags":1491},[1488],"John Jeremiah","2019-05-22","\n\nGartner recently named [GitLab a ‘Visionary’](/analysts/gartner-eapt21/) in their Magic Quadrant research into Enterprise Agile Planning Tools. We believe that planning and delivery must be closely linked to enable product and project teams to streamline and accelerate delivery. In many organizations, disconnected tools create organizational islands, preventing teams from collaborating, sharing, and learning. Our vision for Concurrent DevOps is to enable teams to:\n\n- Bridge the gaps between PMs, Developers, Ops, and Security.\n- Build and manage their epics and roadmaps.\n- Prioritize work and organize sprints and Kanban boards to track the development and delivery of value to customers.\n\n## Everyone can contribute\n\nOur vision is to make it simple, easy, and fast for people to contribute and deliver value to their users. We believe that a [single application](/handbook/product/single-application/), preconfigured to work by default across the DevOps lifecycle, will enable faster cycle time, delivering innovation and value.\n\n## Easier workflows, increasing collaboration and productivity\n\nEnterprise Agile and Planning are critical activities that often determine the overall success of a project. Teams must work on the right things at the right time, and unless your planning processes are linked to your delivery actions, the potential for a disconnect is remarkably high.\n\nAt Hemmersbach, using GitLab helped them decrease the time from planning to production by 6.5 days. Working in a single environment, they are also achieving 60 builds per day where previously they were performing a single daily build.\n\n>“GitLab is the one tool that connects our whole team. You always see GitLab open and everything is based on GitLab. GitLab is the backbone of our software development.”  – Alexander Schmid, Head of Software Development, Hemmersbach\n\nGitLab solves the disconnect by enabling Enterprise Agile Planning within the same application that is used to manage the development and delivery.  Now, [Product Managers and Project Managers](/solutions/agile-delivery/) can groom their backlog and epics, build their roadmaps, and plan sprints without losing touch with the actual development and delivery flow. Kanban boards provide a visual and interactive way to manage the status and flow of issues through delivery.\n\n![burndown](https://about.gitlab.com/images/home/burndown-chart.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\n[Value Stream Management](/solutions/value-stream-management/) offers insight into planning and delivering projects so that teams can find and remove bottlenecks from their value stream.\n\nDownload the report and learn more about why Gartner named GitLab an Enterprise Agile Planning 'Visionary.'\n\n[Download the full report](/analysts/gartner-eapt21/)\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple .text-center}\n\nGartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools, 18 April 2019, Keith Mann, Mike West, Thomas Murphy, Nathan Wilson\n{: .note}\n\nGartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.\n{: .note}\n\nImage by \u003Ca href=\"https://pixabay.com/users/pisauikan-4552082/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2682641\">pisauikan\u003C/a> from \u003Ca href=\"https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2682641\">Pixabay\u003C/a>\n{: .note}\n",[9,677,784,907],{"slug":1493,"featured":6,"template":680},"gitlab-identified-by-gartner-as-eapt-visionary","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-identified-by-gartner-as-eapt-visionary.yml","Gitlab Identified By Gartner As Eapt Visionary","en-us/blog/gitlab-identified-by-gartner-as-eapt-visionary.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-identified-by-gartner-as-eapt-visionary",{"_path":1499,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1500,"content":1505,"config":1510,"_id":1512,"_type":13,"title":1513,"_source":15,"_file":1514,"_stem":1515,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-named-visionary-in-gartner-agile-planning-magic-quadrant",{"title":1501,"description":1502,"ogTitle":1501,"ogDescription":1502,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":713,"ogUrl":1503,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1503,"schema":1504},"GitLab named a Visionary in 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools","For the second consecutive year, Gartner validates our product vision.","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-named-visionary-in-gartner-agile-planning-magic-quadrant","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"GitLab named a Visionary in 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Cormac Foster\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-08-03\",\n      }",{"title":1501,"description":1502,"authors":1506,"heroImage":713,"date":1507,"body":1508,"category":907,"tags":1509},[839],"2020-08-03","\nGitLab was recently named a 'Visionary' by Gartner in their 2020 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools. We're pleased to be recognized once again, despite being a fairly new entrant into the space.\n\nAs we [build toward lovability](/direction/maturity/) over the next year, we're excited to be recognized by industry experts like Gartner. While we continue to increase our breadth and depth, we also plan to double down on the unique benefits our single-application approach provides.\n\nIn the video below, [Justin Farris](/company/team/#justinfarris), group manager of Plan, lays out the team's long-term vision, including our five [jobs to be done](/direction/dev/#plan-1):\n\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n\u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/bT60rJEoWhw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\nWe recently released a suite of enhanced work planning and management features in [GitLab 13.2](/releases/2020/07/22/gitlab-13-2-released/), with a lot more to come. Over the next twelve months, we plan to focus on three core areas:\n\n### Building a world class Agile planning experience\n\n> \"Agile is the dominant means of creating software today because it enables organizations\n> to respond to change quickly, to learn rapidly, and to deliver continuously. Making use of\n> agile practices at scale is essential to digital business success.\" Gartner, Magic Quadrant\n> for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools\n\nWe agree. In its many forms, [Agile](/solutions/agile-delivery/) is the way forward for modern business. We can't be everything to everyone, and we don't want to recreate the same bloated project management solutions enterprises have been using for years. But we **do** want to be the best solution for managing Agile projects and portfolios that you can use to take your business forward.\n\nTo that end, we're focused on delivering solutions that help you elevate your Agile planning from project management to portfolio planning, regardless of industry or tool choice. We recently released a [requirements management](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/requirements/) feature, which will open opportunities to use GitLab for entirely new businesses, and we launched a vastly improved [Jira import process](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/jira.html) to make it easier to transition to a GitLab workflow. While we continue to iterate on both of those, we'll also be improving the overall management experience with easier-to-use Kanban boards, [enhanced portfolio and group roadmaps](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/roadmap/), and more robust epics and milestones.\n\n### Visibility and value stream management\n\nOf course, you can't plan without data, so visibility is another key driver of our roadmap. [Value stream management](/solutions/value-stream-management/) is a hot topic these days. To many, it's a refocusing of decades-old [value stream mapping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-stream_mapping) techniques to the software development lifecycle, measuring value added throughout the software development process and identifying inefficiencies that might keep you from delivering more.\n\nMeasurement is an essential part of the process, but at GitLab, we can also help you close the loop and take action – the \"management\" of that value stream. As a single application for the [DevOps lifecycle](/topics/devops/), GitLab has the unique ability to help you discover process bottlenecks, drill into the sources of waste for the root cause, and actually make changes to address them, whether that's reassigning an MR, mentioning someone to unblock the issue, or committing code changes.\n\nIn recent releases, we unlocked more flexible value stream workflows with [customizable value stream analytics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/value_stream_analytics.html#customizable-value-stream-analytics) and surfaced value metrics to more personas with [compliance](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/compliance/compliance_report/index.html) and [security dashboards](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/security_dashboard/#instance-security-dashboard). In the coming months, we'll continue to enhance our drill-down reporting and resolution, focusing on additional value metrics, additional dashboards, and automated recommendations for action.\n\n### Our customers\n\nOf course, as happy as we are to be recognized by Gartner, our users are the most important source of product guidance. At GitLab, everyone can contribute, and we wouldn't be the same company without the active participation of our users. That's why we've made our [maturity plan](/direction/maturity/) and [product vision](/direction/#vision) public and open for comment. For more information about enterprise Agile Planning in the coming year, please read our [FY21 Plan](/direction/dev/#fy21-plan-whats-next-for-dev)—and let us know what you think!\n\n### Related links\n\n* [2020 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (available to Gartner subscribers)](https://www.gartner.com/document/3983813?ref=solrAll&refval=255086013)\n* [We're dogfooding a tool to help visualize high-level trends in GitLab projects](/blog/insights/)\n* [How Marketing uses GitLab to manage complex projects](/blog/gl-for-pm-prt-2/)\n\n_Gartner \"Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools,\" Keith Mann, et al, 21 April 2020\nGartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s Research & Advisory organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose._\n",[9,723,784],{"slug":1511,"featured":6,"template":680},"gitlab-named-visionary-in-gartner-agile-planning-magic-quadrant","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-named-visionary-in-gartner-agile-planning-magic-quadrant.yml","Gitlab Named Visionary In Gartner Agile Planning Magic Quadrant","en-us/blog/gitlab-named-visionary-in-gartner-agile-planning-magic-quadrant.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-named-visionary-in-gartner-agile-planning-magic-quadrant",{"_path":1517,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1518,"content":1524,"config":1531,"_id":1533,"_type":13,"title":1534,"_source":15,"_file":1535,"_stem":1536,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-pages-features-review-apps-and-multiple-website-deployment",{"title":1519,"description":1520,"ogTitle":1519,"ogDescription":1520,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1521,"ogUrl":1522,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1522,"schema":1523},"GitLab Pages features review apps and multiple website deployment","GitLab Pages helps organizations reap the rewards of knowledge management, including better collaboration and accessibility. Learn how to use a new feature, Parallel Deployments.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749674550/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945__1_.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-pages-features-review-apps-and-multiple-website-deployment","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"GitLab Pages features review apps and multiple website deployment\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Matthew Macfarlane\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Janis Altherr\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-09-23\",\n      }",{"title":1519,"description":1520,"authors":1525,"heroImage":1521,"date":1527,"body":1528,"category":926,"tags":1529,"updatedDate":1530},[1289,1526],"Janis Altherr","2024-09-23","[GitLab Pages](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/pages/) has long been a popular choice for hosting static websites, allowing users to showcase their projects, blogs, and documentation directly from their repositories.\n\nBefore GitLab 17.4, you could only have a single version of your GitLab Pages website. So you couldn’t preview your changes or have multiple versions of your website deployed simultaneously. Now, with a Premium or Ultimate license, you can do both!\n\n### Introducing Parallel Deployments\n\nWith Parallel Deployments, users can now easily preview changes and manage multiple environments for their GitLab Pages sites. This enhancement allows seamless experimentation with new ideas, enabling users to confidently test and refine their sites. By catching any issues early, users can ensure the live site remains stable and polished, building on the already great foundation of GitLab Pages.\n\n### Why Parallel Deployments is a game-changer\n\n1. **Version control made easy**\\\n   If your project involves software development or documentation that covers multiple versions (such as user guides for different software releases), Parallel Deployments makes it easy to manage. Or you can use the feature to localize your website for different languages.\n2. **Flexibility to experiment**\\\n   Want to try out a new design or feature? Parallel Deployments lets you experiment freely. You can create a separate version of your site to test new ideas without impacting the current site. This flexibility encourages creativity and continuous improvement.\n\n### How to add review apps to your GitLab Pages project\n\nTo add a review app to your GitLab Pages project, edit your `.gitlab-ci.yml` file to create a deployment for each merge request (MR). Let’s assume you start with a `.gitlab-ci.yml` file somewhat like this:\n\n```yaml\ncreate-pages:\n  stage: deploy\n  script:\n    - npm run build\n  pages: \n    publish: dist # the name of the folder containing the pages files\n  rules:\n    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH # only run this job when there's a commit to the default branch\n```\n\nTo also run the pages pipeline when there’s an MR being opened or updated, we can add another rule to `pages.rules`:\n\n```yaml\n- if: $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == \"merge_request_event\"\n```\n\nIf we only add this rule, however, each Pages job will always replace the main deployment – each time an MR is opened! You likely don’t want that to happen.\n\nTo provide each individual deployment with its own URL, we’ve introduced the new `pages.path_prefix` property.\n\nA Pages deployment with this configuration...\n\n```yaml\ncreate-pages:\n  script:\n    - ...\n  pages:\n    ...\n    path_prefix: my-review-app\n```\n\n...will be available at `https://my-pages-app-7fe824.gitlab.io/my-review-app`, or, with unique domains disabled, `https://my-group.gitlab.io/my-project/my-review-app`.\n\nBut there’s no need to hardcode the path_prefix. You can dynamically generate it using CI variables. That’s particularly useful for review apps – to create a path for each MR, use the `CI_MERGE_REQUEST_IID variable`:\n\n```yaml\ncreate-pages:\n  script:\n    - ...\n  pages:\n    ...\n    path_prefix: mr-$CI_MERGE_REQUEST_IID\n```\n\nAn MR with the ID 114 would then automatically create a deployment at `https://my-pages-app-7fe824.gitlab.io/mr-114`.\n\nWith those concepts at hand, we’d like our pipeline to dynamically create either a main deployment for the default branch, or a path_prefixed-review app for MR events.\n\nFirst, let’s add a `create-pages-review-app` job to our pipeline config:\n\n```yaml\ncreate-pages-deployment:\n  # This job will create a pages deployment without path_prefix\n  # when there is a commit to the default branch\n  stage: deploy\n  script:\n    - npm run build\n  pages: \n    publish: dist \n  rules:\n    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH\n\ncreate-pages-review-app:\n  # This job will create a pages deployment with a path_prefix\n  # when there a merge request is created or updated.\n  stage: deploy\n  script:\n    - npm run build\n  pages:\n    publish: dist \n    path_prefix: 'mr-$CI_MERGE_REQUEST_IID' # Prefix with the mr-\u003Ciid>, like `mr-123`\n  rules:\n    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH\n```\n\nNow you’re creating a deployment both when pushing to the default branch, and prefixed parallel deployments when creating or updating MRs!\n\nFor the best experience, add the URL to the environment job property. This will add a link to the review app to the MR page:\n\n```yaml\ncreate-pages-deployment:\n  # This job will create a pages deployment without path_prefix\n  # when there is a commit to the default branch\n  stage: deploy\n  script:\n    - npm run build\n  pages: \n    publish: dist \n  rules:\n    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH\n\ncreate-pages-review-app:\n  # This job will create a pages deployment with a path_prefix\n  # when there a merge request is created or updated.\n  stage: deploy\n  script:\n    - npm run build\n  pages:\n    publish: dist \n    path_prefix: 'mr-$CI_MERGE_REQUEST_IID' # Prefix with the mr-\u003Ciid>, like `mr-123`\n  rules:\n    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH\n  environment:\n    name: \"Pages Review MR ${CI_MERGE_REQUEST_IID}\"\n    url: $CI_PAGES_URL\n```\n\nCongratulations, you’ve now set up MR review apps for your Pages site.\n\n## How to deploy documentation for different versions of your product\n\nThe Parallel Deployments feature is also a useful tool if you maintain the documentation of multiple versions of your software simultaneously.\n\nThe below CI config will not only create a pages deployment when there is a commit to the default branch, but also for any commit to branches named `v1`, `v2`, or `v3`.\n\n```yaml\ncreate-pages:\n  stage: deploy\n  script:\n    - ...\n  variables:\n    PAGES_PREFIX: \"$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH\" # Use the branch name by default\n  pages:\n    path_prefix: \"$PAGES_PREFIX\" # use whatever value is set in the variable\n  environment:\n    name: \"Pages ${PAGES_PREFIX}\"\n    url: $CI_PAGES_URL\n  artifacts:\n    paths:\n    - public\n  rules:\n    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH\n      variables:\n        PAGES_PREFIX: '' # No prefix\n    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'v1'\n    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'v2'\n    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'v3'\n```\n\nBy using the `$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH` variable as the path_prefix value, each of these branches will deploy their documentation to their own sub-path of your website:\n\n- The branch named v1 has its docs published to \u003Cmy-domain>/v1.\n- The branch named v2 has its docs published to \u003Cmy-domain>/v2.\n- The branch named v3 has its docs published to \u003Cmy-domain>/v3.\n\nA new commit to one of these branches will then trigger a new deployment to its respective path, keeping the documentation of multiple versions up to date.\n\nThe Parallel Deployments feature is a significant upgrade to GitLab Pages, offering a more flexible and efficient way to manage your knowledge. Whether you're working on a small project or a large-scale site with multiple versions, this new capability will make your workflow smoother and more efficient\n\n> Visit our [Parallel Deployments documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/pages/#create-multiple-deployments) to get started today!\n\n### Feedback\n\nShare your ideas and other comments in our [feedback issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/482040)!\n",[9,108,1115,950,926,928],"2025-04-09",{"slug":1532,"featured":6,"template":680},"gitlab-pages-features-review-apps-and-multiple-website-deployment","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-pages-features-review-apps-and-multiple-website-deployment.yml","Gitlab Pages Features Review Apps And Multiple Website Deployment","en-us/blog/gitlab-pages-features-review-apps-and-multiple-website-deployment.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-pages-features-review-apps-and-multiple-website-deployment",{"_path":1538,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1539,"content":1545,"config":1551,"_id":1553,"_type":13,"title":1554,"_source":15,"_file":1555,"_stem":1556,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-pages-for-covid",{"title":1540,"description":1541,"ogTitle":1540,"ogDescription":1541,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1542,"ogUrl":1543,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1543,"schema":1544},"Using GitLab Pages to Report Local COVID-19 Rates","How I used GitLab pages to publish up-to-date local infection rates.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749681476/Blog/Hero%20Images/thisisengineering-raeng-0jTZTMyGym8-unsplash.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-pages-for-covid","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Using GitLab Pages to Report Local COVID-19 Rates\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Matt Nohr\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-08-06\",\n      }",{"title":1540,"description":1541,"authors":1546,"heroImage":1542,"date":1548,"body":1549,"category":971,"tags":1550},[1547],"Matt Nohr","2020-08-06","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\n\n## Finding Local COVID Rates\n\nI live in the U.S. state of Minnesota. Recently the state government provided recommendations for how and when to open schools in the fall. The guidance was based on the infection rates of the COVID-19 disease. In simple terms, the higher the rates, the less in-person the school should be. The actual calculation I needed was:  \n\n```\ntotal number of cases in your area over the past 2 weeks per 10,000 residents\n````\n\nI have three kids in school, so when I heard this recommendation I went to find out this value for my area. It turned out to be a difficult statistic to find. Along with the announcement my state government released a set of data, but it was about three weeks behind the current rates. I found different sets of data available, but they either reported the daily case rate or a total count of infections, not this very specific calculation.\n\nSee Also:\n- [GitLab's Handbook on COVID-19 benefits](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/benefits/covid-19/)\n- [How an analytics software startup took aim at COVID-19](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/startup-covid-tracking/)\n\n## GitLab Pages to the Rescue\n\nI started by manually calculating the values with the data that I could find. This worked, but every time there were updated statistics, I had to go back and recalculate the value. I wanted a way to have this information available for me and others with the up-to-date information whenever I looked at it.\n\nMy process and output quickly evolved:\n\n1. I decided I would just write a script to download the data and do the calculation for me\n1. Once I had this working I thought the next step would be to automatically graph the results \n1. Then I thought I could publish the graphs on a website \n1. If I was going to publish them, I thought the best thing to do to get this done quickly would be to use [GitLab Pages](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/pages/).\n\nThe result is a simple static website: [https://mattnohr.gitlab.io/covid-county/](https://mattnohr.gitlab.io/covid-county/)\n\n![Example Chart from website](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/gitlab-pages-for-covid/output-chart.png){: .shadow.center}\n\n## How It Works\n\nThe basic flow for my new “system” is:\n\n```plantuml\n(*) --> \"Download data\"\n--> \"Calculate the rates\"\n--> \"Create a new .csv file with daily calculated values\"\n--> \"Publish .csv file to GitLab pages\"\n--> \"Use GitLab pages to serve static website that reads .csv\"\n--> (*)\n```\n\nThe first few steps are done with a simple [Kotlin](https://kotlinlang.org/) script that is run using the [Gradle build tool](https://gradle.org/). I used [GitLab CI/CD](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/) pipelines to run a job to do that automatically. You can find an [example gradle .gitlab-ci.yml file here](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/lib/gitlab/ci/templates/Gradle.gitlab-ci.yml). The basics of this step for me look like:\n\n```yml\nbuild:\n  stage: build\n  script: gradle --build-cache run\n```\n\nThe next step was to get it published to GitLab pages. That also used a GitLab CI/CD job. It simply needed to move the .csv results out of the build directory into the “public” directory that is used to host GitLab pages. \n\n```yml\npages:\n  stage: deploy\n  dependencies:\n    - build\n  script:\n    - mv build/data.csv public/\n```\n\nThe actual static webpage uses [d3.js](https://d3js.org/) that is able to read the data from a .csv file and graph it.\n\nMy GitLab project can be found here: [https://gitlab.com/mattnohr/covid-county](https://gitlab.com/mattnohr/covid-county)\n\n## Running on a Schedule\n\nOnce I had the system up and running with GitLab CI, I was able to use [GitLab Pipeline Schedules](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/pipelines/schedules.html) to run the script a few times a day to get updated data. Now I do not have to worry about when the data is updated, I can just review my GitLab Pages site to see the latest values.\n\nPipeline Scheudles let you easily schedule pipelines daily, weekly, or monthly. Since I wanted this to run multiple times a day, I used a cron schedule to run the pipeline 4 times a day on weekdays:\n\n```\n0 8,12,16,20 * * 1-5\n```\n\n## Result\n\nNow I have a [simple website](https://mattnohr.gitlab.io/covid-county/) that has the most up-to-date calculations for this specific value for my local area. Now I just need to wait for our local school board to make a final decision on how schools will look!\n\n\u003C!-- image: image-url -->\nCover image by [@ThisisEngineering RAEng](https://unsplash.com/@thisisengineering) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/0jTZTMyGym8)\n{: .note}",[529,9,1056,108],{"slug":1552,"featured":6,"template":680},"gitlab-pages-for-covid","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-pages-for-covid.yml","Gitlab Pages For Covid","en-us/blog/gitlab-pages-for-covid.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-pages-for-covid",{"_path":1558,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1559,"content":1565,"config":1572,"_id":1574,"_type":13,"title":1575,"_source":15,"_file":1576,"_stem":1577,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-remote-ceo-shadow-takeaways",{"title":1560,"description":1561,"ogTitle":1560,"ogDescription":1561,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1562,"ogUrl":1563,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1563,"schema":1564},"GitLab CEO Shadow program takeaways and lessons learned","I attended every meeting with GitLab's CEO for two weeks. This is what I learned.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749681331/Blog/Hero%20Images/all-remote-world-banner-1920x1080.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-remote-ceo-shadow-takeaways","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"GitLab CEO Shadow program takeaways and lessons learned\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Darren Murph\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-05-22\",\n      }",{"title":1560,"description":1561,"authors":1566,"heroImage":1562,"date":1568,"body":1569,"category":971,"tags":1570},[1567],"Darren Murph","2020-05-22","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\n\n![GitLab all-remote mentor](https://about.gitlab.com/images/all-remote/ceo-shadow-gitlab-awesomeness.jpg){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nI'm normally GitLab's Head of Remote, but for two weeks I attended every meeting with GitLab's CEO, alongside two wonderful co-shadows. \n\nThe final tally? 110 Zoom calls in 10 working days. That's an average of 11 video calls *per day*. \n\nCreating an ever more intriguing backdrop, I shadowed during a global pandemic (COVID-19). Not only was much of the world weeks into an extended period of isolation, but every leader on the planet was grappling with an array of factors that no one saw coming six months prior. From economic conditions to overall mental health and wellbeing, nothing was normal. Well, except one thing, which I'll address below. \n\n### What is the GitLab CEO Shadow program?\n\nIf you aren't familiar with GitLab's [CEO Shadow program](/handbook/ceo/shadow/), I won't rehash what's already in the handbook. By the time you read this, new shadows will have already improved the page since my rotation. It is hands-down the most enlightening, transparent, career-enhancing program I've taken part in, and should serve as a blueprint for other companies. Any firm could implement a shadow program, and I believe they should. \n\n### What's your biggest takeaway?\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/4yhtYcOZn3w\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\n*In the [GitLab Unfiltered](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL05JrBw4t0Kq7QUX-Ux5fOunQotqJbECc) video above, GitLab's Head of Remote recaps his remote CEO Shadow rotation at GitLab in May 2020.*\n\nThis is the question I've received the most. \n\nThat bit in the intro about one thing being normal? GitLab's [values](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/) were evident in **every** Zoom, and in **every** suggestion, decision, and bit of feedback. That part remained normal. What this means is that GitLab's values do not oscillate depending on economic conditions or other stressors. \n\nI want to be clear that these values were exemplified not *just* by GitLab's CEO, but the entire [e-group](/company/team/structure/#e-group). The takeaway there is that GitLab's CEO carries a significant responsibility to live our values in his 1-on-1 interactions with his direct reports and board members, with that reinforcement cascading to other interactions throughout the organization. \n\nBelow, I'll share other takeaways from the program.\n\n### Remote work will soon be — simply — work\n\nIt's happening. From [Twitter](https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/keeping-our-employees-and-partners-safe-during-coronavirus.html) to [Square](https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/18/21261798/square-employees-work-from-home-remote-premanent-policy-ceo) to [Coinbase](https://blog.coinbase.com/post-covid-19-coinbase-will-be-a-remote-first-company-cdac6e621df7) to [Shopify](https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1263483496087064579) to [Facebook](https://www.theverge.com/facebook/2020/5/21/21265699/facebook-remote-work-shift-workforce-permanent-covid-19-mark-zuckerberg-interview), remote is now an option. My CEO Shadow rotation was just prior to the series of dominos above falling, and none of the Zooms were difficult. Even for suddenly-remote particpants, it just worked. Everything just felt more human. One participant joined a Zoom from his daughter's school laptop and proceeded as \"Billie the Sea Turtle.\" \n\nI suspect some of these meetings would've been daunting in-person due to perceived power imbalances. In a video call, conversation is far more democratized. \n\n### Transparency is liberating\n\nFacades are mentally taxing. Just call it like it is. I was heartened by the many sub-values surrounding this which were lived out in interactions. \n\n* [It's impossible to know everything](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#its-impossible-to-know-everything)\n* [No ego](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#no-ego)\n* [Say sorry](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#say-sorry)\n* [Don't let each other fail](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#dont-let-each-other-fail)\n* [Blameless problem solving](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#blameless-problem-solving)\n* [Short toes](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#short-toes)\n* [Anyone and anything can be questioned](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#anyone-and-anything-can-be-questioned)\n\nIn one particular meeting, Sid had his mind changed through the introduction of new data. That led to a [merge request](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_requests/50052/diffs) where we added a sub-value to Transparency — [Articulate when you change your mind](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#articulate-when-you-change-your-mind) — during my CEO Shadow rotation.\n\n*How awesome is that?*\n\n### Make a proposal\n\nThis one was big for me. Sid continually sought proposals from those in meetings. It made me realize that I could improve in this area. Now, whenever I have to urge to just talk unscripted about a project, I stop, open a Google Doc, and start writing. \n\nShowing up with a proposal rather than a collection of unsorted thoughts is a way to be [respectful of others' time](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#be-respectful-of-others-time).\n\nSid would rather have a weak proposal that he can shape than scattered thoughts in which no action can be taken. Since my rotation, I've found myself asking for more proposals and showing up with more proposals. \n\n### Shadows are more than shadows\n\nYou become a part of the ebb and flow of the day. You're with the CEO and your co-shadow *so much* that you can't help but bond. You laugh together, you grab lunch together, you share experiences together. \n\nYou're also in a very special position. You're able to [introduce yourself](/handbook/ceo/shadow/#ceo-shadow-introductions) as a member of the CEO Shadow program to people that are very difficult to get time with. You meet people outside of GitLab who are doing incredible things to create positive change in the world. \n\nI left with over a dozen new relationships, having met brilliant, passionate people all over the world who will remember me from \"that one time in GitLab's CEO Shadow program....\" That is remarkable. \n\n### Be succinct\n\nTalk in the details or not at all. \n\n### If a design is taking too long, break it down\n\n[Iteration](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#iteration) is the hardest value to practice. \n\nWe're conditioned to believe that breaking something down is done because we're lazy or incompetent. Nothing could be [further from the truth](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#low-level-of-shame). \n\n### Everyone loves a cancelled meeting\n\nWhen everyone is isolated and no one is experiencing travel delays, there's no excuse to cancel. In two weeks, I recall just one meeting being cancelled last-minute. Myself, Sid, and my co-shadow collectively looked at each upon hearing that the participant had apologized and said: \"Don't apologize!\"\n\nWe all took a much-needed break, grabbed some water, and I took a quick walk outside. It was glorious.\n\n### Sid loves the GitLab product\n\nIt is fascinating to watch Sid interact with all areas of the business. It's stunning how well-versed he is in everything from engineering to finance to legal, but what is abundantly clear is his passion for *product*. He is a self-proclaimed \"Product CEO,\" and you'll [see this in action](/handbook/ceo/#pointers-from-ceo-direct-reports) if you're a CEO Shadow. \n\n### The broader community is always top-of-mind\n\nOn any call where Sid is given the floor to explain what GitLab is, he reminds people how important the broader community is. He references instances where those outside of the GitLab organization contribute feedback, code, and improvements to our product and our handbook. \n\n\"[Everyone can contribute](/company/mission/#mission)\" is inserted into more conversations than you would assume.\n\n### Sid cares about the greatest amount of people\n\nWhen's the last time you looked at the [Efficiency for the right group](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#efficiency-for-the-right-group) sub-value? The heart of that matters to Sid. When speaking of big, encompassing ideas, Sid continually asked those making the proposal to articulate outcomes for the broadest group.\n\n### Zoom fatigue is real\n\n110 video calls in two weeks is a lot. [Danielle M.](https://twitter.com/DanielleMorrill), an [alumnus](/handbook/ceo/shadow/#alumni) of the CEO Shadow program, recommended I take only essential meetings in the week immediately following my two-week CEO Shadow rotation to give my [eyes and mind a rest](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200421-why-zoom-video-chats-are-so-exhausting). \n\nBeing on the other side of the program, I *wholeheartedly* second this recommendation. \n\n### Being a CEO requires sacrifice\n\nSid doesn't live a normal life — or, what Americana would have you believe a normal life looks like. He sleeps well, he schedules time with family, and he takes weekends off of work. He models a healthy balance, all things considered. But make no mistake, a CEO carries around a massive amount of responsibility, and time for yourself is hard to come by.  \n\nI think you have to be born for it. You can learn to be a CEO, but there's an intangible element there as well. \n\n### Reviewing is easier than creating\n\nSid explained to me that he's able to handle 11 back-to-back Zoom calls because \"reviewing is easier than creating.\" Which is true. In many of Sid's meetings, others have spent time creating so that Sid can review and provide feedback. \n\nIf you're in a creative role, be intentional about creating [white space](https://jkglei.com/white-space/) in your calendar to create. \n\nI view being booked at 100% as a risk. If this resonates with you, check out [Kingman's Formula](https://blog.acolyer.org/2015/04/29/applying-the-universal-scalability-law-to-organisations/) for the mathematics behind it. \n\n### GitLab is extraordinarily efficient\n\nYou can tell within 10 seconds if a meeting is being ran [the GitLab way](/company/culture/all-remote/meetings/) or not.\n\n### Never apologize for family\n\nWith most of the world in lockdown, family was everywhere during my rotation (which was awesome!). Sid continually [celebrated](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#make-family-feel-welcome) that, and reminded folks not to apologize for children, pets, or for having to dart out of a meeting to handle something on the homefront. \n\n[**#FamilyAndFriends1st**](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#family-and-friends-first-work-second)\n\n### Never have a meeting without an agenda\n\nUnless it's a [coffee chat](/company/culture/all-remote/informal-communication/#coffee-chats). In which case, *savor it*.  \n\n![GitLab all-remote team](https://about.gitlab.com/images/all-remote/GitLab-All-Remote-Zoom-Team-Tanuki.jpg){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\n### Did you miss out on anything as a remote shadow?\n\nI am appreciative of the opportunity to shadow a CEO during a global pandemic. It would have been easy to pause the program for a bit. Instead, GitLab retained a beacon of transparency and [pivoted the program to remote](/handbook/ceo/shadow/#tips-for-remote-shadows) with poise. Kudos to Sid and Cheri Holmes, his [Executive Business Administrator](/handbook/eba/#executive-business-administrator-team). \n\nAs GitLab's Head of Remote, this was interesting on a personal level. Typically, the CEO Shadow program is a rare case where in-person attendance is expected. This is due to Sid's typical schedule, which involves quite a few in-person meetings in the San Francisco Bay Area. (I suspect this will change dramatically going forward, with many meetings being Zoom-by-default.)\n\nDue to much of the world being in lockdown, all of Sid's meetings in early May 2020 were remote and conducted via Zoom video calls. \n\nI didn't feel as if I missed out on anything. I was fully engaged and fully welcomed, and I was able to chat with Sid and my co-shadow during the occasional break. \n\n### Any notable perks of a remote CEO Shadow rotation? \n\nAs a dad, I felt fortunate to participate from home. The lack of a commute, even from hotel to [Mission Control](/handbook/ceo/shadow/#mission-control-guide), enabled me to maintain a fitness routine despite 11 meetings per day. I aspire to participate in a future rotation that's in-person, mostly for personal reasons. I love the San Francisco Bay Area and would take any opportunity to visit.\n\nThe time zone shift was a boon for me. I prefer to get outside in the morning, and being based 3 hours ahead of Sid provided a few bonus hours in the morning to do so. \n\n### Q&A\n\n![GitLab all-remote ergonomic workspace](https://about.gitlab.com/images/all-remote/gitlab-com-all-remote-v3-dark-1280x270.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nI asked for questions on Twitter, as well as on GitLab's internal Slack. These are some of the inquiries I received. \n\n### How did you start your day?\n\nGifted with a 3-hour headstart from Sid's time zone, I typically rose with my family, had coffee, cleaned up my son's breakfast escapades, and squeezed in a 45-minute cardio session.\n\nOn perfect days, I'd sit down with 15 or 20 minutes to spare ahead of Sid's first call, enough time to see if my team needed anything before a marathon of documenting and learning.\n\nI'm used to working [non-linear days](/company/culture/all-remote/non-linear-workday/), so it aligned well with my preferences.\n\n### How did you align lunch breaks?\n\nYou figure out that you can get super creative on what is consumable in 180 seconds.\n\n### Did you engage in virtual social time together?\n\nWe'd hop on Zoom chats between calls, and after all calls were wrapped on certain days. I really enjoyed my last day, where Sid and my co-shadow joined for a 45-minute spontaneous coffee chat. \n\n### How hard is it to catch up after the CEO Shadow program?\n\nIn preparing for the program, you're instructed to \"[prepare your team as if you were on vacation](/handbook/ceo/shadow/#preparing-for-the-program).\" I did this, but checked in on notifications between calls. \n\nFor context, it was an unusual time. Given the global focus on remote, I was fielding interviews on the subject that were atypically time sensitive. \n\nDue to this, I didn't feel entirely disconnected upon return, but I was surely less rested. \n\nI was intentional about prioritizing the CEO Shadow experience and I muted all notifications for the entire two-week span. (I mute all Mac notifications anyway, and limit iPhone notifications to text messages, so this wasn't a drastic difference in routine.)\n\nI even [added a new task](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/ceo-shadow/onboarding/-/merge_requests/20/diffs) to our CEO Shadow onboarding issues to remind shadows to change their `GitLab.com` and Slack status messages to indicate that they're in the CEO Shadow program and are focused on the `#ceo-shadow` Slack channel. \n\n### Feelings before going to sleep prior to your first day?\n\nInvigorated. I participated in over 50 remote work webinars, podcasts, and interviews the six weeks prior to my rotation. I was super excited to completely shift gears and soak in something new. \n\n### Are Sid's meetings always on-time?\n\nRoughly 97% of them begin on time. Roughly 80% of them end on time. Roughly 99% of them end before the next one begins, even if it's just by a few seconds. \n\nMost are 25 minutes. A few are 50 minutes. \n\n### Did you actively participate in meetings?\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/JM8kBqqVFrU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\n*In the [GitLab Unfiltered](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL05JrBw4t0Kq7QUX-Ux5fOunQotqJbECc) video above, GitLab's co-founder and CEO (Sid) and Head of Remote (Darren) chat with investor Sam Endacott during a remote CEO Shadow rotation.*\n\nSome! In meetings related to marketing, communications, messaging, and community, there were moments where I was asked to chime in. I was also asked a few questions in [1-on-1 meetings](/handbook/leadership/1-1/), the [e-group meeting](/handbook/ceo/#daily-meetings), and a [retrospective](/handbook/ceo/#monthly-meetings) meeting. \n\nSerendipitously, Sid and I were [interviewed](https://youtu.be/gOp4lKSCulI) by Adrian Larssen at Business Insider during my CEO Shadow rotation, while investor Sam Endacott allowed us to [livestream our conversation](https://youtu.be/JM8kBqqVFrU) on markets and remote work.\n\nI savored these moments. It was awesome to see \"everyone can contribute\" lived as a shadow. I felt welcome, and I felt my input was considered and appreciated. \n\nI enjoyed listening to my co-shadows give their input in meetings. It's an excellent opportunity to learn and develop in a very unique space. \n\n### Be honest — 40 hours per week, or more?\n\nSid's calendar is public for those within the GitLab organization. You can see that he tries to cap meetings at around 8 to 9 hours per day. However, given how much of what you experience is brand new, this may *feel* like more. \n\n![GitLab all-remote family workspace](https://about.gitlab.com/images/all-remote/gitlab-home-office-family.jpg){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nIf you're considering the CEO Shadow program, check the [eligibility requirements](/handbook/ceo/shadow/#eligibility) and **apply**! \n\nIf you're outside of the GitLab organization, please encourage your leadership team to implement a similar program. I can't recommend it highly enough.\n\nIf you still have questions, reach out on Twitter: [@darrenmurph](https://twitter.com/darrenmurph)\n",[1571,9,1571],"demo",{"slug":1573,"featured":6,"template":680},"gitlab-remote-ceo-shadow-takeaways","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-remote-ceo-shadow-takeaways.yml","Gitlab Remote Ceo Shadow Takeaways","en-us/blog/gitlab-remote-ceo-shadow-takeaways.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-remote-ceo-shadow-takeaways",{"_path":1579,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1580,"content":1586,"config":1591,"_id":1593,"_type":13,"title":1594,"_source":15,"_file":1595,"_stem":1596,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/gitlab-value-stream-management-and-dora",{"title":1581,"description":1582,"ogTitle":1581,"ogDescription":1582,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1583,"ogUrl":1584,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1584,"schema":1585},"Break the black box of software delivery with GitLab Value Stream Management and DORA Metrics","Optimize DevOps with the new DORA metrics in GitLab Value Stream Management.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749667845/Blog/Hero%20Images/gl15.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-value-stream-management-and-dora","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Break the black box of software delivery with GitLab Value Stream Management and DORA Metrics\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Haim Snir\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2022-06-20\",\n      }",{"title":1581,"description":1582,"authors":1587,"heroImage":1583,"date":1588,"body":1589,"category":674,"tags":1590},[1348],"2022-06-20","\n\nOur customers frequently tell us that despite being very effective DevOps practitioners, they still struggle to build a data-driven DevOps culture. They find it especially hard to answer the fundamental question:\n\n_What are the right things to measure?_\n\nThis becomes more challenging in enterprise organizations when there are hundreds of different development groups, and there's no normalization between how things are done or measured. Because of this, we see a strong interest from customers for metrics that would allow them to standardize between teams and benchmark themselves against the industry.\n\n![Value Streams Analytics helps you visualize and manage the DevOps flow from ideation to customer delivery.](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-06-dora-vsa-overview.png){: .shadow}\nValue Streams Analytics helps you visualize and manage the DevOps flow from ideation to customer delivery.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n## What Are DORA Metrics? \n\nWith the continued acceleration of digital transformation, most organizations realize that technology delivery excellence is a must for long-term success and competitive advantage. After seven years of data collection and research, the [DORA's State of DevOps research program](https://www.devops-research.com/research.html) has developed and validated four metrics that measure software delivery performance: [(1) deployment frequency, (2) lead time for changes, (3) time to restore service and (4) change failure rate.](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/#devops-research-and-assessment-dora-key-metrics) \n\nIn GitLab, The One DevOps Platform, [Value Stream Analytics (VSA)](/solutions/value-stream-management/) surfaces a single source of insight for each stage of the software development process. The analytics are available out of the box for teams to drive performance improvements.\n\n## What does DORA bring to Value Stream Analytics?\n\nValue Stream Analytics (VSA) measures [the entire journey from customer request to release](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/) and automatically displays the overall performance of the stream. Each stage in the value stream is transparent and compliant in a shared experience for everyone in the company. \n\nThis makes the VSA the single source of truth (SSoT) about what's happening within the entire software supply chain, with DORA’s metrics as the key measure of the value stream outputs. \n\n## How do Value Stream Analytics work?\n\nValue stream analytics measures the median time spent by issues or merge requests in each development stage.\n\nAs an example, a stage might begin with the addition of a label to an issue and end with the addition of another label:\n\n![Value stream analytics measures each stage from its start event to its end event.](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-06-dora-vsa-stage.png){: .shadow}\nValue stream analytics measures each stage from its start event to its end event.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nFor each stage, a table list displays the workflow items filtered in the context of that stage. [In stages based on labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/#label-based-stages-for-custom-value-streams), the table will list Issues, and in stages based on Commits, it will list MRs:\n\n![The VSA MR table provides a deeper insight into stage time breakdown .](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-06-dora-vsa-mr.png){: .shadow}\nThe VSA MR table provides a deeper insight into stage time breakdown.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nThe tables provide a deep dive into the stage performance and allow users to answer questions such as:\n\n- How to easily see bottlenecks that are slowing down the delivery of value to customers?\n- How to reduce the time spent in each stage so I can deliver features faster and stay competitive? \n- How can we develop code faster?\n- How can we hand off to QA faster?  How can we push changes to Production more quickly?\n\nUsing the Filter results text box, you can filter by a project (example below) or parameter (e.g., Milestone, Label). \n\n![Value stream analytics filtering.](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-06-dora-vsa-filter.png){: .shadow}\nValue stream analytics filtering.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nNo login is required to view [Value stream analytics for projects](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/value_stream_analytics) where you can become familiar with stream filtering, default stages and deep-dive tables. For a full view of the DORA metrics, you have to log in with your GitLab [Ultimate-tier](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) account or sign up for a [free trial](https://about.gitlab.com/free-trial/).\n\n## How to understand DevOps maturity and benchmark progress with the DORA metrics?\n\nDORA metrics can also provide answers to questions not related to VSA, such as:\n\n- How to become an elite team of DevOps professionals?\n- How do I perform vs. industry standards? \n- Is the organization better at DevOps this year than last?\n\n## Learn more about VSA and DORA:\n\n- Check out the GitLab Speed Run about DORA metrics in VSA:\n\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/wQU-mWvNSiI\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen>\u003C/iframe>\n\n- [GitLab DORA metrics API documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/dora/metrics.html)\n\n- [Step-by-step instructions for creating a custom value stream](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/#create-a-value-stream-with-gitlab-default-stages)\n",[9,677,950,1352,723],{"slug":1592,"featured":6,"template":680},"gitlab-value-stream-management-and-dora","content:en-us:blog:gitlab-value-stream-management-and-dora.yml","Gitlab Value Stream Management And Dora","en-us/blog/gitlab-value-stream-management-and-dora.yml","en-us/blog/gitlab-value-stream-management-and-dora",{"_path":1598,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1599,"content":1605,"config":1611,"_id":1613,"_type":13,"title":1614,"_source":15,"_file":1615,"_stem":1616,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/google-next-post",{"title":1600,"description":1601,"ogTitle":1600,"ogDescription":1601,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1602,"ogUrl":1603,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1603,"schema":1604},"What to check out at Google Cloud Next 2019","Support women who code by stopping by our booth, learn from a host of GitLab experts, and more.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749679235/Blog/Hero%20Images/cloud-native-predictions-2019.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/google-next-post","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"What to check out at Google Cloud Next 2019\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Mayank Tahilramani\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-04-04\",\n      }",{"title":1600,"description":1601,"authors":1606,"heroImage":1602,"date":1608,"body":1609,"category":298,"tags":1610},[1607],"Mayank Tahilramani","2019-04-04","\n\nIt’s that time of the year to indulge in all things innovative and new at Google Cloud Next 2019.\nAs an attendee last year, I was excited to learn about Google’s vision on ‘bringing the cloud to you’\nwith a focus on hybrid cloud and unveiling of GKE On-Prem. GitLab’s partnership with Google\nhas grown a lot since we launched our quick and easy [integration with GKE](/partners/technology-partners/google-cloud-platform/)\nlast year and we hope you will come out to see some of the new things we have going on.\n\n### Don't be shy, come say hi 👋\n\nCome visit us at our booth (#S1607), get scanned, and GitLab will donate $5 to your\ncharity of choice: [Rail Girls](http://railsgirls.com/) or [Django Girls](https://djangogirls.org/).\nThis also enters you for a chance to win an iPad Pro!\n\nWhile you're there, we would love to showcase and talk about:\n\n* GitLab’s [AutoDevOps](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/) functionality.\n* Using GitLab to [secure your applications](/stages-devops-lifecycle/secure/).\n* How to get started with [GitLab for GCP on GKE](/partners/technology-partners/google-cloud-platform/) and GKE On-Prem.\n* GitLab [Serverless with Knative](/topics/serverless/) and [Cloud Run](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/serverless/announcing-cloud-run-the-newest-member-of-our-serverless-compute-stack),\n* ... and much more!\n\n### Sit back, relax, and listen to some of our experts live\n\n* Check out [Brandon Jung](/company/team/#brandoncjung) (VP of Alliances) discuss [GitLab’s move from Azure to GCP](https://cloud.withgoogle.com/next/sf/sessions?session=ARC207) which includes a technical\noverview of the migration as well as lessons learned. Check out our customer case study [here](https://cloud.google.com/customers/gitlab/).\n\n* Come listen to [Kathy Wang](/company/team/#wangkathy) (Senior Director of Security) tell our journey [Towards Zero Trust at GitLab.com](https://cloud.withgoogle.com/next/sf/sessions?session=SEC220) along with key lessons learned. ([You can read more about the evolution of Zero Trust here](/blog/evolution-of-zero-trust/).)\n\n* Learn something new with [Daniel Gruesso](/company/team/#danielgruesso) (Product Manager) showcasing GitLab’s serverless functionality to [Run a consistent serverless platform anywhere with Kubernetes and Knative](https://cloud.withgoogle.com/next/sf/sessions?session=HYB218).\n\n### Get hands on with Qwiklabs\n\nLearn from [Dan Gordon](/company/team/#dbgordon) (Senior Technical Marketing Manager) at our [Spotlight Lab: Introduction to GitLab on GKE](https://cloud.withgoogle.com/next/sf/sessions?session=301353-133371). Here you will have the chance to deploy GitLab on GKE, migrate a GitHub repository into a GitLab Project, and set up a CI/CD pipeline with AutoDevOps to deploy your code to GKE.\n\nSo stop by and say hello!\n\nWe are proud to be a sponsor at this event and would love to see as many of you at our booth (S1607) to discuss GitLab [Serverless](/topics/serverless/) with Knative and Cloud Run, GitLab’s integration with GKE, GitLab AutoDevOps for CI/CD, Security functionalities, as well as GitLab’s support for GKE On-Prem.\n",[9,1055,108,677,230,865,701,1056],{"slug":1612,"featured":6,"template":680},"google-next-post","content:en-us:blog:google-next-post.yml","Google Next Post","en-us/blog/google-next-post.yml","en-us/blog/google-next-post",{"_path":1618,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1619,"content":1625,"config":1630,"_id":1632,"_type":13,"title":1633,"_source":15,"_file":1634,"_stem":1635,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/how-gitlab-agile-planning-improves-collaborative-project-management",{"title":1620,"description":1621,"ogTitle":1620,"ogDescription":1621,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1622,"ogUrl":1623,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1623,"schema":1624},"How GitLab Agile planning improves collaborative project management","The transformation that GitLab brings to project management is not just about using a tool; it’s about fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement. Find out how.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097041/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%2822%29_718ZuurL0op4weunB2fBlD_1750097040694.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/how-gitlab-agile-planning-improves-collaborative-project-management","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How GitLab Agile planning improves collaborative project management\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Amanda Rueda\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-07-16\",\n      }",{"title":1620,"description":1621,"authors":1626,"heroImage":1622,"date":1627,"body":1628,"category":842,"tags":1629},[990],"2024-07-16","Effective collaboration is the backbone of Agile project management, enabling enterprise teams to deliver high-quality software efficiently. GitLab’s comprehensive platform enhances collaboration, streamlines workflows, and supports [Agile principles](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/agile-delivery/). In this article, you'll learn how GitLab empowers teams to work together seamlessly and improve project outcomes.\n\n## The value of collaborative project management for enterprise Agile teams\n\nAdopting collaborative project management practices is essential for Agile teams to thrive in today’s dynamic development environments. Here’s why it matters and how GitLab enterprise Agile planning helps:\n\n- **Enhanced communication:** Collaboration ensures communication flows smoothly across all team members, preventing misunderstandings and aligning everyone toward common goals. This is crucial in enterprise Agile environments where rapid iterations and continuous feedback are key.\n  - *Decomposing epics and using threaded comments in GitLab keep everyone on the same page and fosters detailed discussions within issues.*\n- **Increased efficiency:** By fostering a collaborative atmosphere, teams can leverage each member's unique skills and expertise, leading to faster problem-solving and task completion. Collaboration tools streamline workflows, reduce bottlenecks, and enable teams to deliver value more quickly.\t\n  - *GitLab's unified platform integrates all aspects of development, from planning to deployment, ensuring streamlined and efficient workflows.*\n\n- **Improved decision-making:** When team members work closely together, they can share diverse perspectives and insights, leading to better decision-making. Collaboration promotes a culture of collective intelligence, where the best ideas are identified and implemented.\n  - *GitLab's issue boards and labels help organize and prioritize ideas, making it easier to evaluate options and make informed decisions.*\n- **Boosted morale and engagement:** Working in a collaborative environment where contributions are valued can significantly boost team morale and engagement. Agile teams that collaborate effectively are more motivated, feel a stronger sense of ownership, and are more committed to project success.\n  - *Recognize and celebrate achievements by linking to team member contributions and activity feed in GitLab.*\n- **Higher quality outputs:** Collaborative efforts often result in higher quality deliverables. Continuous feedback and peer reviews ensure that issues are caught early and addressed promptly, leading to more refined and robust products.\n  - *GitLab's milestone tracking and project templates ensure consistent quality standards across projects, allowing for thorough reviews and standardization.*\n- **Adaptability and flexibility:** Agile teams must be able to pivot quickly based on feedback and changing requirements. Collaboration provides the flexibility to adapt plans and strategies in real time, ensuring that the team remains responsive and aligned with project objectives.\n  - *GitLab's roadmaps and dynamic scheduling features allow for adjustment of timelines and priorities on the fly, keeping the team Agile and responsive to change.*\n\nAs a product manager, I’ve seen firsthand how these benefits can transform a team's performance. By integrating these collaborative practices, Agile teams can enhance their productivity, innovation, and overall project success.\n\n> Follow [GitLab's Agile planning updates and insights](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/categories/agile-planning/).\n\n## Achieve Agile success with GitLab\n\nGitLab, with its comprehensive suite of tools, is perfectly positioned to support these collaborative efforts.\n\n- **Streamlined Agile development:** GitLab supports hierarchical planning, allowing teams to structure projects into epics, which can then be broken down into features, user stories, and tasks. This clear organization ensures that complex projects are manageable and transparent, fostering continuous incremental value delivery. By breaking down work into detailed segments, GitLab helps Agile teams maintain focus and achieve goals efficiently.\n\n![Nested list of epics and child issues](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097050/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image4_aHR0cHM6_1750097050298.png)\n\n- **Enhanced visibility and accountability:** Managing dependencies is crucial for cross-functional initiatives. GitLab's tools for creating, tracking, and visualizing dependencies give team members a clear understanding of how their work fits into the larger project. This visibility prevents bottlenecks and keeps efforts aligned with project goals, promoting accountability and coordinated progress.\n\n![screenshot showing dependencies for initiatives](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097050/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image1_aHR0cHM6_1750097050300.png)\n\n- **Unified platform for all users:** GitLab unifies all stakeholders under a single platform, eliminating the silos often created by using disparate tools. This enhances communication and collaboration across teams. Whether you're a developer, project manager, QA specialist, or UX designer, GitLab ensures everyone can access the same data and tools, fostering a more cohesive working environment.\n\n- **Real-time collaboration and communication:** GitLab supports real-time collaboration through features like merge requests, issue tracking, and continuous integration/continuous deployment ([CI/CD](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/ci-cd/)) pipelines. These features streamline the development process and encourage continuous feedback and iterative improvements. Integrated chat, commenting on merge requests, and real-time notifications ensure everyone stays informed and aligned.\n\n![Screenshot of a Chat conversation among product, development and design teams](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097050/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image3_aHR0cHM6_1750097050305.png)\n\n- **Data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement:** Every action in GitLab can be measured, providing valuable insights that guide strategic planning and operational adjustments. [GitLab's analytics capabilities](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/value-stream-management/) allow teams to monitor key performance indicators like cycle times and deployment frequencies. This data-driven approach ensures decisions are based on evidence rather than assumptions, aligning with lean principles and promoting continuous improvement.\n\n![Value Stream Analytics dashboard](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097050/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image2_aHR0cHM6_1750097050308.png)\n\n## Start your enterprise Agile planning transformation\n\nThe transformation that GitLab brings to project management is exciting. It’s not just about using a tool; it’s about fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement. Seeing my teams move from siloed efforts to a unified, efficient, and motivated workforce has been incredibly rewarding. \n\nGitLab redefines collaborative project management by integrating comprehensive planning tools with real-time collaboration features in a single platform. This aligns seamlessly with Agile practices, empowering teams to manage projects more efficiently and precisely. For organizations of all sizes, GitLab provides the tools needed to navigate the complexities of modern software development, ensuring successful and timely project delivery.\n\n> Get started today with enterprise Agile planning with a [free 30-day trial of GitLab Ultimate](https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_source=about.gitlab.com/blog&glm_content=default-saas-trial).",[9],{"slug":1631,"featured":90,"template":680},"how-gitlab-agile-planning-improves-collaborative-project-management","content:en-us:blog:how-gitlab-agile-planning-improves-collaborative-project-management.yml","How Gitlab Agile Planning Improves Collaborative Project Management","en-us/blog/how-gitlab-agile-planning-improves-collaborative-project-management.yml","en-us/blog/how-gitlab-agile-planning-improves-collaborative-project-management",{"_path":1637,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1638,"content":1644,"config":1650,"_id":1652,"_type":13,"title":1653,"_source":15,"_file":1654,"_stem":1655,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/how-gitlab-automates-releases",{"title":1639,"description":1640,"ogTitle":1639,"ogDescription":1640,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1641,"ogUrl":1642,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1642,"schema":1643},"How GitLab is automating release generation in .gitlab-ci.yml","Under the covers look at the tooling behind creating releases from `.gitlab-ci.yml` with a Go command line interface","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749672765/Blog/Hero%20Images/generator.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/how-gitlab-automates-releases","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How GitLab is automating release generation in .gitlab-ci.yml\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Jackie Meshell\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-05-07\",\n      }",{"title":1639,"description":1640,"authors":1645,"heroImage":1641,"date":1647,"body":1648,"category":971,"tags":1649},[1646],"Jackie Meshell","2020-05-07","## Why does release generation need to be automated?\n\nRelease Management, a group within the [Release stage](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/development/ops/release/), is about unblocking users as they continuously deliver value to their customers. A part of this can be seen in how users create Release tags to track production deployments and in that adoption of the Release features, users are deploying more with GitLab. We can also see a correlation between users adopting Releases to deploy with GitLab and leveraging more paid features. \n\nWe discovered the automation of creating these releases for our users was difficult and documented the needs for Release generation from the `.gitlab-ci.yml` file in our epic, [gitlab&2510](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/2510). The highlights of the user pains around the release process include a: \n   1. desire to avoid leaving the CLI to complete release jobs or tasks \n   1. need for the tag creation to be associated with a pipeline \n   1. simpler way to include release creation within GitLab as a part of the CI/CD processes \n\nNot only do users want to automatically create releases within their [CI/CD](/topics/ci-cd/), many of the other solutions such as [Azure Pipelines](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/release/?view=azure-devops), [XebiaLabs](https://docs.xebialabs.com/v.9.5/xl-release/how-to/work-with-xl-yaml-format/), and [Cloudbees](https://www.jenkins.io/blog/configuring-jenkins-pipeline-with-yaml-file/), all feature a way to deploy and create releases from the YAML. \n\n## How did we discover that we needed a tool to create the release? \n\nThe Release Management team underwent a few calls with a GitLab Maintainer, [Kamil Trzciński](https://gitlab.com/ayufan), to help decide the correct path forward. There were several scenarios we considered. \n\n| Option   | Pros| Cons  |\n| ------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |\n| Generate Release from Rails    | 1. Simple addition of token and yaml job                                                                                                                                                                                                       | 1. Rails would be too heavy\u003Cbr> 2. High potential for errors and slowness\u003Cbr> 3. Least performant option                                                                                                                                                           |\n| Create an independent CLI tool | 1. Independent and users can use it without downloading the whole Runner command\u003Cbr> 2. Can be owned by the Release team\u003Cbr> 3. The intention and domain of the CLI is very specific and users won't get confused.\u003Cbr> 4. We can have the code in any repo | 1. Maybe some code duplication from gitlab-runner-helper command to auth with CI\\_JOB\\_TOKEN                                                                                                                                                                   |\n| Create a runner helper         | 1. Much quicker since it's just copy/pasting a file and changing the command name and URL                                                                                                                                                      | 1. The user have to download the gitlab-runner-helper binary\u003Cbr> 2. Lots of actions for the user to take to use\u003Cbr> 3. Not as discoverable\u003Cbr> 4. Coupled and dependent on Runner team\u003Cbr> 5. It would require to follow the same release version scheme as GitLab Runner does |\n\nWe learned quickly that Rails was not the right place to generate a release as a result of performance and we also learned the logic was too much for the GitLab Runner to handle. This was discussed in a chat with [Steve Azzopardi](https://gitlab.com/steveazz-dr) from the Runner Team, [Sean Carroll](https://gitlab.com/sean_carroll) from Release Management, and of course the product teammates.\n\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://youtube.com/embed/bfbnjEKZ9yw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\nThe technical takeaways from this call included:  \n  - Runner was more fragile and likely would be taxed by the logic that creating a release from the yaml would cause \n  - Rails would be slow and not as performant when creating a release \n  - a command line tool would be extensible and allow the Release Management team to wholly own the product \n\nThus, the team moved forward with the independent CLI and began developing this tool. \n\n## How does the release-cli work?\n\nThe release-cli tool is written in Go and can be called directly to create a Release via the API, given the right `job token` and parameters are provided. The more likely way users will interact with this tool will be in the YAML file as a job: \n\n```\nrelease_upload:\n  image: registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/release-cli:v0.1.0\n  script:\n    - gitlab-releaser create --name=\"My Release\" --description=\"My Release description\"\n```\n\n![Architecture of Release-cli](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/archdiagram.png \"release-cli architecture\"){: .shadow}\n\n### Steps for the release-cli \n\n1. The release-cli will instruct the `release` node of `.gitlab-ci.yml`\n  - This will convert the actions of creating the release into commands and pass those to the Runner. \n2. YAML exposed as Steps\n  - The release node of the `.gitlab-ci.yml` configuration file is converted into Steps and made available via API endpoint.\n3. Runner calls CLI on Job success\n  - The Runner executes the Job, and upon success calls the Release CLI. The evaluation of the Release must be created is made by the CLI, so this step implies the Runner always calls the Release CLI at the end of a successful Job.\n4. CLI retrieves Release Steps\n  - The Release CLI calls the Rails API to retrieve the release configuration (as Steps).\n5. CLI creates Release\n  - The Release CLI makes an API call to Rails to create the Release.\n\n## What is next for the release-cli? \n\nWe currently have the first iteration of the release-cli complete, which looks like: \n\n![Architecture2 of Release-cli](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/current_cli.png \"release-cli current architecture\"){: .shadow}\n\nThis MVC implemented via [gitlab#199253](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/199253), has enabled:  \n   - use of the [GitLab Release CLI docker image](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/release-cli)\n   - the `--name` and `--description` parameters for a Release\n   - calling the Releases API to create a Release with name and description\n   - access to all CI variables, including `$CI_JOB_TOKEN` for authentication to the GitLab Releases API and `$CI_PROJECT_ID` to create the Release\n\nThe Release Management team will expand the tool to be able to manage many tasks for the Release generation. These features include:\n   1. Expose `:release` yaml as steps via [gitlab#199250](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/199250)\n   1. Support file uploads to Releases via [gitlab#17838](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/17838)\n   1. Support binary files in Releases via [gitlab#35893](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/35893)\n   1. Automatically create Release notes in Releases via [gitlab#15563](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/15563)\n",[9,9,9],{"slug":1651,"featured":6,"template":680},"how-gitlab-automates-releases","content:en-us:blog:how-gitlab-automates-releases.yml","How Gitlab Automates Releases","en-us/blog/how-gitlab-automates-releases.yml","en-us/blog/how-gitlab-automates-releases",{"_path":1657,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1658,"content":1664,"config":1669,"_id":1671,"_type":13,"title":1672,"_source":15,"_file":1673,"_stem":1674,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/how-gitlab-handles-retrospectives",{"title":1659,"description":1660,"ogTitle":1659,"ogDescription":1660,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1661,"ogUrl":1662,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1662,"schema":1663},"How GitLab handles retrospectives","Take a peek at how the GitLab team holds monthly retrospectives.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749668426/Blog/Hero%20Images/retrospectivesgitlabpost.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/how-gitlab-handles-retrospectives","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How GitLab handles retrospectives\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Suri Patel\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-12-19\",\n      }",{"title":1659,"description":1660,"authors":1665,"heroImage":1661,"date":1666,"body":1667,"category":298,"tags":1668},[740],"2019-12-19","\nEach month, GitLab’s engineering team hold a retrospective to learn and improve as much as possible from [every monthly release](/releases/). Retrospectives are the preferred method for GitLab team members [focused on improvement](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#focus-on-improvement) and ensures that our technical debt doesn’t grow faster than our code base.\n\n> “When we say retrospective, here’s what we have in mind: A special meeting where the team gathers after completing an increment of work to inspect and adapt their methods and teamwork. Retrospectives enable whole-team learning, act as catalysts for change, and gener-ate action. Retrospectives go beyond checklist project audits or per-functory project closeouts. And, in contrast to traditional post-mortems or project reviews, retrospectives focus not only on the development process, but on the team and team issues. And team issues are as challenging as technical issues – if not more so.” — [Agile retrospectives: Making good teams great](https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Retrospectives-Making-Pragmatic-Programmers-ebook/dp/B00B03SRJW)\n\nSince retrospectives can cultivate a culture of transparency, trust, collaboration, and communication, we want to share the steps our team takes in order to ship every month.\n\n## Engineering-wide retrospectives\n\nIn line with our [value of transparency](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#transparency), we livestream the meetings to YouTube and monitor the chat for questions from viewers. We also have a publicly available document for [retrospective notes](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nEkM_7Dj4bT21GJy0Ut3By76FZqCfLBmFQNVThmW2TY/edit?usp=sharing) so that we can [efficiently refer back to decisions, insight, and comments](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#write-things-down).\n\nIn each retrospective, the team methodically works through the same discussion points:\n\n1. **Previous retrospective improvement tasks**: The moderator reviews the improvements the team identified in the last retrospective and discuss progress on those items.\n1. **What went well this month**: Teams are encouraged to celebrate the ways in which we exceeded expectations either individually or as a team.\n1. **What went wrong this month**: Teams are encouraged to identify mistakes and unmet goals. The focus is to highlight areas that didn’t meet our expectations as a team.\n1. **How we can improve**: The team engages in [blameless problem solving](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#blameless-problem-solving) to identify how subsequent releases can improve. Are there changes we can make in workflow? Is there a potential silo forming? Do changes need to be made in communication and collaboration?\n1. **Improvements for next release to track**: At the end of each retrospective, the [Engineering Productivity team](/handbook/engineering/quality/#engineering-productivity) triages improvement items identified during the retrospective. Having a single owner of triaging enables the awareness of the bigger picture technical debt and backstage work required. The individuals issues are assigned to other teams or engineers to execute.\n\nRetrospectives are publicly live streamed each month. Take a look at the retrospective for 12.5. 🍿\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/tkwo9xisg90\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\n## Team retrospectives\n\n[Team retrospectives](/handbook/engineering/management/group-retrospectives/) are held to inform the function-wide retrospective for any given release. [Sean McGivern](/company/team/#smcgivern), engineering manager, Plan:Project Management, wrote a [great article on using GitLab CI to automate monthly releases](/blog/how-we-used-gitlab-to-automate-our-monthly-retrospectives/). Using scheduled pipelines to create an issue early in the release cycle, teams can contribute to the retro issue while they’re still working on the release.\n\n> “It doesn’t matter whether you have four or five labels of things on your retro board, or exactly how you do the retro. What does matter is the notion of thinking about what we're doing and how we can do better, and it is the team that’s doing the work that does this, that is the central thing.” — [Martin Fowler](https://martinfowler.com/articles/agile-aus-2018.html)\n\nIn this [team retrospective issue](https://gitlab.com/gl-retrospectives/create-stage/editor/issues/6), the Create:Editor team takes a look at what went well, what didn’t go well, what can be improved, which issues shipped, and which issues slipped in the [12.5 release](/blog/gitlab-12-5-released). In team retro issues, individuals can gauge how others experienced the release and discuss points raised by teammates.\n\nHere’s a video of the [Plan team](/handbook/product/categories/#plan-stage) holding a retrospective to discuss recent slipped issues. 🍿\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/QA3LlJOi0Ik\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\n## Asynchronous retrospectives\n\nSince GitLab is an [all-remote company](/company/culture/all-remote/), we strongly encourage [asynchronous communication](/handbook/communication/#internal-communication), since team members can be located in any of the [65 countries](/company/team/) where GitLab team members live. We apply asynchronous communication to our retrospectives to ensure that everyone can contribute and document their experiences.\n\nAsynchronous retrospectives are not just for remote teams. They can also be used by colocated teams to facilitate open discussion when team members have the bandwidth to dedicate to problem solving. Furthermore, asynch retros can serve as a dedicated place where people can quickly jot down their thoughts when they suddenly remember an experience, rather than be forced to remember everything during a dedicated call.\n\n## Retrospectives: The impact on culture\n\n[When retrospectives are run efficiently](/handbook/engineering/management/group-retrospectives/), these meetings can build mutual trust, communication, and collaboration. They cultivate a culture of continuous learning and improvement, two characteristics of any strong Agile team. The more teams can determine how to efficiently build software, the more value they can bring to users.\n\nCover image by [Shane Aldendorff](https://unsplash.com/@pluyar?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/mQHEgroKw2k).\n{: .note}\n",[9,700,723],{"slug":1670,"featured":6,"template":680},"how-gitlab-handles-retrospectives","content:en-us:blog:how-gitlab-handles-retrospectives.yml","How Gitlab Handles Retrospectives","en-us/blog/how-gitlab-handles-retrospectives.yml","en-us/blog/how-gitlab-handles-retrospectives",{"_path":1676,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1677,"content":1683,"config":1689,"_id":1691,"_type":13,"title":1692,"_source":15,"_file":1693,"_stem":1694,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/how-to-easily-launch-gitlab-through-cloud-marketplaces",{"title":1678,"description":1679,"ogTitle":1678,"ogDescription":1679,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1680,"ogUrl":1681,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1681,"schema":1682},"How to easily launch GitLab through cloud marketplaces","Bitnami makes publishing GitLab into Azure Marketplace simple.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749670001/Blog/Hero%20Images/bitnami-gitlab-cloud.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/how-to-easily-launch-gitlab-through-cloud-marketplaces","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How to easily launch GitLab through cloud marketplaces\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Miranda Carter\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Vick Kelkar\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-09-30\",\n      }",{"title":1678,"description":1679,"authors":1684,"heroImage":1680,"date":1686,"body":1687,"category":907,"tags":1688},[1685,718],"Miranda Carter","2020-09-30","\n\nToday almost every enterprise in the world moved at least some of its mission-critical workloads into public cloud environments, making it increasingly important that customers can easily deploy and manage their software in any cloud. All of the major cloud vendors have introduced marketplaces where customers can quickly deploy applications into their cloud computing infrastructure.\n\n[Bitnami](https://bitnami.com/), now part of VMware, has long partnered with the leading cloud vendors to provide a library of open source software in their marketplaces that is always up-to-date, packaged using best practices, and completely free to end users. Bitnami and GitLab worked together for years on publishing [GitLab Community Edition (CE)](/install/?version=ce) as part of this library.\n\n### The Bitnami and GitLab partnership advantage\n\nGitLab CE provides value to millions of organizations and community contributors, and this has only been enhanced by our partnership with Bitnami. By taking the GitLab CE open [source code](/solutions/source-code-management/) and packaging it in a way that is always up-to-date and easy to use out-of-the-box on almost any cloud platform, Bitnami has helped make GitLab CE accessible to hundreds of thousands of users.\n\nThe GitLab team is working with Bitnami to eliminate the complexity of packaging our enterprise application for multiple cloud marketplaces, in the same way they do for GitLab CE. This partnership enables the various marketplaces to receive timely updates of the GitLab Enterprise Edition (EE) software packages whenever there is a security issue or dependency update.\n\n### GitLab Enterprise Edition packaged by Bitnami is available on Microsoft Azure marketplace\n\nToday, we are pleased to announce that our partnership with Bitnami has helped make [GitLab EE](/install/) available in the [Microsoft Azure marketplace](https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps/gitlabinc1586447921813.gitlabee?tab=Overview). GitLab EE customers will be able to seamlessly deploy and use the application in these environments thanks to Bitnami’s expertise in packaging and publishing software for the public cloud.\n\nExisting customers can bring their licenses and apply them to GitLab EE in any of these environments. GitLab EE is also published by Bitnami in the VMware Cloud marketplace.\n\n### Software support for marketplace packages\n\nCustomers who deploy GitLab EE packaged by Bitnami will enjoy the same enterprise-level support that GitLab customers receive in any other supported environment. Customers who have deployed GitLab software into the cloud infrastructure already through the cloud marketplace must follow the normal GitLab software upgrade process to address any critical issues and vulnerabilities.\n\n### About the authors\n\n_[Vick Kelkar](/company/team/#vkelkar) is on Alliances team at GitLab. He has experience developing and running products for container orchestrators like Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes._\n\n_Miranda Carter has been part of the Bitnami team for over six years, and came to VMware as part of the VMware acquisition last year. Miranda is now a Program Manager at VMware and focuses on supporting Tanzu Application Catalog and supporting ISVs whenever possible._\n",[9,108,677,230],{"slug":1690,"featured":6,"template":680},"how-to-easily-launch-gitlab-through-cloud-marketplaces","content:en-us:blog:how-to-easily-launch-gitlab-through-cloud-marketplaces.yml","How To Easily Launch Gitlab Through Cloud Marketplaces","en-us/blog/how-to-easily-launch-gitlab-through-cloud-marketplaces.yml","en-us/blog/how-to-easily-launch-gitlab-through-cloud-marketplaces",{"_path":1696,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1697,"content":1703,"config":1708,"_id":1710,"_type":13,"title":1711,"_source":15,"_file":1712,"_stem":1713,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/how-to-harmonize-agile-sprints-with-product-roadmaps",{"title":1698,"description":1699,"ogTitle":1698,"ogDescription":1699,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1700,"ogUrl":1701,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1701,"schema":1702},"How to harmonize Agile sprints with product roadmaps","Apply best practices and GitLab features to your product journey, including creating centralized roadmaps, conducting review sessions, and tracking sprint lifecycles.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097231/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%2821%29_2pdp2MNB7SoP4MhhiI1WIa_1750097230664.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/how-to-harmonize-agile-sprints-with-product-roadmaps","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How to harmonize Agile sprints with product roadmaps\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Amanda Rueda\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2025-02-04\",\n      }",{"title":1698,"description":1699,"authors":1704,"heroImage":1700,"date":1705,"body":1706,"category":842,"tags":1707},[990],"2025-02-04","Picture this: Product and Development teams are working in isolation. Product has created a 12-month roadmap and communicated it to internal stakeholders but didn't review it with their development team. Dev starts building the features planned for the upcoming sprint without considering the broader product roadmap, leading to missed opportunities to optimize timing, like running projects in parallel, accounting for team capacity, or building reusable APIs that could serve multiple initiatives. The lack of coordination results in inefficiencies and delayed value delivery.\n\nBalancing short-term wins with long-term vision isn’t easy; it requires clear communication, aligned priorities, and the right tools. In this guide, you'll learn strategies to help harmonize your Agile sprints with strategic roadmaps, tackle common challenges, and uncover actionable solutions tailored to your teams.\n\n## The importance of a single source of truth\n\nA consistent single source of truth for roadmaps with longer-range goals ensures you and your teams have access to up-to-date information about the bigger picture. In practice, this means maintaining a single, regularly updated platform where all roadmap details reside rather than keeping versions of the roadmap across multiple formats, each typically with slightly different information, causing a misaligned understanding of where you're headed.\n\n### Create a centralized roadmap\n\nBy creating a centralized roadmap for your team, you can:\n\n* communicate long-range strategy\n* minimize miscommunication\n* facilitate cross-functional alignment\n* quickly adapt to changes without losing context\n* self-serve information, reducing dependency on a single point of contact who retains the information\n\n***GitLab tip**: Use [epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/) and [Roadmap view](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/roadmap/) to support both product planning and the transparent monitoring of delivery. The Roadmap view allows you to track progress, identify bottlenecks, and ensure alignment between high-level goals and sprint-level execution.*\n\n![Roadmap view for group](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097239/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image1_aHR0cHM6_1750097239117.png)\n\n## Collaborative roadmap review practices\n\nEstablish a regular review and sign-off process for roadmap updates that include Product, Engineering, and UX as part of the [product trio](https://www.producttalk.org/product-trio/). Collaborative reviews help you maintain alignment and minimize risk. At GitLab, I meet with my engineering manager and UX designer monthly to review and obtain sign-offs on any changes. We maintain a running sign-off on the roadmap wiki page itself that holds us accountable for keeping the schedule and provides transparency to the rest of the organization.\n\n#### How to extract value from review sessions\n\nTo make the most of the review session, aim for the following best practices:\n\n* Schedule routine reviews, monthly or quarterly, depending on how frequently the roadmap tends to fluctuate at your organization.\n* Validate alignment between product goals, UX lead time, and technical feasibility by discussing potential risks and dependencies upfront.\n  * Validate that the roadmap reflects current organizational business objectives.\n  * Ensure that design timelines are realistic and consider research or validation needs.\n  * Confirm that the roadmap allocates time for technical preparation, such as technical spikes or investigations, and ensures alignment with broader engineering priorities.\n* Optimize team utilization by considering capacity constraints and ensuring the sequence of work aligns with the team’s skill profile. This includes avoiding periods of underutilization or skill mismatches while effectively planning for situations like staffing level drops during holidays.\n* Right-size scope and set appropriate expectations about what can be achieved. We all want to do it all, but perfection is the enemy of progress so prioritize what truly matters to deliver incremental value efficiently. Seek opportunities to optimize by identifying ways to iterate or increase velocity, such as adjusting the order of work to reduce dependencies or leveraging reusable components to streamline development.\n* Encourage open dialogue about trade-offs and priorities to ensure all perspectives are considered. This collaborative approach helps identify creative solutions to challenges and builds consensus on the best path forward.\n\n***GitLab tip**: Use a [GitLab Wiki](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/wiki/) page to complement the [Roadmap](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/roadmap/) feature. In the wiki, you can include expanded context about your product roadmap, such as business rationale, links to user research, RICE scores, and details about dependencies or risks. Link directly to the roadmap for easy access, and leverage the upcoming discussion threads feature to encourage async collaboration and feedback from your team.*\n\n![PlanFlow product roadmap](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097239/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image3_aHR0cHM6_1750097239118.png)\n\n## Continuous direction validation and progress measurement\n\nThe goal of a product roadmap isn’t just to stay on track – it’s to deliver real value to your customers. To make space for sharing ongoing user feedback and behavioral data consider incorporating regular touchpoints across your product trio outside of sprint cycles. These sessions can be used to review insights, analyze trends, and ensure that the product roadmap continues to reflect the evolving needs of your users. By grounding roadmap updates using real user insights, you’re not only delivering on outcomes but also adapting to what really matters to your customers.\n\nThe value you ship might come in the form of improved usability, reduced technical debt, or entirely new capabilities. When the product trio is aligned on the roadmap vision, they’re also aligned on the outcomes you’re working to achieve.\n\nTo measure whether you’re on track to deliver those outcomes, you need to closely scope the intended results. Scope creep, like late user story additions, can delay your ability to ship value. Additionally, it’s important to identify work that was delivered but doesn’t align with the roadmap and understand why.\n\n### Sprint planning\n\nRemaining aligned with your product roadmap starts with thoughtful sprint planning. Here are some best practices to keep your team on track and focused on delivering value:\n\n* Clearly define, and narrowly scope, desired outcomes to ensure high confidence in delivery.\n* Identify potential late additions or adjustments that could delay delivery, and build in buffers to maintain focus.\n* Align on the sequence of work with your team to optimize for capacity, skill profiles, and reducing dependencies.\n* To maintain focus and improve confidence of delivering on time, avoid planning to 100% of the team’s capacity. Leave room (10%-20%) for unknowns or new discoveries that may surface during the sprint.\n\n### During the sprint\n\nStaying aligned with your roadmap during the sprint requires focus, communication, and constant evaluation. While delivering value is the goal, it’s equally important to ensure the work in progress aligns with the outcomes you’ve scoped and planned.\n\n* Continuously validate the work in progress against roadmap outcomes to ensure every sprint contributes to the bigger picture.\n* Encourage the team to regularly check if they’re still working toward the intended goals and outcomes.\n* Maintain open communication throughout the sprint. Use daily standups or async updates to surface risks, unplanned work, or dependencies early and adjust where necessary.\n* Be ruthless about protecting the sprint. While the urge to solve emerging problems is natural, unplanned work should be carefully evaluated to avoid derailing agreed-upon priorities.\n* Proactively manage scope creep. If new work surfaces mid-sprint, assess whether it aligns with the current roadmap outcome’s narrowly scoped focus. While additional ideas or features may align conceptually with the broader outcome, they may not fit into the immediate plan to deliver value as soon as possible. Document these suggestions and evaluate if they should be considered as part of future iterations or as a nice-to-have for the future, rather than introducing them into the current sprint and delaying agreed-upon priorities.\n\n### Sprint retros\n\nIn your sprint retrospectives, take time to reflect with your team on how well you are collectively progressing toward your desired outcomes. Questions to ask:\n\n* Did any unplanned work get introduced during the sprint that delayed your ability to deliver value? Identify why it happened and what adjustments can be made.\n* Did you deliver any work that deviated from the roadmap? Discuss what led to this and what you can learn for future planning.\n\nFrom sprint planning through retrospectives, staying focused on delivering tangible outcomes to users and stakeholders is a team responsibility. By aligning every step of the way, you ensure that your roadmap remains a clear guide for delivering value efficiently and consistently.\n\n***GitLab tip:** Use [burndown charts](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/burndown_and_burnup_charts.html) to visualize progress and detect deviations early, helping your team stay focused on delivering outcomes.*\n\n![Burndown chart](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097239/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image2_aHR0cHM6_1750097239120.png)\n\n## Delivering roadmap outcomes with confidence\n\nHarmonizing Agile sprints with strategic roadmaps requires intentionality, team buy-in, and the proper tools. By creating a roadmap single source of truth, fostering collaborative reviews, and measuring progress towards outcomes, you can align execution with vision. With GitLab’s robust planning features, teams can turn challenges into opportunities for innovation and growth.\n\nReady to align your sprints with your strategic roadmap? [Start a free trial of GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/free-trial/) today and explore the tools that can help you deliver outcomes with confidence.\n\n## Learn more\n\n- [Agile planning content hub](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/categories/agile-planning/)\n- [GitLab’s new Planner role for Agile planning teams](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/introducing-gitlabs-new-planner-role-for-agile-planning-teams/)\n- [Get to know the GitLab Wiki for effective knowledge management](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/get-to-know-the-gitlab-wiki-for-effective-knowledge-management/)",[9,928,723,474],{"slug":1709,"featured":90,"template":680},"how-to-harmonize-agile-sprints-with-product-roadmaps","content:en-us:blog:how-to-harmonize-agile-sprints-with-product-roadmaps.yml","How To Harmonize Agile Sprints With Product Roadmaps","en-us/blog/how-to-harmonize-agile-sprints-with-product-roadmaps.yml","en-us/blog/how-to-harmonize-agile-sprints-with-product-roadmaps",{"_path":1715,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1716,"content":1722,"config":1727,"_id":1729,"_type":13,"title":1730,"_source":15,"_file":1731,"_stem":1732,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/how-to-strengthen-agile-teams-with-tuckmans-model",{"title":1717,"description":1718,"ogTitle":1717,"ogDescription":1718,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1719,"ogUrl":1720,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1720,"schema":1721},"Strengthen your Agile teams with Tuckman's stages of group development","Learn how to build up your agile teams  teams after breaking down silos for further group development","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749680924/Blog/Hero%20Images/tuckmansstages.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/how-to-strengthen-agile-teams-with-tuckmans-model","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Strengthen your Agile teams with Tuckman's stages of group development\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Suri Patel\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-12-13\",\n      }",{"title":1717,"description":1718,"authors":1723,"heroImage":1719,"date":1724,"body":1725,"category":298,"tags":1726},[740],"2019-12-13","\n\nThe silos between development and operations teams are a common source of friction and bottlenecks. When teams battle silos, cycle time increases and business value stalls. Recently, software leaders have learned how to break down silos through communication and collaboration, but learning how to rebuild teams is a greater challenge. How can teams come together when their traditional behaviors and relationships have changed?\n\n## The answer: Tuckman's stages of group development\n\nIn 1965, psychologist Bruce Tuckman [published a study on the developmental sequence in   small groups](http://web.mit.edu/curhan/www/docs/Articles/15341_Readings/Group_Dynamics/Tuckman_1965_Developmental_sequence_in_small_groups.pdf). His findings highlighted the importance of four stages of development - forming, storming, norming, and performing - in order for a group to ideate, collaborate, plan, and deliver. \n\n**In the forming stage**, groups identify challenges and goals. Team members orient themselves to acceptable interpersonal behaviors and test boundaries to guide their interactions. **In the storming stage**, team members build trust by sharing their thoughts, which oftentimes leads to conflict, and discover various working styles. **In the norming stage**, the group resolves their differences and begins building a stronger sense of community and closeness. Individuals understand that they have common goals and must work together to achieve them. **In the performing stage**, the team achieves goals, functions independently, and resolves conflicts. Team members support each other and are more flexible in their roles.\n\n## How to strengthen Agile teams\n\nWhen leaders break down silos, team members often feel adrift due to the sudden cultural shift. To prevent a dysfunctional culture in which individuals don’t trust and support each other, leaders must make group development a priority. Applying Tuckman’s four stages to [Agile team development](/solutions/agile-delivery/) can result in a stronger dynamic. \n\n### Forming\n\nWhen management forms an Agile team, considering strengths and skills is a necessary aspect of purposefully curating a team. Team members should complement each other but not mirror each other, since the goal of an Agile team is to have a cross-functional team in which various members bring their strengths to work together. \n\nAfter eliminating silos, leaders must model and identify the behavior they want the team to adopt. Team members will look to a leader, such as a Scrum Master, for guidance. It’s typical for individuals to focus solely on their work rather than view the team as a collective entity working towards a goal. When this happens, it’s up to the Scrum Master to help individuals develop a shared mentality. After each ideation or sprint, the Scrum Master should gather the team to conduct a retrospective to understand what went well, what went wrong, and how to improve during the next ideation. Team members can work together to identify goals, assisting in the development of a sense of community. \n\n### Storming\n\nOnce individuals begin to see each other as teammates, conflict can arise, since people feel more comfortable sharing their opinions. When rebuilding teams after eliminating silos, it’s natural for individuals to shift blame onto others, so the goal in this stage is to cultivate trust, communication, and collaboration. \n\nThe Scrum Master is responsible for helping teammates resolve conflict, manage tension, and coach behaviors. As a calming influence on the team, the Scrum Master can quickly resolve conflicts and help the team remain productive. By documenting decisions, committing to transparency and visibility, and collaborating to determine solutions, teams can create an open culture in which experimentation is embraced and shortcomings are viewed as learning opportunities. Team members should continue to feel safe dissenting and sharing thoughts, but the focus should be on continuous improvement and identifying solutions rather than placing blame. \n\n### Norming \n\nTransitioning from Storming to Norming can be a difficult endeavor for many Agile teams, but once the shift is made, the focus becomes empowerment and implementation. After learning how to resolve conflict in the previous stage, the team is now able to embrace differences and view challenges from multiple perspectives. \n\nRetrospectives should become a ritual that occurs after each sprint. When the team moves to Norming, the next retro should set aside time to plan for sustainable delivery. The Scrum Master and other leaders should provide feedback to team members, while teammates provide feedback on processes and workflows. At this point in the group’s development, the individuals see themselves as part of a team working towards shared goals. There is mutual trust and open communication, and the team works together as a cohesive unit.\n\n### Performing\n\nAt this stage, the team is highly motivated and interested in expanding their efforts. Leadership should assume a supporting role, since the team now functions autonomously with an emphasis on continuous learning. Because teams seek to improve, they’re able to identify bottlenecks, the potential for silos, and impediments to innovation. \n\nThe team is now fully formed and productive. Individuals collaborate and communicate well, and they have a strong sense of identity and vision. The Agile team consistently delivers and embraces change. \n\nAny time groups evolve or new leadership walks through the door, teams can feel insecure and relive one or more of these stages. By implementing these techniques with your team, you can support your team’s growth and development, helping them maintain a strong Agile methodology and culture.\n\nCover image by [Markus Spiske](https://unsplash.com/@markusspiske?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/vrbZVyX2k4I)\n{: .note}\n",[9,700,723],{"slug":1728,"featured":6,"template":680},"how-to-strengthen-agile-teams-with-tuckmans-model","content:en-us:blog:how-to-strengthen-agile-teams-with-tuckmans-model.yml","How To Strengthen Agile Teams With Tuckmans Model","en-us/blog/how-to-strengthen-agile-teams-with-tuckmans-model.yml","en-us/blog/how-to-strengthen-agile-teams-with-tuckmans-model",{"_path":1734,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1735,"content":1740,"config":1746,"_id":1748,"_type":13,"title":1749,"_source":15,"_file":1750,"_stem":1751,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/how-we-are-closing-the-gap-on-replicating-everything-in-gitlab-geo",{"title":1736,"description":1737,"ogTitle":1736,"ogDescription":1737,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1225,"ogUrl":1738,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1738,"schema":1739},"How we are closing the gap on replicating *everything* in GitLab Geo","Developing an internal framework to enable other teams to add Geo support for their features","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/how-we-are-closing-the-gap-on-replicating-everything-in-gitlab-geo","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How we are closing the gap on replicating *everything* in GitLab Geo\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Michael Kozono\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2021-04-29\",\n      }",{"title":1736,"description":1737,"authors":1741,"heroImage":1225,"date":1743,"body":1744,"category":971,"tags":1745},[1742],"Michael Kozono","2021-04-29","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\n\nIn early 2020, it took 3.5 months of solid work to implement replication of a new data type in Geo. One year later, support can be added within a month -- including development and all required reviews. How did we do it? First, let me introduce you to Geo.\n\n## What is Geo?\n\n[GitLab Geo](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/geo/) is the solution for widely distributed development teams and for providing a warm-standby as part of a disaster recovery strategy. Geo replicates your GitLab instance to one or more local, read-only instances.\n\n## What are data types?\n\n[GitLab Geo was released in June 2016 with GitLab 8.9](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2016/06/22/gitlab-8-9-released/#gitlab-geo-new-product) with the ability to replicate project repositories to a read-only secondary GitLab site. Developers located near secondary sites could fetch project repositories as quickly as if they were near the primary.\n\nBut what about wiki repositories? What about LFS objects or CI job artifacts? In GitLab, each of these things is represented by different Ruby classes, database tables, and storage configurations. In Geo, we call these data types.\n\n## Is it really that hard to copy data?\n\nWhen we say a new data type is supported by Geo, this is what we mean:\n\n* Backfill existing data to Geo secondary sites\n* As fast as possible, replicate new or updated data to Geo secondary sites\n* As fast as possible, replicate deletions to Geo secondary sites\n* Retry replication if it fails, for example due to a transient network failure\n* Eventually recover missing or inconsistent data, for example if Sidekiq jobs are lost, or if infrastructure fails\n* Exclude data according to [selective sync settings](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/geo/replication/configuration.html#selective-synchronization) on each Geo secondary site\n* Exclude remote stored data unless [Allow this secondary node to replicate content on Object Storage](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/geo/replication/object_storage.html#enabling-gitlab-managed-object-storage-replication) is enabled on a Geo secondary site\n* Verify data integrity against the primary data, after replication\n* Re-verify data integrity at regular intervals\n* Report metrics to Prometheus\n* Report metrics in the Admin UI\n* View replication and verification status of any individual record in the Admin UI\n* Replication and verification job concurrency is configurable in Admin UI\n* Retry replication if data mismatch is detected ([coming soon to all data types using the framework](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/301244))\n* Allow manual re-replication and re-verification in the Admin UI ([coming soon to all data types using the framework](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/216100))\n* And more\n\n## How to iterate yourself into a problem\n\n[Iteration is a core value](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#iteration) at GitLab. In the case of Geo, by [GitLab 12.3](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2019/09/22/gitlab-12-3-released/#geo-natively-supports-docker-registry-replication) we had added replication support for the most important data types, for example:\n\n* Project Git repositories\n* Project wiki Git repositories\n* Issue/MR/Epic attachments\n* LFS objects\n* CI job artifacts\n* Container/Docker registry\n\nAnd we had added a slew of features around these data types. But suddenly it was clear we had a problem. **We were falling behind in the race to replicate and verify all of GitLab's data.**\n\n* A new data type was being added by other teams, every few months. It was painful to prioritize 3 months of development time only to add replication to one data type. And even if we caught up, the latest features would always be unsupported by Geo for 3 months.\n* Automatic verification of Project and Wiki repositories was implemented, but adding it to a single data type was going to take 3 months.\n* Maintenance and other new features were increasing in effort due to the amount of code duplication.\n* Our event architecture needed too much boilerplate and overhead to add new events\n\n## How to iterate yourself out of a problem\n\nJust because it's possible to iterate yourself into a problem doesn't mean iteration failed you. Yes, ideally we would have seen this coming earlier. But consider that fast and small iteration has likely saved many hours of upfront work on features that have been quickly validated, and have since been changed or removed. It's also possible to [DRY up](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself) code too soon into bad abstractions, which can be painful to tear apart.\n\nBut we reached a point where everyone agreed that the most efficient way forward required consolidating existing code.\n\n### Do the design work\n\n[Fabian](https://gitlab.com/fzimmer), our esteemed product manager, [proposed an epic](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/2161):\n\n> to build a new geo replication and verification framework with the explicit goal of enabling teams across GitLab to add new data types in a way that supports geo replication out of the box\n\nMost of the logic listed above in [Is it really that hard to copy data?](#is-it-really-that-hard-to-copy-data) is exactly the same for all data types. An internal framework could be used to significantly reduce duplication, which could deliver huge benefits:\n\n* Bugs in the framework only have to be fixed once, increasing reliability and maintainability.\n* New features could be added to the framework for all data types at once, increasing velocity and consistency.\n* Implementation details would be better hidden. Changes outside the framework become safer and easier.\n\nThe proposal went further than making it easy for *ourselves* to add Geo support to new data types. The goal was to make it easy for *non-Geo engineers* to do so. To achieve this goal, the framework must be easy to use, easy to understand, and well-documented. Besides the usual benefits of reducing duplication, this higher standard would help:\n\n* Minimize the effort to implement Geo support of new features, whether it's done by a Geo engineer or not.\n* Minimize lag time to add Geo support. If it's easy to do, and anyone can do it, then it's easy to prioritize.\n* Increase awareness in other teams that new features may require Geo support.\n* Influence the planning of new features. There are ways to make it more difficult to add Geo support. This is much easier to avoid during initial planning.\n\nAs a first step, Fabian [proposed creating a proof of concept of a framework](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/35540) leveraging lessons learned and incorporating improvements we already wanted to make to the existing architecture. The issue stimulated lots of design discussion in the team, as well as multiple POCs riffing off one another.\n\nThe biggest change was the introduction of a `Replicator` class which could be subclassed for every data type. The subclasses would contain the vast majority of the specifics to each data type.\n\nIn order to further reduce duplication, we also introduced the concept of a `Replicator strategy`. Most data types in GitLab could be categorized as blobs (simple files) or Git repositories. Within these categories, there was relatively little logic that needed to be specific to each data type. So we could encapsulate the logic specific to these categories in strategies.\n\nAnother significant decision was to make the event system more flexible and lightweight. We wanted to be able to quickly implement new kinds of events for a `Replicator`. We decided to do this without rewriting the entire event processing layer, by packaging and transmitting `Replicator` events within a single, generic event leveraging the existing heavyweight event system. We could then leave the old system behind, and after migrating all data types to the framework, we could easily replace it.\n\nOnce a vision is chosen, it can be difficult to see how to get there with small iterations. But there are often many ways to go about it.\n\n### Code\n\n#### High-level approach\n\nAt a high-level, we could have achieved our goal by taking two data types that were already supported, DRYing up their code, and refactoring toward the desired architecture. This is a proven, safe, and effective method.\n\nBut to me it felt more palatable overall to deliver customer value along the way, by adding support for a brand-new data type while developing the reusable framework. We already had practice implementing many data types, so there was little risk that we would, for example, take too long or use suboptimal abstractions. So we decided to do this with [Package registry](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/packages/).\n\n#### Lay the foundation\n\nOur POCs already answered the biggest open questions about the shape of the architecture. The next step was to get enough of a skeleton merged, as quickly as possible, so that we could unlock further parallel work. To ensure correctness, we aimed to get something working end-to-end. We decided to implement \"replication of newly created Package files\". Much was left out, for example:\n\n* Replication of changes. (Most Blob types, including Package files, are immutable anyway)\n* Replication of deletes\n* Backfill of existing files\n* Verification was left out entirely from the scope of the first epic, since we already knew replication alone provides most of the value to users.\n\nSince the work still required many specific design decisions, we decided to [pair program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_programming). [Gabriel Mazetto](https://gitlab.com/brodock) and I used [Zoom](https://zoom.us/) and [Visual Studio Live Share](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/services/live-share/), which worked well for us, though there are many options available. [See a recording of our first call](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XedCiU634s).\n\n[The spike](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/23447) was merged and we thought ourselves safe under the feature flag. Looking back on this particular merge request, we did make a couple mistakes:\n\n1. An [autoloading bug was discovered](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/202044). The merge request was reverted, fixed, and remerged. Thanks to [CI](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/) and end-to-end QA tests using actual builds, the impact was limited.\n1. The size of the spike was unnecessarily large and difficult to review for a single merge request. As it grew, we should have used it as a \"reference\" merge request from which we could break out smaller merge requests. Since then, GitLab policies have further emphasized [smaller iterations](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/product-principles/#iteration).\n\n#### Build on the foundation\n\nWith the skeleton of the framework in the main branch, we could implement multiple features without excessive conflicts or coordination. The feature flag was enabled on [GitLab's staging environment](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/development/enablement/systems/geo/staging.html), and each additional slice of functionality was tested as it was merged. And new issues for bugs and missing features were opened.\n\nWe built up the [developer documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/geo/framework.html) as we went along. In particular, we documented specific instructions to implement a new data type, aimed at developers with no prior knowledge of Geo. These instructions have since been moved to issue templates. For example, [this is the template for adding support to a new Git repository type](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/.gitlab/issue_templates/Geo%20Replicate%20a%20new%20Git%20repository%20type.md). This caught a lot of would-be pain points for users of the framework.\n\nFinally, we released [Geo supports replicating GitLab Package Registries in GitLab 13.2](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2020/07/22/gitlab-13-2-released/#geo-supports-replicating-gitlab-package-registries)!\n\n## Reaping the benefits\n\nFollowing the release of Geo support for Package Registries, we added support for many new data types in quick succession. Automatic verification was added to the framework. This recently culminated in a non-Geo engineer implementing replication *and verification* for a new data type, within one month!\n\n* In GitLab 13.5, [Geo replicates external merge request diffs and Terraform state files](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2020/10/22/gitlab-13-5-released/#geo-replicates-external-merge-request-diffs-and-terraform-state-files). These were added by Geo engineers who had been less involved in building the framework. Many refinements to the framework, and especially to the documentation, came out of this.\n* In GitLab 13.7, [Geo supports replicating Versioned Snippets](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2020/12/22/gitlab-13-7-released/#geo-supports-replicating-versioned-snippets). This was also added by a Geo engineer, and it was the first Git repository type in the framework, so it required more work than adding new Blob types.\n* In GitLab 13.10:\n  * [Geo supports replicating Group wikis](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2021/03/22/gitlab-13-10-released/#geo-supports-replicating-group-wikis) was implemented by a non-Geo engineer.\n  * [Geo verifies replicated package files](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2021/03/22/gitlab-13-10-released/#geo-verifies-replicated-package-files). This was a big new feature in the framework, adding automatic verification to any data type that can be checksummed.\n* GitLab 13.11:\n  * [Geo supports Pipeline Artifacts](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2021/04/22/gitlab-13-11-released/#geo-supports-pipeline-artifacts) was implemented by a non-Geo engineer.\n  * [Geo verifies replicated Versioned Snippets](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2021/04/22/gitlab-13-11-released/#geo-verifies-replicated-versioned-snippets).\n* GitLab 13.12:\n  * [An already supported data type, LFS objects, is migrated to the framework under feature flag](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/276696). Following this will be the migration of \"Uploads\" and \"CI Job artifacts\", and then **deleting thousands of lines of code**. This should improve both reliability and velocity, for example, verification will be added to these data types.\n\nIn aggregate:\n\n* In GitLab 12.9, we replicated ~56% of all data types (13 out of 23 in total) and verified ~22%.\n* In GitLab 13.11, we replicate ~86% of all data types (25 out of 29 in total) and verify ~45%.\n* **In the last year, GitLab released six new features that needed Geo support. We replicate 100% of those new features and verify ~57%.**\n\n## What did it cost?\n\nFor comparison, it took around 3.5 months to [implement replication of Design repositories](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/1633). It took around 6 months to [implement the framework for replication of Package files](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/2346). So the cost to produce the framework for replication was roughly 2.5 months of work.\n\nWe don't really have a comparable for [implementation of verification](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/1817), but it looked like it would take about 3 months to implement for a single data type, while it took about 4 months total to implement for Package files and simultaneously add to the framework, for a cost of about 1 month.\n\nGiven that new data types now take about 1 month to implement replication *and verification*, the work to produce the framework **paid for itself with the implementation of a single data type**. All the rest of the benefits and time saved are more icing on the cake.\n\nMy only regret is that we should have done it sooner. I intend to be more cognizant of this kind of opportunity in the future.\n\n## What to expect in the future\n\n* [Already supported data types will be migrated into the framework](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/3588)\n* New features will be added more quickly, for example, verification will be rolled out for all [Blob](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5285) and [Git repository](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5286) data types\n* Duplication will be further reduced, for example, by [leveraging Rails generators](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/326842)\n\nHuge thanks to everyone who contributed to closing the gap on replicating *everything* in Geo!\n",[9,700,973,950,784,783,723],{"slug":1747,"featured":6,"template":680},"how-we-are-closing-the-gap-on-replicating-everything-in-gitlab-geo","content:en-us:blog:how-we-are-closing-the-gap-on-replicating-everything-in-gitlab-geo.yml","How We Are Closing The Gap On Replicating Everything In Gitlab Geo","en-us/blog/how-we-are-closing-the-gap-on-replicating-everything-in-gitlab-geo.yml","en-us/blog/how-we-are-closing-the-gap-on-replicating-everything-in-gitlab-geo",{"_path":1753,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1754,"content":1760,"config":1765,"_id":1767,"_type":13,"title":1768,"_source":15,"_file":1769,"_stem":1770,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/integrating-azure-devops-scm-and-gitlab",{"title":1755,"description":1756,"ogTitle":1755,"ogDescription":1756,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1757,"ogUrl":1758,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1758,"schema":1759},"How to integrate Azure DevOps repositories with GitLab","How to keep your code in an Azure DevOps repository and run CI/CD with GitLab pipelines.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749664363/Blog/Hero%20Images/aleksey-kuprikov.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/integrating-azure-devops-scm-and-gitlab","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How to integrate Azure DevOps repositories with GitLab\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Itzik Gan Baruch\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-07-09\",\n      }",{"title":1755,"description":1756,"authors":1761,"heroImage":1757,"date":1762,"body":1763,"category":948,"tags":1764},[1092],"2020-07-09","\n\nRecently we’ve been asked by several people if it is possible to integrate between Azure DevOps/VSTS (Visual Studio Team Services) source code management and GitLab. They are looking for a modern [CI/CD solution](/topics/ci-cd/) like GitLab, but as part of a gradual transition they still need to keep managing their code in Azure DevOps/VSTS. \n\n## Does Azure DevOps integrate with GitLab?\n\nYes, Azure DevOps Services does integrate with GitLab.\n\nAlthough we of course recommend using GitLab CI/CD together with our built-in GitLab SCM, this integration of Azure DevOps source code management and GitLab makes it possible to migrate slowly from Azure DevOps by leaving your code in the Azure [DevOps](/topics/devops/) repository while you adopt GitLab CI/CD. This integration is possible with both the self-managed and SaaS versions of GitLab. The integration works only with Azure DevOps/VSTS git version control. TFVC (Team Foundation Version Control) isn’t supported. \n\n### In GitLab, there are two features that enable this integration:  \n\n[GitLab CI/CD for external repositories](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/ci_cd_for_external_repos/) \n\n[Remote repository mirroring](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/repository/repository_mirroring.html)\n\nWhat is a repository in DevOps?\n\nCode repositories in tools like GitLab and Azure exist to house all source code. Sometimes these repositories are referenced as a DevOps “repo” or a source repository. Whatever the title, code repositories provide a place where developers can work to ensure high code quality. \nGitLab uses a [git-based repository](/solutions/source-code-management/) for source code management with version control. It lets GitLab users perform code reviews and easily solve developer issues.\n\n## What is the difference between GitLab and Azure DevOps?\n\nAzure DevOps has a range of services for managing the development lifecycle. Some of its main features include agile planning boards, private git repos for source code management, and Azure pipelines.\n\nGitLab is a single platform for the entire DevSecOps lifecycle and includes the following:\n\n- Planning and collaboration\n- Source code management\n- Code reviews\n- CI/CD pipelines\n- Constant security scanning and monitoring\n- Advanced deployments\n- Vulnerability management\n\nGitLab can help manage the entire DevSecOps lifecycle to deliver software quickly and efficiently while bolstering security and compliance.\n\n## How do I connect to Azure from GitLab?\n\nIt may take some time to fully move over from Azure to GitLab for source code management. To smooth the transition, there are simple steps to connect to the Azure integration from GitLab.\n\n1. Create a new project in GitLab by clicking the New Project button  ![Create new project ](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado1.png){: .large.center}\n\n2. Choose the ‘CI/CD for external repo’ tab, and click on Repo by URL.  ![CI/CD for external repo](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado2.png){: .large.center}\n\n3. Open your repository in Azure DevOps and click Clone  ![Getting clone url ](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado3.png){: .large.center}\n\n4. Copy the URL. If your repository is private, you will need to generate Git credentials – just click this button and copy the username and password.  ![Credentials](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado4.png){: .large.center}\n\n5. Paste the URL in GitLab under the Git repository URL, give it a name, set the visibility level, and click create project. Add the username and password in case your Azure DevOps repository is private. Note: The repository must be accessible over http://, https:// or git://. When using the http:// or https:// protocols, please provide the exact URL to the repository. HTTP redirects will not be followed.  ![Create project form](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado5.png){: .large.center}\n\n6. Your project is now successfully Mirrored to GitLab. Now branches, tags, and commits will be synced automatically to GitLab. \n\n7. To configure a CI/CD pipeline there are two options:\n\nBefore pushing your first commit, open the CI/CD settings in GitLab and enable Auto DevOps.  It will set the CI/CD configuration, so each commit in Azure Repos will trigger a CI/CD  pipeline in GitLab which will build, test, and deploy your app.  ![Auto DevOps settings](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado6.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n \nAlternatively, in case you want to define the pipeline configuration yourself instead of using the Auto DevOps, add [.gitlab-ci.yml](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/) file to  your repository root directory. The Yaml code should include your [CI/CD definitions](/blog/guide-to-ci-cd-pipelines/). Once this file is included in the root directory a CI/CD pipeline will be triggered for each commit. If you are not familiar with .gitlab-ci.yml, start by creating a file with the name .gitlab-ci.yml and paste the below code to it. This code includes build and test stages, and a job that displays text to the console in each stage. Later on you can add additional scripts to each job, and also add additional jobs and stages. To create more complex pipelines, you can [use the pipeline templates](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/#includetemplate) that are [shipped with GitLab](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/tree/master/lib/gitlab/ci/templates) instead of starting it from scracth.\n\n```\nstages:\n  - build\n  - test \n  \nbuild:\n  stage: build\n  script:\n    - echo \"Build job\"\n\ntest:\n  stage: test\n  script:\n    - echo \"Test job\"\n```\n\nThat’s it, you are all set! \n\n## Suggested development flow \n\n![Development flow diagram](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado_7_2.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\n1. CODE (Developer IDE of choice) Developer uses the favorite IDE to develop code, clones the repo to the workstation and creates a branch.  ![Visual Studio Code](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado8.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\n2. COMMIT (GIT) After the feature is developed/the bug is fixed, the developer pushes the work to the Azure Repository server.  ![Azure DevOps Repos](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado9.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\n3. BUILD (GitLab) The branch with the commit history will be mirrored to GitLab. The CI/CD pipeline will be triggered. The pipeline will build the code.  ![GitLab pipeline graph](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado10.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\n    Artifacts will be created, and be available for download.  ![Artifacts](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado11.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\n    If Auto DevOps is enabled, a container image will be created and be pushed to the built-in Container Registry.  ![GitLab Container Registry](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado12.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\n    In case a package registry is enabled in the project, packages will be published to the designated package manager.  ![GitLab Package Registry](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado13.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\n4. TEST (GitLab) Security scans, license scans, and other tests are executed as part of the CI pipeline.  ![GitLab scans](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado14.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\n5. REVIEW & PULL REQUEST (GitLab & Azure DevOps repos) Review pipeline results in GitLab and if the pipeline passed without errors, and the new change hasn’t introduced new vulnerabilities, the developer creates a pull request in Azure DevOps. A code review is started and the developer might need to make a few changes before merging to master. Each commit will trigger a CI/CD pipeline in GitLab.  ![Azure DevOps pull request](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado15.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\n6. MERGE (Azure DevOps Repos and GitLab) The Azure DevOps pull request is approved and the branch will be merged to the master branch in the Azure DevOps Repository.\n\nDepending on your pipeline configuration, this merge to the master branch will trigger the CI/CD pipeline in GitLab to validate the merge results, build new packages and container images, and then deploy them.  ![GitLab CI/CD pipeline graph](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/ado_and_gitlab/ado16.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\n## Development workflow demonstration \n\n\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/HfpP2pEmkoM\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen>\u003C/iframe>\n\n## A solution worth trying \n\nGitLab offers a leading source code management and CI/CD solution in one application which many [GitLab customers](/customers/) use together because of the power of this combination. However, we know that sometimes there are constraints that do not allow teams to migrate their repository to GitLab SCM, at least not right away. For these situations, even if it is only temporary, we offer the capability of GitLab CI/CD for external repositories illustrated here. \n\n\n**Read more about GitLab CI/CD:**\n\n[Forrester report compares between leading CI/CD tools](https://about.gitlab.com/analysts/forrester-cloudci19/)\n\n[Autoscale GitLab CI with AWS Fargate](/blog/introducing-autoscaling-gitlab-runners-on-aws-fargate/)\n\n[Case Study - how Goldman Sachs improved from 1 build every two weeks to over a thousand per day](https://about.gitlab.com/customers/goldman-sachs/)\n\nCover image by [Aleksey Kuprikov](https://unsplash.com/@alekskuprfilmz) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/)\n{: .note}\n\n\n",[108,9,928],{"slug":1766,"featured":6,"template":680},"integrating-azure-devops-scm-and-gitlab","content:en-us:blog:integrating-azure-devops-scm-and-gitlab.yml","Integrating Azure Devops Scm And Gitlab","en-us/blog/integrating-azure-devops-scm-and-gitlab.yml","en-us/blog/integrating-azure-devops-scm-and-gitlab",{"_path":1772,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1773,"content":1779,"config":1784,"_id":1786,"_type":13,"title":1787,"_source":15,"_file":1788,"_stem":1789,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/introducing-gitlabs-new-planner-role-for-agile-planning-teams",{"title":1774,"description":1775,"ogTitle":1774,"ogDescription":1775,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1776,"ogUrl":1777,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1777,"schema":1778},"Introducing GitLab’s new Planner role for Agile planning teams","Learn how GitLab’s new Planner role helps Agile teams manage planning workflows, with tailored access across SaaS, Dedicated, and Self-managed solutions.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749662488/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945__3_.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/introducing-gitlabs-new-planner-role-for-agile-planning-teams","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Introducing GitLab’s new Planner role for Agile planning teams\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Amanda Rueda\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-11-25\",\n      }",{"title":1774,"description":1775,"authors":1780,"heroImage":1776,"date":1781,"body":1782,"category":842,"tags":1783},[990],"2024-11-25","GitLab launched a new role within the DevSecOps platform – the Planner. Built to align with GitLab’s strategy of providing flexible, role-based access controls, as demonstrated by the release of [custom roles](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/custom_roles.html), the Planner role gives software development teams and planning-focused users access to the tools they need to manage Agile workflows without over-provisioning permissions that could introduce unnecessary risks. By tailoring access to meet specific user needs, the Planner role ensures teams can stay productive while maintaining security and compliance, adhering to the [principle of least privilege](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-least-privilege-access-with-gitlab/).\n\n## Why we created the Planner role\n\nOur journey to this new role started with feedback from our customers and internal teams. We consistently heard that while GitLab offers comprehensive tools for planning and managing Agile development cycles, there was a need for more specific role-based access controls. Product managers, project leads, and other planning roles often required access to planning features but didn’t need full development permissions. In fact, giving them broader access is undesirable, as it increases security risks and potential for errors, such as making unintended changes to code or sensitive configurations. We listened.\n\nThrough user interviews, competitive analysis, and extensive research, we validated the need for a role that grants full access to planning tools while maintaining security by restricting access to developer-centric features.\n\n## What does the Planner role offer?\n\nThe Planner role is a hybrid of the existing [Guest and Reporter roles](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/permissions.html#roles) but designed specifically for those who need access to planning workflows. \n\nHere’s what you can expect:\n\n* Access to key planning tools like epics, roadmaps, issue boards, and [OKRs](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/okrs.html) (*some features may require a GitLab Premium or Ultimate license*)  \n* Enhanced security by limiting unnecessary access to sensitive development features  \n* The Planner role can be used in conjunction with the Enterprise Agile Planning add-on, providing teams with tailored access to planning tools while maintaining security and control.  (*however, the Planner role itself is available on all license tiers*).\n\nThe Planner role is available across all GitLab solutions, including SaaS, GitLab Dedicated, and Self-managed, ensuring that all customers can benefit from this tailored access.\n\nThis role gives teams the flexibility to align permissions with job functions, creating a balance between accessibility and security.\n\n## How the Planner role supports Agile practices\n\nIn [Agile software development](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/categories/agile-planning/), ensuring that each team member has the right tools and permissions to perform their role is crucial for workflow efficiency. The Planner role supports this by allowing planning team members to fully participate in the planning stages of the software development lifecycle without the risk of overstepping into areas like development or deployment.\n\nFrom creating and managing epics to defining roadmaps, the Planner role gives Agile teams the tools they need to stay aligned and productive.\n\n## Customer-centric design\n\nWe didn’t create this role in isolation. We involved our community in the process every step of the way. Through surveys, interviews, and testing, we fine-tuned the permissions to make sure they fit the real-world needs of product and project managers.\n\nThe role also aligns with GitLab’s long-standing mission to be a platform for enterprise Agile teams, giving businesses the flexibility and control to implement Agile methodologies at scale.\n\n## Community feedback and engagement \n\nWe value your input and encourage you to share your experiences with the new Planner role. Your feedback is essential to help refine and improve your GitLab experience. Please visit our [feedback issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/503817) to provide your thoughts and suggestions.\n\n## Start planning with GitLab today!\n\nThe Planner role is just one of the many ways GitLab empowers software development teams to plan, collaborate, and deliver efficiently. Whether you’re looking to streamline your product management workflows, improve team collaboration, or align your Agile practices, GitLab has the tools to help you succeed.\n\n> Ready to experience the full power of GitLab? [Sign up for a free 60-day GitLab Ultimate trial](https://about.gitlab.com/free-trial/) and start planning your next project with the Planner role, tailored to fit your team's unique needs.\n\n## Read more\n- [Beyond Devs: GitLab Enterprise Agile Planning add-on for all roles](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-enterprise-agile-planning-add-on-for-all-roles/)\n- [How to use GitLab for Agile software development](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-for-agile-software-development/)\n- [First look: The new Agile planning experience in GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/first-look-the-new-agile-planning-experience-in-gitlab/)",[9,474,950,926],{"slug":1785,"featured":90,"template":680},"introducing-gitlabs-new-planner-role-for-agile-planning-teams","content:en-us:blog:introducing-gitlabs-new-planner-role-for-agile-planning-teams.yml","Introducing Gitlabs New Planner Role For Agile Planning Teams","en-us/blog/introducing-gitlabs-new-planner-role-for-agile-planning-teams.yml","en-us/blog/introducing-gitlabs-new-planner-role-for-agile-planning-teams",{"_path":1791,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1792,"content":1798,"config":1803,"_id":1805,"_type":13,"title":1806,"_source":15,"_file":1807,"_stem":1808,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/issue-labels-can-now-be-scoped",{"title":1793,"description":1794,"ogTitle":1793,"ogDescription":1794,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1795,"ogUrl":1796,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1796,"schema":1797},"Issue labels can now be scoped!","A small change with a huge impact: Scoped Labels can help teams customize their workflow and speed up delivery.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749679729/Blog/Hero%20Images/scopedlabels.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/issue-labels-can-now-be-scoped","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Issue labels can now be scoped!\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Suri Patel\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-06-20\",\n      }",{"title":1793,"description":1794,"authors":1799,"heroImage":1795,"date":1800,"body":1801,"category":698,"tags":1802},[740],"2019-06-20","\n\nGreat news, everyone!\n[Hailed as one of the best inventions since sliced bread](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/corporate-marketing/issues/682),\n[Scoped Labels](/releases/2019/04/22/gitlab-11-10-released/#scoped-labels) can make your\ncustom workflows even cooler. We’re excited to share how using this small feature can\naccelerate delivery.\n\nPlease note that this is a paid feature available to Premium and Ultimate for [self-managed](/pricing/#self-managed) GitLab\nor Silver and Gold tiers for [GitLab.com](/pricing/).\n{: .alert .alert-info.text-center}\n\n## What are GitLab Scoped Labels?\n\nIt all started with\n[an issue detailing a feature with a simple idea](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/9175):\nHelp teams that use issue boards for workflow. With Scoped Labels, teams can apply\nmutually exclusive labels (that share the same scope) to an issue, merge request,\nor epic, solving custom fields and custom workflow states use cases. Scoped Labels\nmake it possible for teams to define a basic custom field that avoids confusion and\ncleans up issue lists (i.e. fewer duplicate labels).\n\n![Scoped labels](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/scoped-labels.png){: .shadow.center.medium}\n\nBy using Scoped Labels, teams can create custom labels and apply them to a\ngiven issue, automatically removing any other existing, related labels. For example,\nif you have the labels `workflow::development`, `workflow::review`, and `workflow::deployed`,\nrepresenting the workflow states of your team, you can advance the issue\n(e.g., `workflow::development` to `workflow::review`) by applying the next label\nwithout having to remove the original one.\n\nYou may already be familiar with this behavior, since it’s similar to moving\nissues across label lists in an issue board. Now, team members who don’t directly work\nin an issue board or who want to advance workflow states consistently in\nissues themselves can do so using Scoped Labels.\n\n## How Scoped Labels accelerate delivery\n\nYou might be thinking that Scoped Labels is too small of a feature to make a splash,\nbut hear me out, it can help reduce cycle time. Here's how:\n\n1. If you want a custom field on your issues, like a drop-down with a few items\nyou can select (e.g., colors or stages), Scoped Labels prevent conflicts where\nnormally only one color or one stage is possible. By removing conflicts, multiple\nteams can scope an issue, merge request, or epic.\n1. You can define the workflow steps for an issue (e.g., proposal, design,\ndevelopment, QA, acceptance, deploy), creating the basis for how you can eventually\nmeasure the flow of work though the system (based on how long issues have specific labels).\n\nThese two use cases illustrate how Scoped Labels can help teams work concurrently\non features and measure their efforts.\n\n## Scoped Labels: A feature film\n\nWant to see Scoped Labels in action? Get your popcorn ready and enjoy the show! 🍿\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/4BCBby6du3c\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\nCheck out the [documentation on Scoped Labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/labels.html#scoped-labels) for more.\n\nCover image by [ Jo Szczepanska](https://unsplash.com/@joszczepanska?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/9OKGEVJiTKk)\n{: .note}\n",[950,723,9],{"slug":1804,"featured":6,"template":680},"issue-labels-can-now-be-scoped","content:en-us:blog:issue-labels-can-now-be-scoped.yml","Issue Labels Can Now Be Scoped","en-us/blog/issue-labels-can-now-be-scoped.yml","en-us/blog/issue-labels-can-now-be-scoped",{"_path":1810,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1811,"content":1817,"config":1823,"_id":1825,"_type":13,"title":1826,"_source":15,"_file":1827,"_stem":1828,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/it-automation-developer-productivity",{"title":1812,"description":1813,"ogTitle":1812,"ogDescription":1813,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1814,"ogUrl":1815,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1815,"schema":1816},"How IT automation impacts developer productivity","See how IT automation promotes a healthier IT culture and unlocks next-level DevOps.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749670529/Blog/Hero%20Images/automate-retrospectives.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/it-automation-developer-productivity","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How IT automation impacts developer productivity\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Chrissie Buchanan\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-05-30\",\n      }",{"title":1812,"description":1813,"authors":1818,"heroImage":1814,"date":1820,"body":1821,"category":948,"tags":1822},[1819],"Chrissie Buchanan","2019-05-30","\n\nQuestion: If developers spend the bulk of their days on painful, manual tasks, would you say that’s the best use of their time? In a development environment that is always [trying to do more with less](/topics/devops/reduce-devops-costs/), manual processes are productivity killers.\n\nAutomation makes it possible for engineering talent to use their skills on projects that add real business value and contribute to long-term growth. In the world of QA, test automation is creating a modern strategy [focused on excellent user experiences](/blog/trends-in-test-automation/). IT automation makes it possible to deploy applications faster and increase developer productivity, making the DevOps lifecycle more seamless.\n\n\n## The right people doing the right tasks\n\nIT automation ensures businesses have the right people performing the right tasks, and that has some unexpected benefits. Directing developer talent toward strategic initiatives actually creates a healthier DevOps culture. When developers can work on challenges that are more aligned with their role, they’re likely to be happier and more motivated, and that in turn helps with retention. One of the top reasons developers leave is because [they feel unchallenged in their work](https://differential.com/insights/why-software-developers-leave-and-best-ways-to-retain-them/). IT automation lets developers use their skills for projects where they’re most suited.\n\nThere’s a cost benefit to IT automation, as well. If you have senior engineers working on basic maintenance, [you’re spending too much on maintenance](https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/12/5-factors-fueling-automation-it-now), period. Even if you limit these tasks to junior levels, you’re probably still spending too much. While there's a lot more to automation than reducing costs, it's an undeniable benefit.\n\nIf it can be automated, it probably should be.\n\n\n## Automating for growth\n\nAs organizations innovate and increase their deployments, they’ll need IT architecture that supports that growth. Could engineers manually develop and configure 50, 100, or even 200 servers? Sure. But what about 1,000 or 2,000? That’s where IT automation becomes a necessity for scalable workloads. Putting special focus on the handoffs between processes (where waste most often occurs) is how leaders can identify the best automation opportunities. [Value stream mapping](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/automate-question-ricardo-coelho-de-sousa/) is a method used to uncover what should be fully automated, and what may only need partial automation in the interim.\n\nWithout the right IT automation, growth will undoubtedly suffer as teams need more and more staff to keep up with demand. Automation and collaboration are an essential part of operational efficiency, accelerating delivery, and innovating products. CI/CD is the link that connects developers and operations, and that automation helps developers teams build better software and vastly improves the handoff process.\n\n\n## Minimizing risk\n\nReducing manual work [minimizes the risk of human error](https://techbeacon.com/devops/how-take-architectural-approach-it-automation), which gives IT the ability to focus on mission-critical tasks rather than cleaning up mistakes. IT automation also adds a system of checks and balances, so if a mistake happens, errors can be rolled back painlessly.\n\nAutomation tools and containers can make security more efficient. [Kubernetes](/solutions/kubernetes/) not only manages container deployments, it can also orchestrate security tasks. “You really want automation, orchestration to help manage which containers should be deployed to which hosts … knowing which containers need to access each other; managing shared resources, and monitoring container health,” says Red Hat security strategist Kirsten Newcomer. “[As you scale up your use of containers and microservices, automation soon becomes a core need](https://enterprisersproject.com/it-automation).”\n\nRemoving the human error component gives developers the peace of mind to work at the pace they want.\n\n\n## Keeping up with innovation\n\nSpeaking of speed – in the (not so distant) past, developers had to write docs and notify teammates about changes in the cloud environment, share content about provisioning and de-provisioning, synchronize problems, and exchange emails. All of that took time. The fewer barriers developers have between code and deployment, the better.\n\n[DevOps tools have created a buffer that allows developers and operations teams to work independently](https://www.infoworld.com/article/3230285/how-devops-changes-dev-and-ops.html). Automation is just a continuation of that DevOps journey – developers can work in real time, and operations teams still procure hardware and manage servers, but at a larger scale. Automation works best when you have specific objectives in mind.\n\nThe team at Monkton had a goal: The moment code is checked in and reviewed, they wanted the testing, deployment, and the security vulnerability scanning lifecycles automated. They wanted their people to do what they do best but had a hodgepodge of tools that couldn’t work together. They brought in better tools to automate those processes, tied them into GitLab, and now they have the repeatability they need at the speed they want.\n\n[Read their story](/blog/monkton-moves-to-gitlab-customer-story/).\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple .text-center}\n\nIT automation is what makes next-level DevOps possible and gives developers the opportunity to use their skills in ways that add real, long-term value. When organizations automate mundane, manual tasks, they save costs and create a healthy IT culture where developers are challenged and processes are efficient – a real win-win.\n\nAre you ready to explore the benefits of IT automation and increase developer productivity? [Just commit](/blog/application-modernization-best-practices/).\n\nPhoto by [Daniele Levis Pelusi](https://unsplash.com/photos/Pp9qkEV_xPk?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/search/photos/automation?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)\n{: .note}\n",[677,9,108],{"slug":1824,"featured":6,"template":680},"it-automation-developer-productivity","content:en-us:blog:it-automation-developer-productivity.yml","It Automation Developer Productivity","en-us/blog/it-automation-developer-productivity.yml","en-us/blog/it-automation-developer-productivity",{"_path":1830,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1831,"content":1836,"config":1842,"_id":1844,"_type":13,"title":1845,"_source":15,"_file":1846,"_stem":1847,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/kubecon-eu-cfp-support",{"title":1832,"description":1833,"ogTitle":1832,"ogDescription":1833,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1127,"ogUrl":1834,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1834,"schema":1835},"KubeCon EU CFP Support","GitLab's Tech Evangelism team wants to help you get on stage at KubeCon EU!","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/kubecon-eu-cfp-support","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"KubeCon EU CFP Support\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Emily Chin\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-11-27\",\n      }",{"title":1832,"description":1833,"authors":1837,"heroImage":1127,"date":1839,"body":1840,"category":971,"tags":1841},[1838],"Emily Chin","2019-11-27","\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\nIt’s that time of year: the deadline for proposals to the [2020 KubeCon/ CloudNativeCon Europe](https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/events/kubecon-cloudnativecon-europe-2020/) is coming up fast. Not to worry though; GitLab’s [Technical Evangelism](/handbook/marketing/developer-relations/developer-evangelism/) team is here to help. \n\nI’m new to the Cloud Native community but, after attending my very first KubeCon this week in my backyard of [San Diego](https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/events/kubecon-cloudnativecon-north-america-2019/), I couldn’t be more excited to dive in. Listening in on the amazing talks from the cloud native community was energizing, inspiring, and illuminating, and it’s awesome that GitLab wants to empower our community to share their ideas and learnings too. Our team is ready to review your proposals and flesh out any ideas that folks want to submit to the open call for proposals. Let us know how we can help today: the CFP closes on Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 11:59PM PDT. \n\nGitLab’s community is passionate, vocal, and deeply engaged, and elevating the voices of our users. If we can support with your submissions, feel free to complete [this form](https://forms.gle/W1EWHKVjptjBLSSB7) to get the ideas flowing, or reach out to our Director of Technical Evangelism directly on Twitter – [@pritianka](https://twitter.com/pritianka).\n\nThe call for proposals for [GitLab KubeCon](https://about.gitlab.com/events/kubecon/) Amsterdam closes on December 4! [Get more details and submit your talks here](https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/events/kubecon-cloudnativecon-europe-2020/call-for-proposals/).\n",[9,9,9],{"slug":1843,"featured":6,"template":680},"kubecon-eu-cfp-support","content:en-us:blog:kubecon-eu-cfp-support.yml","Kubecon Eu Cfp Support","en-us/blog/kubecon-eu-cfp-support.yml","en-us/blog/kubecon-eu-cfp-support",{"_path":1849,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1850,"content":1856,"config":1862,"_id":1864,"_type":13,"title":1865,"_source":15,"_file":1866,"_stem":1867,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/kubernetes-kubecon-barcelona",{"title":1851,"description":1852,"ogTitle":1851,"ogDescription":1852,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1853,"ogUrl":1854,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1854,"schema":1855},"See you at KubeCon Barcelona!","We're excited to see you all in Barcelona! Visit us at booth S21.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749664107/Blog/Hero%20Images/tanuki-adventure.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/kubernetes-kubecon-barcelona","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"See you at KubeCon Barcelona!\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Priyanka Sharma\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-05-17\",\n      }",{"title":1851,"description":1852,"authors":1857,"heroImage":1853,"date":1859,"body":1860,"category":863,"tags":1861},[1858],"Priyanka Sharma","2019-05-17","\nKubeCon is here again! I am very excited to go to Barcelona and meet (some of) the 12,000 attendees expected at the show. I’ve been part of KubeCon since the second event when there were 700 attendees. That year, we were a cozy community with about five projects, and Kubernetes was the newest game in town. Fast forward to today and I now serve on the board of the CNCF, Kubernetes is a stable technology, the foundation hosts 36 projects, and the latest of them to graduate will be Fluentd (after Kubernetes, Prometheus, CoreDNS, Envoy, and Containerd). I can’t quite reveal it yet, but there will be a very cool GitLab story intertwined with one of the projects that you will see for yourself soon :-). \n\n\u003Cscript type=\"text/javascript\" src=\"https://ssl.gstatic.com/trends_nrtr/1754_RC01/embed_loader.js\">\u003C/script> \u003Cscript type=\"text/javascript\"> trends.embed.renderExploreWidget(\"TIMESERIES\", {\"comparisonItem\":[{\"keyword\":\"kubernetes\",\"geo\":\"\",\"time\":\"today 5-y\"}],\"category\":0,\"property\":\"\"}, {\"exploreQuery\":\"date=today%205-y&q=kubernetes\",\"guestPath\":\"https://trends.google.com:443/trends/embed/\"}); \u003C/script> \n*\u003Csmall>Kubernetes growth over the past 5 years.\u003C/small>*\n\nAs some of you know, I joined GitLab after following the company and our CEO, Sid Sijbrandij, for a long time. Working at this dynamic company has been a ride of a lifetime. I am an open source person and one of the interesting things for me is how the [GitLab story](/company/history/) is similar to the Kubernetes story. GitLab started as an open source git provider because our co-founder, [Dmitriy \"DZ\" Zaphorozhets](/company/team/#dzaporozhets) didn’t like his options. Today, we have morphed into a [single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle](/stages-devops-lifecycle/). Similarly, Kubernetes comes from humble beginnings. In the words of Joe Beda, co-founder of Kubernetes, “there were a set of us that just wanted to be able to hack on some stuff and not have to go through all the process of shipping stuff to Google...it was more important for us to sort of reset the playing field between clouds. And so Kubernetes became a way for us to start doing that.” \n\nIt’s exciting to watch Kubernetes grow into the default container orchestration platform but I believe the best is yet to come: When the technology truly shifts left and every developer has access to it. That’s where GitLab comes in. With it’s deep focus on the developer workflow, the product brings efficiency, collaboration, and governance to teams sprawling the world wide web (a la GitLab itself) or small groups working out of a garage. When everything’s in the MR, everything is accessible including details on your kubernetes pods. I invite you to learn more about how we [integrate with Kubernetes](/solutions/kubernetes/).\n\n> “The only way in my opinion to make it easier for most end users to have a \"cloud-native\" experience is to provide a more end-to-end platform, a way that people can come together and they can edit code and review code and then actually do CI on that code and get that code shipped out to containers and have it be run with appropriate load balancing and observability.” — Matt Klein, Systems Engineer at Lyft  \n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/w0cZuG2Fcwo\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n*\u003Csmall>Video directed and produced by [Aricka Flowers](/company/team/#arickaflowers).\u003C/small>*\n\n## Let's connect! \n\n[Meet us at booth S21](https://about.gitlab.com/events/kubecon/) for CI office hours, tanuki adventures, and iPad giveaways! \n\nI'd love to help any CNCF projects (and other folks!) consider [GitLab CI](/features/continuous-integration/). If you are interested, [DM me on Twitter](https://twitter.com/pritianka) and we can sit down and discuss.\n\n## Join us for these events\n\n### Monday, May 20\n\n#### Cloud-Native Transformation Summit Hosted by Sysdig | 9:00 am - 12:15 pm\n\nJoin Priyanka Sharma, Director of Technical Evangelism at GitLab, at this zero day KubeCon event. This event will look at how enterprise organizations are moving into production-level Kubernetes and transforming their applications and infrastructure operations into Cloud-Native technologies.\n[Learn more here](https://go.sysdig.com/cloud_native_transformation_summit_2019.html). \n\n#### Zero Trust in the Cloud Native Era at Cloud Native Security Day | 11:00 - 11:30 am\n\nPriyanka Sharma, Director of Technical Evangelism at GitLab covers zero trust in the era of cloud native. [Register here](https://go.twistlock.com/cloudnativesecurityday#agenda). \n\n#### The Future of CI/CD with Kubernetes | 2:40 - 3:20 pm\n\nJoin Dan Lorenc, Software Engineer at Google, Carlos Sanchez, Principal Software Engineer at CloudBees, and Priyanka Sharma, Director of Technical Evangelism at GitLab, and Rob Zuber, CTO at CircleCI for a discussion on the future of CI/CD with Kubernetes.[Learn more here](https://sched.co/N6FQ).\n\n#### Barcelona Free Software Meetup: Working in the Open with GitLab, Kubic with openSUSE | 7-9 pm \n\nJoin Jason Plum, a Senior Software Engineer, Distribution at GitLab, for a talk on GitLab’s open-core product. He’ll discuss contributing back to the community directly, as well as sharing insights on changing from Closed to Open.\n[RSVP here](https://www.meetup.com/Barcelona-Free-Software/events/260656266/). \n\n### Tuesday, May 21\n\n#### Tutorial: Cloud-Agnostic Serverless - Sebastien Goasguen, TriggerMesh & Priyanka Sharma, GitLab | 11:05 am - 12:30 pm\n\nIn this tutorial, we will leverage Knative, Google's Kubernetes-based open source platform to build, deploy, and manage modern serverless workloads. We will push serverless functions and apps to production on any cloud of choice and switch the provider as necessary. We will leverage GitLab and TriggerMesh technology in the tutorial and also share how developers can use other options.\nSign up for the tutorial through the KubeCon schedule [here](https://sched.co/MPgx).\n\n#### Multicloud 360 Event | 8:30 pm - Midnight \n\nJoin GitLab, Upbound, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud and CockroachDB for 360 views of Barcelona and a discussion of multicloud. [RSVP here](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/multicloud-360-tickets-60623662005) to reserve your spot. \n\n### Wednesday, May 22\n\n#### The Serverless Landscape and Event Driven Futures - Dee Kumar, Linux Foundation & Priyanka Sharma, GitLab | 2:00 -2:35 pm\n\nThere is a lot of curiosity and confusion around [serverless computing](/topics/serverless/). What is it? Who is it for? Is it a replacement for IaaS, PaaS, and containers? Does that mean the days of servers are over? The CNCF created the Serverless Working Group to explore the intersection of cloud native and serverless technology. [Learn more here](https://sched.co/MPeI).\n\n## Play #tanukiadventure \n\nJoin our #tanukiadventure! Grab your game card at our booth S21 to help guide your adventure in finding GitLab's partners. At each adventure stop, learn how they work with GitLab! Once complete, each partner will provide you with an exclusive GitLab collectible pin to celebrate our awesome partnership! The first 50 attendees to collect all 8 unique Tanuki pins will win our prized GitLab Tanuki hoodie!\n",[9,1136,276,1055,865],{"slug":1863,"featured":6,"template":680},"kubernetes-kubecon-barcelona","content:en-us:blog:kubernetes-kubecon-barcelona.yml","Kubernetes Kubecon Barcelona","en-us/blog/kubernetes-kubecon-barcelona.yml","en-us/blog/kubernetes-kubecon-barcelona",{"_path":1869,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1870,"content":1875,"config":1881,"_id":1883,"_type":13,"title":1884,"_source":15,"_file":1885,"_stem":1886,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/lessons-learned-as-data-team-manager",{"title":1871,"description":1872,"ogTitle":1871,"ogDescription":1872,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1127,"ogUrl":1873,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1873,"schema":1874},"Lessons learned managing the GitLab Data team","Staff Data Engineer Taylor Murphy shares his lessons and takeways from one year as the Data team manager.","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/lessons-learned-as-data-team-manager","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Lessons learned managing the GitLab Data team\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Taylor Murphy\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-02-10\",\n      }",{"title":1871,"description":1872,"authors":1876,"heroImage":1127,"date":1878,"body":1879,"category":721,"tags":1880},[1877],"Taylor Murphy","2020-02-10","\n\nThis blog post was originally published on the GitLab Unfiltered blog. It was reviewed and republished on 2020-02-19.\n{: .alert .alert-info .note}\n\nFrom April 2018 to May 2019 I was the manager of the Data team for GitLab. I took this role after my manager left, when I started reporting directly to the CFO as a Data Engineer.\n\nI remember saying to him \"this doesn't seem like the right level of abstraction for you,\" and proposed I step up to become the manager. I also said I didn't want to do this for a long period of time, since I intentionally came to GitLab to move from a manager role to an individual contributor role and focus on Data Engineering.\n\nWhat follows are a few lessons I learned (and relearned!) in my one-year stint as the manager of the Data team. Eventually, I aim to become a manager again and I hope to remember these lessons and learn even more.\n\n### Plan for growth\n\nWhile I was Data team manager, GitLab grew in size by ~300%. Having only worked previously at established companies and at a very small startup, I was not prepared for this level of growth and the strain it would put on our resources.\n\nI recently surveyed colleagues of mine in the data community and discovered that, as a percentage of headcount, most Data teams are anywhere from 2-8%.\n\nThis means a 200-person company should have at least four people, and realistically around 10 people, focused on data. This includes analysts, engineers, scientists, and managers.\nIn April of 2018, we were at \u003C 1% (1/300) and would continue to be \u003C 1% throughout 2018.\n\nAs the company grew, I did not wholly understand how the business was planning to grow and how the Data team would scale to meet the data needs of the organization. This lack of strategic thinking led to a situation where I felt blindsided and overwhelmed by the number of requests for data and analytics.\n\nEven with the addition of the excellent people I was able to hire, I wasn't doing as good a job as I needed to help my team truly succeed.\n\nLesson: Understand the trajectory of the company, the workload you have and expect to have, pick a gearing ratio for headcount, stick to your hiring targets, and think about [team structure](https://blog.getdbt.com/data-team-structure-examples/).\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### Individual contributor or manager? Pick one\n\nBy the end of 2018, the Data team was a three-person team: one data analyst, one data engineer, and me.\nThankfully, the three of us were, I'm not ashamed to say, excellent at our jobs and performed at a level beyond what you would expect three FTEs to handle.\n\nBut even we have limits and couldn't do it all.\n\nDue to the volume of work we were trying to accomplish, it was critical that I take on analyst and engineering work as well.\n\nThis created a situation where I was splitting my brain and my attention trying to do too many things at once.\n\nSome days would be all manager work, and I would make zero progress on issues assigned to me. Others would be IC work, and I would fall behind on managerial tasks. The worst days were when I would try to do both, and everything would suffer.\n\nAs time went on this split brain effect would become worse – the signs of burnout were starting to ramp up rapidly.\n\nI was able to hire more people, which put more demand on the manager side of me, yet the volume of work was increasing while I was still the primary contributor and maintainer of our codebase. By the end, I didn't feel like I was a good manager, and I felt like my technical skills were rapidly atrophying.\n\nLesson: If you're a manager, be a manager. Yes, you'll have to pick up some work, especially at a startup, but figure out your exit plan so you can pass that work to your team who will be much better at accomplishing it than you.\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### Hire awesome people\n\nThis should go without saying, but hire excellent people and your life will be better. My first four hires for the Data team (two in 2018, two in early 2019) have blown me away with their skill, curiosity, tenacity, and intelligence.\n\nI learned from my previous job and past bosses the value in finding great people and the force multiplier they can have on the work you're trying to accomplish.\n\nLesson: Continue hiring great people! But think about how to scale it.\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### Invest in process\n\nThis lesson I learned from [Emilie Schario](https://gitlab.com/emilie), the first Data Analyst I hired. She taught me to think about how and where we'll need processes as the company scaled, so we could remain [efficient](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#efficiency).\n\nWe, of course, used GitLab for managing our code, and we had built-in merge request workflows, but she took the time to think about the messy \"people stuff\" surrounding the technology.\n\nA short list of artifacts she created:\n\n- [Onboarding issue for new analysts](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-data/analytics/-/blob/master/.gitlab/issue_templates/Data%20Onboarding.md)\n- [Onboarding script to get new analysts up and running quickly](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-data/analytics/-/blob/master/admin/onboarding_script.sh)\n- [Merge request templates, so everyone is working off the same checklist](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-data/analytics/-/blob/master/.gitlab/merge_request_templates/dbt%20Model%20Changes.md)\n\nAnd many more I'm sure I'm forgetting.\n\nWhile she wasn't the manager, she had the experience and understood the parts of working at a company that can slow down team members, and she worked to automate as much of it as possible. I've heard from many people outside the company how much they appreciate our documentation in general and our onboarding process in particular.\n\nThat is a testament to thinking about scale and having the empathy to continually step into the shoes of a GitLab learner and to see things from an outsider's perspective.\n\nAs Data teams have grown and evolved they've also [become more technical](https://blog.getdbt.com/what-is-an-analytics-engineer/). These mean it's important to invest in the technical process as well – this means you should have [version control](/topics/version-control/), change control (merge requests), automated testing, and [documentation on everything you're doing](https://dbt.gitlabdata.com/).\n\nCertain tools make implementing technical processes better and easier, which I'll highlight in the next section.\n\nLesson: (1) Think about process deeply and document everything. (2) Maintain the mind of a learner and continually think about what day one with GitLab is like for new people. (3) Invest in process, documentation, and testing - they are gifts you give your future self.\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### Pick excellent tools\n\nAlong with process, picking the right tools can be a force multiplier for team productivity. When the Data team started, we were using PostgreSQL as our data warehouse. Postgres is not column-oriented, and at a certain point it doesn't make sense to use it as an analytics database.\n\nWe went with Postgres anyway because we believe in using a [boring solution](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#boring-solutions) and it aligns with our value of [iteration](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#iteration). For the volume of data we were throwing at it, Postgres did admirably. We used the CloudSQL-hosted version which enabled us to do cool, programmatic things with GitLab CI (I'll save that for another post).\n\nOnce we outgrew Postgres we decided to move to Snowflake.\n\nOf course, being GitLab, we use GitLab the product for anything and everything, which saved us much of the stress around picking tools. It has all the things you want from a coding perspective, and it has enough of the things you need to be productive as a manager. No need for Trello, Jira, and a dozen other tools.\n\nBy far though, the best tool for the Data team's productivity is [dbt (data build tool)](https://www.getdbt.com/). I could talk forever about how great dbt is, but suffice to say that we would not be where we are today and we would not have been able to support the organization this well with such a small crew, were it not for dbt and the great community behind it.\n\nLesson: Find the best tools you can for your team. Use dbt!\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### Handling under-performers is a challenge\n\nUp until 2019, I'd never hired somebody who didn't perform well in their job, aside from a few interns.\nI'd like to think most of this was my ability to find good people, but it was probably luck, if I'm being honest.\n\nLast year challenged me with two under-performers on the team that I now realize I could have supported better. Having those difficult conversations with people was hard when I wasn't 100% in the manager brain space. My advice is to pay attention to those first few weeks of productivity, and if you find there are gaps, either in skills or motivation, do whatever you can to call out the gaps in a friendly and productive way, and then give your people every opportunity to become better.\n\nLesson: Be a good manger, notice things early, and help your team proactively.\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### So many meetings\n\nGitLab has a great culture around meetings.\n\nThey [always start on time](/handbook/communication/#video-calls), there [must be an agenda for every meeting](/handbook/communication/#scheduling-meetings), and [people aren't afraid to end meetings early if everything on the agenda is done](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#be-respectful-of-others-time).\nEven with this rigor and discipline you will find yourself on the [\"Manager's Schedule\"](http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html) and will be in a lot of meetings. But that's okay! That's part of your job.\n\nI will always argue that you should still try to reduce the time you're in meetings, but if you're in a meeting, do your best to ensure your team *isn't* also in a meeting, if at all possible. Meetings are terrible for makers (i.e., your direct reports). Shield your team from them as much as possible.\n\nLesson: Meetings are a part of the job, reduce them as much as you can, and protect your team from unnecessary meetings.\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### You need executive buy-in and representation\n\nPart of the reason I was excited to join GitLab was because the C-Suite clearly supported having a Data team in the organization.\nThe CEO and CFO understood the value a Data team could bring, even if the specifics and execution were blurry.\nThis is important! You will be in a tough spot if your company has nobody on the executive team that understands the value that good descriptive and predictive analytics can provide.\nData literacy is a cultural attribute, and it's [near impossible to grow literacy](https://towardsdatascience.com/is-your-company-too-dumb-to-be-data-driven-696932d597c3) in an organization if the CEO isn't driving it in some way.\n\nAt a certain scale though, you need Data leadership beyond a team manager.\nYou absolutely need someone at the Director level and up that can advocate and champion Data literacy and fluency across the functional areas of the organization.\nManagers can't be expected to spend much time on this since there is so much daily work to be done.\n\nLesson: Be wary of organizations that don't have C-Suite buy-in around the data function.\nAdvocate for a Director-level and up position that can be the cheerleader for Data across the organization.\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### Plan to spend some money\n\nExecutive level buy-in for a Data team is important because of this fact: Starting a Data team can be expensive. To be effective, you'll need to hire several people or empower your single data lead to purchase some third-party software.\n\nOut of the gate you'll need an extract and load tool like Stitch or Fivetran, you'll need a data warehouse (e.g., Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift), you'll need compute to run transform jobs, and you'll want a BI tool.\nThere are free tools that can sustain you for a while, but plan to invest some money up front if you're in it for the long haul.\n\nLesson: Long term success will require investment. You can start cheaply, but to scale requires resources.\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### Don't reinvent the wheel\n\nEspecially for things like extracting data from tools such as Salesforce, Zendesk, or Zuora, please, please, PLEASE don't write your own scripts to do this. Just pay a company to do it for you. You'll waste a ton of time doing something that doesn't deliver business value and will probably come back to bite you in the end.\n\nYou should spend most of your time [delivering value for the business](https://blog.getdbt.com/the-startup-founder-s-guide-to-analytics/) in the form of automated reporting and generating insights, not writing a Salesforce to Snowflake extractor for the thousandth time.\n\nLesson: Pay for Stitch or Fivetran for common data extractions.\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### Manager is a different career\n\nDon't think about becoming a manager as an extension of your individual contributor career. It *is* a different career path and your IC-skills will certainly help you be a better manager. However, management is its own set of skills and choosing to go into this field puts you on a different career path. It's not necessarily better depending on how you define success.\n\nGo into management with open eyes and a full understanding that you are switching tracks and not \"moving ahead\". It isn't permanent, though, and can be reversed if you choose.\n\nLesson: Don't assume the move to manager is the default for an IC. Think deeply about your [career](https://www.locallyoptimistic.com/post/career-ladders-part-1/). Read [about the Engineer/Manager Pendulum](https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum/).\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### It's okay to be a little selfish\n\nOne area I've struggled with for a while is making the effort to be a little selfish. I can have a people-pleaser mentality which, when applied to the business of a startup, can be useful: Startups need people that are willing to do what it takes to make the company successful (within reason!). But once the company is in a growth stage or beyond, that mentality is a recipe for burnout.\n\nAt my previous company, we were less than 30 people. Having the attitude of trying to do and learn as much as possible was a good strategy for me. I learned a ton, was given a bunch of responsibility, and helped the business grow. That strategy worked for me at GitLab for a while too. After some time passed, it was clear I couldn't keep up with everything, and my sanity would start to suffer without a fix.\n\nBeing selfish in this case meant I had to be okay with wanting to take a \"step back\" from the manager role to the IC role (Spoiler: it's not a step back! See the previous point).\n\nI had to admit to myself that I wanted to focus on programming more and that continuing down the manager track wasn't currently right for me.\n\nIt felt selfish because it was hard in the moment to see that what the business needed was somebody who *wanted* to be the manager. It didn't need me to continue in the role just because I happened to currently be in the role.\n\nWhile there were short-term ramifications for the team because of my move to an IC role, I know that I'm healthier for it, and we now have two excellent managers who are leading the team further than I could have.\n\nLesson: (1) It's a *good* thing to prioritize and be selfish about your mental health. (2) It's okay to say \"No, I can't do this anymore\". (3) Companies need people who want to be in their jobs - performance is better and people are happier.\n{: .alert .alert-gitlab-purple}\n\n### Fin\n\nMy hope is that these lessons are valuable to you, and are applicable in your own life and career. I would love to hear from you if you disagree with any of these, or if you have your own stories and lessons to share about your career in data; please reach out on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/tayloramurphy), via email (tmurphy at gitlab.com), or in an [issue in our main project](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-data/analytics/).\n\nThank you for reading and thank you to GitLab for enabling my growth as a Data professional.\n\n*Special thanks to [Emilie Schario](https://gitlab.com/emilie) for her review on multiple drafts of this post.*\n",[1571,973,9],{"slug":1882,"featured":6,"template":680},"lessons-learned-as-data-team-manager","content:en-us:blog:lessons-learned-as-data-team-manager.yml","Lessons Learned As Data Team Manager","en-us/blog/lessons-learned-as-data-team-manager.yml","en-us/blog/lessons-learned-as-data-team-manager",{"_path":1888,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1889,"content":1894,"config":1899,"_id":1901,"_type":13,"title":1902,"_source":15,"_file":1903,"_stem":1904,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/manage-agile-teams-with-microservices",{"title":1890,"description":1891,"ogTitle":1890,"ogDescription":1891,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1442,"ogUrl":1892,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1892,"schema":1893},"How to manage Agile teams with microservices","GitLab Groups and Projects can help teams divide work by product or system.","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/manage-agile-teams-with-microservices","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How to manage Agile teams with microservices\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Suri Patel\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-08-23\",\n      }",{"title":1890,"description":1891,"authors":1895,"heroImage":1442,"date":1896,"body":1897,"category":698,"tags":1898},[740],"2019-08-23","\n\nWe’re getting closer to the 2019 finish line, but there’s still time to jump on\nthe microservices train to accelerate your team’s delivery. We’ve written about\nmicroservices in the past, including discussing\n[best practices for microservices implementation](/blog/strategies-microservices-architecture/)\nand [GitLab’s integrated vision for microservices](/blog/microservices-integrated-solution/),\nbut I’m here to share something a little different: How you can use microservices\nto manage your team.\n\nBut first, a recap: Microservices is a collection of independently deployable\nservices that advances a goal, with each application managing a specific function\n_really_ well.\n\n> “The term ‘Microservice Architecture’ has sprung up over the last few years to\ndescribe a particular way of designing software applications as suites of\nindependently deployable services.” –\n[Martin Fowler](https://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html)\n\n## GitLab microservices for Agile team management\n\nUsing GitLab [Projects](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/) and\n[Groups](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/), teams can organize their work\nto increase visibility and collaboration. GitLab supports Agile teams by providing\n[Milestones](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones) (or sprints),\n[Issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/) (or user stories),\n[Weights](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/issue_weight.html) (or points and estimation),\nand other common [Agile artifacts](/blog/gitlab-for-agile-software-development/).\n\nHere are a few ways to use groups and projects:\n\n### Organizing your team by system\n\nOne of the more traditional ways to divide work, organizing by system separates\nteams by component and subsystem. For example, the teams that handle mobile iOS,\nmobile Android, and website have different projects, each with their own code\nrepo and [issue tracker](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/). This\ntype of structure works well with operations-driven organizations, but it’s not\na modern approach, so we recommend one of the following structures instead.\n\n### Organizing your team by product area\n\nDividing work by product is a best practice that drives business value. Using\nGitLab Groups, you can create `Code` and `Teams`. Within `Code`, separate projects\nrepresent various components (e.g. mobile iOS and user accounts), with individual\ncode repositories and sets of [merge requests](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/).\nOnce you’ve created your projects (and code repos), you can build another group\nfor `Teams`, which includes fullstack product teams (i.e., engineers, PMs, designers),\nenabling parallel milestones and Agile boards. The benefit of organizing work by\nproduct area is that there’s a separation between code repos and work, so that\nevery piece of code in your organization is open to contributions from all teams.\n\n### Organizing your team with a hybrid approach\n\nThis approach combines both product and system organization structures and is\nwell suited for organizations that have cross-platform teams. For example, a mobile\nteam has dedicated iOS and Android engineers rather than full teams for both\nplatforms. In this model, the `Code` group will have individual projects according\nto component, but `Teams` is consolidated so that there’s only a website and mobile\nteam.\n\nWatch this demo and check out its\ncorresponding [example application](https://gitlab.com/trustful-finance-demo) to see groups and projects in action. 🍿\n\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/VR2r1TJCDew\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\nDoes your team use microservices for Agile development? We’d love to hear your\nthoughts.\n\nCover image by [Martin Sanchez](https://unsplash.com/@martinsanchez?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/MD6E2Sv__iA)\n{: .note}\n",[9,700,677,723],{"slug":1900,"featured":6,"template":680},"manage-agile-teams-with-microservices","content:en-us:blog:manage-agile-teams-with-microservices.yml","Manage Agile Teams With Microservices","en-us/blog/manage-agile-teams-with-microservices.yml","en-us/blog/manage-agile-teams-with-microservices",{"_path":1906,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1907,"content":1912,"config":1918,"_id":1920,"_type":13,"title":1921,"_source":15,"_file":1922,"_stem":1923,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/manage-conversation-staying-agile",{"title":1908,"description":1909,"ogTitle":1908,"ogDescription":1909,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":735,"ogUrl":1910,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1910,"schema":1911},"5 Ways to stay agile in a growing organization","Some of the GitLab Manage team have a conversation about staying agile as a company grows.","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/manage-conversation-staying-agile","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"5 Ways to stay agile in a growing organization\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Jeremy Watson\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-06-10\",\n      }",{"title":1908,"description":1909,"authors":1913,"heroImage":735,"date":1915,"body":1916,"category":698,"tags":1917},[1914],"Jeremy Watson","2019-06-10","\nSome of us on GitLab's [Manage team](/handbook/engineering/development/dev/manage/) had a discussion a while back about the challenges of staying agile while a company scales. In true GitLab style, the [discussion took place asynchronously via an issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/manage/issues/13). Here it is:\n\n## How do you stay agile in a growing organization?\n\n### 1. Make quick, but thoughtful decisions\n\n[Jeremy, product manager](/company/team/#gitJeremy): This is the fundamental thing that allows startups to be competitive against dominant players in a market: It's using your resources more efficiently and moving faster than anyone else.\n\nTo me, two primary characteristics that support agility are making quick but thoughtful decisions, and focus. I think Amazon is a great example of the first, and I like [Amazon's simple Type-1/Type-2 framework](https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriklarson/2018/09/24/how-jeff-bezos-uses-faster-better-decisions-to-keep-amazon-innovating/#5feb716c7a65) for identifying the Type 2 decisions that are easily reversed, and allowing the threshold of approval to be relatively low.\n\nAs companies grow, it feels like the perceived number of Type 1 decisions grows in turn – and the organization slows down as more decision layers emerge. One thing I love about GitLab is that we're still dedicated to moving quickly and we're not constantly asking for permission to make things better. If it's easily revertible and makes something better, ship it. In all honesty, I think this is one of our biggest competitive advantages.\n\n### 2. Hire the right people\n\n[Liam, engineering manager](/company/team/#lmcandrew): The interesting thing here is that lots of organizations (big and small) now realize the value of Agile ways of working (admittedly, many of which do agile but aren't agile), making it less of a competitive advantage and more like table stakes. Therefore, I think of Agile as the sensible (only?) choice when it comes to delivering your own product to customers. An Agile mentality lets you deliver incremental, low-risk value to customers, allowing you to get feedback or pivot with minimal investment.\n\nI think the single most important thing for me here is hiring – hiring the right people who truly understand the value of agile ways of working.\n\nOne of the statements in [GitLab's Efficiency value](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#efficiency) points out a particular behavior that is so important here:\n\n> Accept mistakes: Not every problem should lead to a new process to prevent them. Additional processes make all actions more inefficient and a mistake only affects one.\n\nAs an organization grows its headcount, the number of business processes invariably grows with it. It's very easy to add process as a knee-jerk reaction to a problem or because it makes you feel more confident in something being executed. Having a team question the value of new processes and perhaps ask \"What do we lose by introducing this process?\" is vital to keep agility.\n\n### 3. Keep teams small and focused\n\n[Jeremy](/company/team/#gitJeremy): I don't know if I agree that as an organization grows that business processes invariably grow as well. This is what I meant earlier when I mentioned focus; without smaller teams focused on problems they own, interests start to compete and decision-making slows down because more people have a stake in the outcome.\n\nYou can mitigate this with small, focused teams. This is harder in monolithic codebases with lots of dependencies between teams.\n\nI do agree that hiring is critical to ensure everyone is questioning the status quo. The default answer to new process should be \"no,\" unless there's some acute pain it alleviates.\n\n[Luke Bennett, frontend engineer](/company/team/#__lukebennett): It is hard to avoid the reduction in velocity as a single team grows beyond some unknown threshold. A \"single team\" is a group of humans (or robots I suppose) making informed decisions about a cross-section of a product. As the team grows, it typically means the number of issues is already growing. There are more people accountable for those issues, more people making decisions on those issues, and more people contributing to those issues.\n\nIn software it also leads to team members working \"at the same workbench\" too often and of course makes the job of managing the team harder; even hosting a productive team call or keeping in touch with team members can become a challenge. This can easily lead to inefficient hierarchies to \"patch\" the problem, which can seem like a simple short cut compared to getting **more** Agile.\n\nFrom my own experience, splitting a large team into smaller ones instantly provides a feeling of relief for team members. Of course it's not just about the size of the team, it's also about their responsibilities/scope. Team members desperately want to be contributing meaningful changes on time and a reduction in scope lets them focus again on a more specific cross-section of the product, shifting attention away from the larger team discussions that may not be specific to a product area. Put simply, a discussion between [Manage](/stages-devops-lifecycle/) product category members of 10 people will be much more product-focused than a Frontend discussion of 20 people. You can expect their contributions to be the same. Additionally, the chance to build a stronger connection and appreciation for your team members is not to be ignored. There are definitely productivity gains when everyone is on the same raft!\n\n>Team members desperately want to be contributing meaningful changes on time and a reduction in scope lets them focus again on a more specific cross-section of the product, shifting attention away from the larger team discussions that may not be specific to a product area.\n\nI feel like this is a natural behaviour of humans. Agile feels natural to me at least and historically people never seem to work too well in very large groups. In the UK at least, we often reference the proverb \"Too many cooks spoil the broth.\" It's a little more complex and less brutal than that in software development, but it stands.\n\nThat said, avoiding large teams can lead to more problems. It reminds me of [Amdahl's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law) in that when you create more Agile teams, you create management overhead to orchestrate the direction of the teams. Agile with small teams is relatively simple because this effect is negligible, but as you scale your Agile organisation, you have to start paying attention to it.\n\n### 4. Allow teams to experiment with their own processes\n\n[Sanad Liaquat, senior test automation engineer](/company/team/#sanadliaquat): To me, keeping the size of teams small and focused on specific areas with well defined scope/boundaries is very important to stay agile in a growing organization. Also, the team should be allowed to discover their own processes and evolve. This works very well when the organization has teams laboring on separate projects with separate codebases. Each Agile team/project can then share what works best for them with other teams which can decide to adopt the practice or not. When projects have dependencies on each other, it is important that there be effective coordination on release timings between teams.\n\nWith organizations such as GitLab, where there is a single codebase, teams having their own process is not pragmatic. I believe GitLab handles Agile very well by dividing the organization into 2D slices of teams (Frontend, Backend, Security, Quality, etc.) and groups (Plan, Manage, Create, etc.) and having well-defined processes shared across groups. I believe it is necessary to keep an eye on the size of the group and think about breaking it down if it grows beyond what is considered a small and effective Agile group. (How small is \"small\" would be a separate discussion.)\n\n[Jeremy](/company/team/#gitJeremy): Yeah, I agree that small teams are pretty key. Sanad brought up dependencies, which is really important. You can have small teams, but if they can't operate independently you'll lose all your velocity.\n\nIt's interesting that you say that teams at GitLab don't have their own processes, because it feels like our teams DO have their own processes. We have some standardization like release cadence (monthly on the 22nd) and some labels (Deliverable), but we're free to do our own thing.\n\nWe operate differently than [Plan](/handbook/engineering/development/dev/plan/) and [Create:Source Code](/handbook/engineering/development/dev/create/source-code-be/), for instance. Plan uses the \"due-22nd\" label to split the work into two-week chunks, and Create:Source Code still estimates issues individually. I think it's a strength that we can individually experiment, but why isn't this more of a problem?\n\nI do think that different teams have different needs. I feel like some processes work better for other teams – maybe based on the personalities of the people or the engineering/product maturity of that particular stage.\n\nI don't know if we've really asked \"why\" or documented what's worked and what hasn't. I'm sure individual teams have experimented a lot, but I wonder if we're missing out by not tracking and sharing some of the things we've tried.\n\n[Sanad](/company/team/#sanadliaquat): I was not aware of other teams within GitLab having different processes like the ones Jeremy mentioned. I do agree that some processes can differ within teams and it is a strength that allows a team to experiment on their own and evolve as they deem fit for themselves. However, when working on the same codebase, it is better (or unavoidable) for teams to have uniformity on things like the code review process, testing strategies, documentation standards, etc.\n\n### 5. Make sure everyone is on the same page\n\n[Martin Wortschack, senior frontend engineer](/company/team/#wortschi): I also want to emphasize how important it is for an organization's leadership to understand what \"Agile\" means and that it's not just another fancy buzzword. It requires change. Depending on the organization it could mean anything including introducing new processes, hiring the right people, etc.  Therefore it's very important that everyone involved has the same expectations and common understanding of \"staying Agile\" (or \"becoming Agile\") and understands the necessary steps that need to be taken towards being an Agile organization. The best talent won't be able to change much if their decisions are not backed by the executives. I've seen a lot of companies that would consider themselves an \"Agile organization\" just because they have set up a Jira project.\n\nSo, to me the most important thing is everybody's ability and willingness to change.\n\n_If you'd like to see more of these discussions around other topics, please let us know in the comments below or in [the original issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/manage/issues/13)._\n\n[Photo](https://unsplash.com/photos/HSXv_s2gH3U?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) by Andrew McElroy on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/search/photos/sprint?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)\n{: .note}\n",[9,700,784],{"slug":1919,"featured":6,"template":680},"manage-conversation-staying-agile","content:en-us:blog:manage-conversation-staying-agile.yml","Manage Conversation Staying Agile","en-us/blog/manage-conversation-staying-agile.yml","en-us/blog/manage-conversation-staying-agile",{"_path":1925,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1926,"content":1931,"config":1937,"_id":1939,"_type":13,"title":1940,"_source":15,"_file":1941,"_stem":1942,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/managing-global-projects-requiring-rapid-response-continuously",{"title":1927,"description":1928,"ogTitle":1927,"ogDescription":1928,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1562,"ogUrl":1929,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1929,"schema":1930},"How to leverage distributed engineering teams for rapid response","Rapid response issues can be handled in a compressed time frame if distributed engineering teams can work continuously. Here's what we've learned.","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/managing-global-projects-requiring-rapid-response-continuously","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How to leverage distributed engineering teams for rapid response\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Chris Baus\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2021-06-04\",\n      }",{"title":1927,"description":1928,"authors":1932,"heroImage":1562,"date":1934,"body":1935,"category":948,"tags":1936},[1933],"Chris Baus","2021-06-04","\n\nI am an [Engineering Manager](https://gitlab.com/chris_baus) working on a distributed engineering team at GitLab. [Our team](/handbook/engineering/development/fulfillment/purchase/) is distributed globally, and we have engineers working in India, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. I am [located](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Stateline,+NV/) in the U.S. in Pacific Standard Time (PST). In coordination with [other](/handbook/engineering/development/ops/verify/#verifycontinuous-integration) globally distributed engineering teams, we recently responded to an [abuse issue](/blog/prevent-crypto-mining-abuse/) which was causing disruptions for legitimate GitLab.com users, and required a [rapid response](/handbook/engineering/workflow/#rapid-engineering-response).\n\n## Global distribution as an advantage\n\nMany managers view global team distribution as a constraint (because synchronous communication becomes more difficult), but it is possible to [embrace the constraint](https://basecamp.com/gettingreal/03.4-embrace-constraints) and turn it into an advantage. When teams are globally distributed it is possible for work to continue around-the-clock, uninterrupted, and decrease the overall delivery time of projects. I refer to this as \"continuous development.\"\n\nWhile we don't typically work this way, when problems are pressing, working continuously can be a strategy to advance the delivery time frame. In this case, two engineers from our team worked on the problem [17](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bellingham,+WA/) [hours](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Melbourne+VIC,+Australia/) apart. This provided some overlap in the afternoon (PST), but for the most part, the engineers were working on the project at different times which allowed work to progress continuously.\n\nIt requires some extra management compared to the typical workflow, but the effort may be worth the investment if time is critical.\n\n## Define clear handoffs\n\nOne risk of multiple engineers working continuously and [asynchronously](https://baus.net/embrace-asynchronous-work/) is duplicating work from lack of clear separation of work or handoffs. If possible, it is best to separate work, so engineers are working in different areas of code, but separating work might not always be feasible or practical. In either case, when an engineer finishes working for the day, they should provide an update describing the work which was completed, any problems impeding progress, and what is left to be done.\n\nIf engineers are working in the same area of code, it should be clearly defined if they are working in the same branch or separate branches. If they are working in the same branch, it might make sense for one engineer to maintain branch and accept merges from other engineers before it merged into the main development branch.\n\n## Agree on interfaces\n\nWhen distributed engineering teams are working on a project, it is critical to define clear and documented interfaces between systems and components. System interfaces should be documented in a centrally maintained location. If there is a need to change the interface, then everyone affected by the change should be notified.\n\nIn retrospect, we lost nearly a day of testing because of confusion about an interface between the frontend and backend of the system. These types of problems tend to be amplified when not all engineers involved in the project are available at the same time, as it may take an entire 24-hour cycle to handle and communicate changes. When a discrepancy is found, the problem should be documented by the engineers currently working and, if possible, a solution proposed.\n\n## Place synchronous communication on management\n\nWhen working concurrently, to help ensure all teams are on the same path, it can be helpful to discuss the project status synchronously. This can be difficult to arrange with distributed engineering teams. On this project, the technical teams met twice weekly for 15-30 minutes. It can be tempting to require team members to work off hours to attend synchronous meetings. I'd recommend fighting this tendency.\n\nIt's the responsibility of a manager to ensure effective communication across teams. During rapid-response actions, it's helpful to keep flexible working hours to synchronize with team members across different time zones. I accept working outside my typical hours (knowing I can [adjust my hours](/company/culture/all-remote/non-linear-workday/) at other times of the day), to communicate the status of my team synchronously. This also requires the manager to have a more detailed technical understanding of the implementation and status than is normally required, so they can speak on behalf of offline team members.\n\nInstead of requiring synchronous meeting attendance, [take good notes](/company/culture/all-remote/meetings/#document-everything-live-yes-everything) and [record the meeting](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMtZ0sc1HHNtGGWZFDRTh5A) so team members in other time zones can review the status and decisions from synchronous meetings.\n\n## Trade-offs\n\nIn many ways, engineering is the art of balancing trade-offs. Operating in a continuous, globally-distributed fashion takes more management and cognitive overhead than typical asynchronous workflows, but when time is a priority, it could decrease the release time on critical projects.\n\nOperating continuously may come at cost of other management tasks as compressing time increases the effort required to oversee the project requiring a [rapid response](/handbook/engineering/workflow/#rapid-engineering-response). At the end of the rapid-response issue, a retrospective should be held to determine if the engineering strategy provided the expected results, relative to the increased overhead. My recommendation is to be realistic about costs when planning continuous development even when it provides short-term results.\n\n_Read more on [leading engineering teams](/blog/cadence-is-everything-10x-engineering-organizations-for-10x-engineers/)._\n",[783,784,9,700],{"slug":1938,"featured":6,"template":680},"managing-global-projects-requiring-rapid-response-continuously","content:en-us:blog:managing-global-projects-requiring-rapid-response-continuously.yml","Managing Global Projects Requiring Rapid Response Continuously","en-us/blog/managing-global-projects-requiring-rapid-response-continuously.yml","en-us/blog/managing-global-projects-requiring-rapid-response-continuously",{"_path":1944,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1945,"content":1951,"config":1957,"_id":1959,"_type":13,"title":1960,"_source":15,"_file":1961,"_stem":1962,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-1",{"title":1946,"description":1947,"ogTitle":1946,"ogDescription":1947,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1948,"ogUrl":1949,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1949,"schema":1950},"Mobile DevOps with GitLab, Part 1 - Code signing with Project-level Secure Files","An introduction to mobile code signing with the new Project-level Secure Files feature.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749668629/Blog/Hero%20Images/refargotohp-mzZp_9QpYLc-unsplash.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-1","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Mobile DevOps with GitLab, Part 1 - Code signing with Project-level Secure Files\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Darby Frey\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2022-09-20\",\n      }",{"title":1946,"description":1947,"authors":1952,"heroImage":1948,"date":1954,"body":1955,"category":674,"tags":1956},[1953],"Darby Frey","2022-09-20","\n\nMobile teams face some unique challenges when it comes to establishing DevOps practices. Build tools are different, release and approval cycles with app stores can be slower and introduce more risk, and some applications require specialized runners. At GitLab, we are focused on finding solutions to these challenges to make it easier for [everyone to contribute](/company/mission/#everyone-can-contribute)! Starting with mobile code signing.\n\nThis post is the first in a series on mobile DevOps and it shows how GitLab makes code signing easier using a new feature called Project-level Secure Files.\n\n## A brief introduction to mobile code signing\n\nAndroid and iOS projects require special configuration files for secure application code signing to ensure an application on a user's device hasn't been tampered with. These configuration files can be challenging to manage in a [CI environment](/topics/ci-cd/benefits-continuous-integration/). Keystores, signing certificates, and provisioning profiles shouldn't be stored in version control because they contain sensitive information. These files are also binary (not text), so they can't easily be stored as CI variables.\n\nTo make this process easier, [we've introduced a feature in GitLab 15.0 called Project-level Secure Files](/releases/2022/05/22/gitlab-15-0-released/#project-level-secure-files-in-open-beta). This feature allows these files to be stored securely as part of a GitLab project but outside version control. Secure Files can then easily be loaded into a CI job when it's time to execute the code signing process.\n\nGet started by adding a secure file to a project:\n\n1. On the top bar, select **Menu > Projects** and find your project.\n2. On the left sidebar, select **Settings > CI/CD**.\n3. In the **Secure Files** section, select **Expand**.\n4. Select **Upload File**.\n5. Find the file to upload, select **Open**, and the file upload begins immediately. The file shows up in the list when the upload is complete.\n\n![Upload Secure File](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-09-19-mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-1-introducing-project-level-secure-files/upload-secure-file.png)\n\n![List Secure Files](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-09-19-mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-1-introducing-project-level-secure-files/list-secure-files.png)\n\nWith the files securely stored with the project, the next step is to load them into a [CI/CD](/topics/ci-cd/) job. To use your secure files in a CI/CD job, you must use the [download-secure-files](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/incubation-engineering/mobile-devops/download-secure-files) tool to download the files in the job. After downloading them, these files can be used in any CI job.\n\nAdd a command in the script section of your job to download the download-secure-files tool and execute it. It's also important to specify the download location for the secure files by setting the desired path in the `SECURE_FILES_DOWNLOAD_PATH` [CI/CD variable](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/variables/index.html).\n\nFor example:\n\n```\ntest:\n  variables:\n    SECURE_FILES_DOWNLOAD_PATH: './where/files/should/go/'\n  script:\n    - curl --silent \"https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/incubation-engineering/mobile-devops/download-secure-files/-/raw/main/installer\" | bash\n```\n\nNow, when the CI job runs, all of the secure files will be available in the location specified. They can then be passed into a build script or loaded into the Apple keychain. \n\nThat's it! Give it a try, and let us know what you think in the [feedback issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/362407).\n\nNext time we will walk through [how to set up code signing for an Android app](/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2/).\n\nCover image by \u003Ca href=\"https://unsplash.com/@refargotohp?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText\">refargotohp\u003C/a> on \u003Ca href=\"https://unsplash.com/s/photos/mobile-app-building?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText\">Unsplash\u003C/a>.\n",[9,677,108],{"slug":1958,"featured":6,"template":680},"mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-1","content:en-us:blog:mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-1.yml","Mobile Devops With Gitlab Part 1","en-us/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-1.yml","en-us/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-1",{"_path":1964,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1965,"content":1971,"config":1976,"_id":1978,"_type":13,"title":1979,"_source":15,"_file":1980,"_stem":1981,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2",{"title":1966,"description":1967,"ogTitle":1966,"ogDescription":1967,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1968,"ogUrl":1969,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1969,"schema":1970},"Mobile DevOps with GitLab, Part 2 - Code signing for Android with GitLab","This second part of our tutorial series shows how to use Project-level Secure Files to sign an Android application.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749668592/Blog/Hero%20Images/teddy-gr--adWwTRAm1g-unsplash.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Mobile DevOps with GitLab, Part 2 - Code signing for Android with GitLab\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Darby Frey\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2022-09-28\",\n      }",{"title":1966,"description":1967,"authors":1972,"heroImage":1968,"date":1973,"body":1974,"category":674,"tags":1975},[1953],"2022-09-28","\n\nIn Part 1 of this tutorial series, we talked about a new feature in GitLab called [Project-level Secure Files](/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-1/). With Project-level Secure Files, you can securely store your build keys as part of your project in GitLab, and avoid [some](https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/a4ydhj/how_to_update_app_when_lost_keystore_file/) [painful](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamemaker/comments/v98den/lost_keystore_for_publishing_to_google_play_store/) [problems](https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/95oa55/is_there_anyway_to_update_my_app_after_having/) caused by lost keystore files.\n\nIn this blog post, I'll show you how to create a Keystore file and use it to sign an Android application. Then I'll show you how to quickly create a CI pipeline in GitLab using Project-level Secure Files.\n\n## Generate a private signing key\n\nThe first thing you'll need is a Keystore file. This file is used to securely sign the application. You can generate a Keystore file from your machine by running the following command:\n\n```\nkeytool -genkey -v -keystore release-keystore.jks -alias release -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000\n```\n\nDuring this process, you'll be asked to create a new password for the Keystore file and provide some information about you and your organization. See the example below:\n\n![Generate Android Keystore](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-09-19-mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2-code-signing-for-android-with-gitlab/generate-keystore.png)\n\n\n## Configure your application\n\nThe next step is to set some environment variables and update build.gradle to add the new signing configuration. First, set the following environment variables in either a .env file or in the shell via export.\n\n* `ANDROID_KEY_ALIAS` is the alias you gave for the key in the keytool command above. In this example the value is release.\n* `ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD` is the new password you supplied to the keytool command above.\n* `ANDROID_KEY_STOREFILE` is the path to the new keystore file you just created. In this example we're using `../release-keystore.jks`.\n\nWith the environment variables set, the next step is to update the build configuration to use the new Keystore in the build process. In the `app/build.gradle` file add the following configuration inside the Android block for the release signing config.\n\n```\nandroid {\n    ...\n    defaultConfig { ... }\n    signingConfigs {\n        release {\n           storeFile file(System.getenv('ANDROID_KEY_STOREFILE'))\n           storePassword System.getenv('ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD')\n           keyAlias System.getenv('ANDROID_KEY_ALIAS')\n           keyPassword System.getenv('ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD')\n        }\n    }\n    buildTypes {\n        release {\n            ...\n            signingConfig signingConfigs.release\n        }\n    }\n}\n```\n\nSave these changes to the `app/build.gradle file`, and run the build locally to ensure everything works. Use the following command to run the build:\n\n```\n./gradlew assembleRelease\n```\n\nIf everything worked you'll see a message saying **BUILD SUCCESSFUL**.\n\n## Configure project\n\nWith the build running locally, it takes just a couple of steps to get it running in GitLab [CI](/topics/ci-cd/). The first step is to upload your Keystore file in GitLab. \n\n1. On the top bar, select **Menu > Projects** and find your project.\n2. On the left sidebar, select **Settings > CI/CD**.\n3. In the **Secure Files** section, select **Expand**.\n4. Select **Upload File**.\n5. Find the file to upload, select **Open**, and the file upload begins immediately. The file shows up in the list when the upload is complete.\n\n![Upload Secure File](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-09-19-mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2-code-signing-for-android-with-gitlab/upload-secure-file.png)\n\n![List Secure Files](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-09-19-mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2-code-signing-for-android-with-gitlab/list-secure-files.png)\n\nThe next step is to set the CI variables in your project. \n\n1. On the top bar, select **Menu > Projects** and find your project.\n2. On the left sidebar, select **Settings > CI/CD**.\n3. In the **Variables** section, select **Expand**.\n4. Create entries for the three environment variables set earlier: `ANDROID_KEY_ALIAS`, `ANDROID_KEY_STOREFILE`, `ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD`.\n\n![List Secure Files](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-09-19-mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2-code-signing-for-android-with-gitlab/list-ci-variables.png)\n\n## CI/CD pipelines\n\nOnce the project is configured, the final step is to create the build configuration in the `.gitlab-ci.yml` file. Below is a sample file.\n\n```\nstages:\n  - build\n\nbuild_android:\n  image: fabernovel/android:api-31-v1.6.1\n  stage: build\n  variables:\n    SECURE_FILES_DOWNLOAD_PATH: './'\n  script:\n    - apt update && apt install -y curl\n    - curl --silent \"https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/incubation-engineering/mobile-devops/download-secure-files/-/raw/main/installer\" | bash\n    - ./gradlew assembleRelease\n  artifacts:\n    paths:\n      - app/build/outputs/apk/release\n```\n\nA few interesting bits from this configuration:\n\n1. Image: [https://github.com/faberNovel/docker-android](https://github.com/faberNovel/docker-android) provides a collection of prebuilt Docker images that work great for CI systems. Find the right version for your project in Docker Hub [https://hub.docker.com/r/fabernovel/android/tags](https://hub.docker.com/r/fabernovel/android/tags). \n2. Script: Depending on the image, you may need to install curl; the first line of the example script installs curl to be used in the second line to download and execute the [download-secure-files](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/incubation-engineering/mobile-devops/download-secure-files) tool.\n3. Variables: `SECURE_FILES_DOWNLOAD_PATH` tells [download-secure-files](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/incubation-engineering/mobile-devops/download-secure-files) where to download the Keystore file.\n4. Artifacts: Make the build output available to be downloaded from the CI job, or used in subsequent jobs in the pipeline.\n\nCommit the changes to your `.gitlab-ci.yml` file and after you push the changes to GitLab the build will start.\n\nTake a look at [this branch in the sample project](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/incubation-engineering/mobile-devops/android_demo/-/tree/basic_build) for reference.\n\nGive it a try, and let us know what you think in the [feedback issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/362407). Then, check out Part 3, which deals with [code signing for iOS](/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-3-code-signing-for-ios-with-gitlab-and-fastlane/). \n\n\n\n_Cover image by  \u003Ca href=\"https://unsplash.com/@teddygr?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText\">Teddy GR\u003C/a> on \u003Ca href=\"https://unsplash.com/s/photos/google-phone?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText\">Unsplash\u003C/a>_\n",[677,9,950,108],{"slug":1977,"featured":6,"template":680},"mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2","content:en-us:blog:mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2.yml","Mobile Devops With Gitlab Part 2","en-us/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2.yml","en-us/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2",{"_path":1983,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":1984,"content":1990,"config":1995,"_id":1997,"_type":13,"title":1998,"_source":15,"_file":1999,"_stem":2000,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-3-code-signing-for-ios-with-gitlab-and-fastlane",{"title":1985,"description":1986,"ogTitle":1985,"ogDescription":1986,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1987,"ogUrl":1988,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":1988,"schema":1989},"Mobile DevOps with GitLab, Part 3 - Code signing for iOS with GitLab CI and Fastlane","Learn how to use Project-level Secure Files with Fastlane Match to sign an iOS app.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749668568/Blog/Hero%20Images/vinicius-amnx-amano-IPemgbj9aDY-unsplash.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-3-code-signing-for-ios-with-gitlab-and-fastlane","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Mobile DevOps with GitLab, Part 3 - Code signing for iOS with GitLab CI and Fastlane\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Darby Frey\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2022-10-03\",\n      }",{"title":1985,"description":1986,"authors":1991,"heroImage":1987,"date":1992,"body":1993,"category":674,"tags":1994},[1953],"2022-10-03","\n\nThis post is the third in a series of three blog posts showing how GitLab makes code signing easier using a new feature called Project-level Secure Files.\n\n- [Part 1](/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-1/) introduces the Project-level Secure Files feature and the basics of getting started.\n- [Part 2](/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-2/) shows an example of how to use Project-level Secure Files to sign an Android app.\n- This post shows how to use the integration with Fastlane Match to sign an iOS app.\n\nCode signing for iOS projects is [notoriously](https://twitter.com/davidcrawshaw/status/1159083791232765953) [difficult](https://twitter.com/bc3tech/status/692778139517255680) and can lead to a lot of time spent debugging errors, but a tool called Fastlane makes it much easier. [Fastlane](https://fastlane.tools/) is an open source tool that greatly simplifies the complexity of the code signing process for iOS development.\n\nIn [Fastlane 2.207.2](https://github.com/fastlane/fastlane/pull/20386) we released support for Project-level Secure Files as a storage backend for Fastlane Match, making it even easier for mobile projects to manage their signing certificates and provisioning profiles within GitLab. Now, we will cover a couple of ways to get started using Project-level Secure Files in a Fastlane project.\n\n## Set up Fastlane Match\n\nIf your project doesn't have a Fastlane Matchfile yet, you can generate one by running the following:\n\n```\nbundle exec fastlane match init\n```\n\nThis command will prompt you to choose which storage backend you want to use (select `gitlab_secure_files`) and to input your project path (for example: `gitlab-org/gitlab`). It will then generate a Fastlane Matchfile configured to use your project's secure files for Fastlane Match.\n\n![Initialize Fastlane Match](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-09-19-mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-3-code-signing-for-ios-with-gitlab-and-fastlane/match-init.png)\n\n## Generate a Personal Access Token\n\nNext, you'll need a GitLab Personal Access Token to use Fastlane Match from your local machine. To create a Personal Access Token, visit the Access Tokens section in your GitLab profile (for example: [https://gitlab.com/-/profile/personal_access_tokens](https://gitlab.com/-/profile/personal_access_tokens)). Create a new token with the “api” scope. Take note of the token you just created, we'll be using it later.\n\n## Generate and upload \n\nIf you have not created signing certificates or provisioning profiles yet for your project, running Fastlane Match will do all of the work for you. Run the command below with your Personal Access Token:\n\n```\nPRIVATE_TOKEN=YOUR-TOKEN bundle exec fastlane match \n```\n\nYou may be prompted to log in with your Apple developer account. Once authenticated, this command will generate development certificates and profiles in the Apple Developer portal and upload those files to GitLab. You'll be able to view the files in your project's CI/CD settings as soon as the command completes.\n\nYou can also generate other certificate types by specifying the type in the command, for example:\n\n```\nPRIVATE_TOKEN=YOUR-TOKEN bundle exec fastlane match appstore\n```\n\n## Upload-only\n\nIf you have already created signing certificates and provisioning profiles for your project, you can use Fastlane Match Import to load your existing files into Project-level Secure Files. Simply run:\n\n```\nPRIVATE_TOKEN=YOUR-TOKEN bundle exec fastlane match import\n```\n\nYou'll be prompted to input the path to your files. Once those options are provided, your files will be uploaded and visible in your project's CI/CD settings. (Note: If you are prompted for the git_url during the import, it is safe to leave it blank and hit enter.)\n\n![Fastlane Match Import](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2022-09-19-mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-3-code-signing-for-ios-with-gitlab-and-fastlane/match-import.png)\n\n## CI/CD pipelines\n\nWith your signing certificates and provisioning profiles loaded in Project-level Secure Files, it's now easy to use those files in your [CI/CD pipelines](/topics/ci-cd/). No access tokens are needed when running jobs in GitLab, so you can load your files into a CI/CD job by adding the fastlane command to a CI job script. For example:\n\n```\ntest:\n  stage: test\n  script:\n    bundle exec fastlane match –readonly\n```\n\nUsing the –readonly flag on CI is suggested to prevent any unintended changes to signing certificates by Fastlane. The Fastlane Match command will sync the certificates to the machine, but does not build the application. To run match and build, configure a lane in your project's Fastfile to do both steps. For example:\n\n**Fastfile**\n\n```\ndefault_platform(:ios)\n\nplatform :ios do\n  desc \"Build the App\"\n  lane :build do\n    setup_ci\n    match(type: 'appstore', readonly: is_ci)\n    build_app(\n      clean: true,\n      project: \"ios_demo.xcodeproj\", \n      scheme: \"ios_demo\"\n    )\n  end\nend\n```\n\n**Matchfile**\n\n```\ngitlab_project(\"gitlab-org/incubation-engineering/mobile-devops/ios_demo\")\nstorage_mode(\"gitlab_secure_files\")\ntype(\"appstore\")\n```\n\n**.gitlab-ci.yml File**\n\n```\nbuild:\n  stage: build\n  script:\n    - bundle exec fastlane build\n```\n\nWith all of that in place, you'll have a CI pipeline that runs a single build job. That job will use the `:build` lane from fastlane to run `setup_ci`, `match`, and `build_app`. The result from that job will be a build of your app, signed with the certificates stored in your project with Project-level Secure Files. You could then extend fastlane to push that build to Test Flight or the App Store.\n\nFastlane does a good job of handling the complexity associated with certificate management, so you don't have to worry about it, but there is a bit of a learning curve to getting used to Fastlane. Take a look at [this branch](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/incubation-engineering/mobile-devops/ios_demo/-/tree/fastlane_build) in the ios_demo project to for a full working example. Please add any feedback you have in the [feedback issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/362407).\n\n## Better Mobile DevOps\n\nWith Project-level Secure Files, you no longer need to rely on hacks or workarounds to automate code signing, and it can be easily added to new or existing [CI/CD pipelines](/topics/ci-cd/).\n\nFor more about how we are working to make better Mobile DevOps at GitLab, check out the [Mobile DevOps Docs](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/mobile_devops.html), [SaaS runners on macOS](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/runners/saas/macos_saas_runner.html), and the [Mobile DevOps Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL05JrBw4t0KoVEdembEIySgiciCuZj7Zl) on GitLab Unfiltered.\n\nCover image by \u003Ca href=\"https://unsplash.com/@viniciusamano?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText\">Vinicius \"amnx\" Amano\u003C/a> on \u003Ca href=\"https://unsplash.com/s/photos/complex-to-simple?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText\">Unsplash\u003C/a>\n",[9,677,701],{"slug":1996,"featured":6,"template":680},"mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-3-code-signing-for-ios-with-gitlab-and-fastlane","content:en-us:blog:mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-3-code-signing-for-ios-with-gitlab-and-fastlane.yml","Mobile Devops With Gitlab Part 3 Code Signing For Ios With Gitlab And Fastlane","en-us/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-3-code-signing-for-ios-with-gitlab-and-fastlane.yml","en-us/blog/mobile-devops-with-gitlab-part-3-code-signing-for-ios-with-gitlab-and-fastlane",{"_path":2002,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2003,"content":2009,"config":2014,"_id":2016,"_type":13,"title":2017,"_source":15,"_file":2018,"_stem":2019,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/optimizing-devops-visibility-in-gitlab-14",{"title":2004,"description":2005,"ogTitle":2004,"ogDescription":2005,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2006,"ogUrl":2007,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2007,"schema":2008},"Optimize DevOps with enhanced visibility tools in GitLab 14","How GitLab 14's end-to-end visibility and actionability can help users understand and improve delivery and alignment.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749665839/Blog/Hero%20Images/devops.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/optimizing-devops-visibility-in-gitlab-14","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Optimize DevOps with enhanced visibility tools in GitLab 14\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Cormac Foster\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2021-07-21\",\n      }",{"title":2004,"description":2005,"authors":2010,"heroImage":2006,"date":2011,"body":2012,"category":698,"tags":2013},[839],"2021-07-21","\n[DevOps makes teams and work more efficient](/topics/devops/how-and-why-to-create-devops-platform-team/), more consistent, and more productive – but how much more?\n\nOn its surface, the answer is simple. We need to measure workflow from idea to delivery, identify and remove blockers, and benchmark improvements in a manner that is consistent and replicable. The challenge is the way we've typically built the systems that hold the data we're trying to understand.\n\nEnhanced visibility tools are essential to measuring and optimizing modern DevOps processes, and mapping the work output to ensure the business outcomes that matter are achieved.\n\n## The failure of DIY DevOps\n\nMost businesses operate and maintain a multi-product \"DIY DevOps\" toolchain, but stitched-together applications with bespoke integrations don't lend themselves to visibility. Each component in the toolchain captures a unique set of data, with distinct formatting and metadata, logged to a siloed data store. Extracting, correlating, and displaying that data is a labor intensive chore – assuming the various APIs allow proper access at all. Poor visibility can lead to slow and imprecise decision-making and misalignment between teams, but building and maintaining visibility in DIY toolchain saps resources from your business, adding work instead of removing it.\n\n## A platform for visibility\n\nAt GitLab, we believe that stumbling in the dark and maintaining complex toolchains are not viable business strategies. We all deserve better, and [GitLab 14](/gitlab-14/) is the [DevOps platform](/topics/devops-platform/) that provides enhanced visibility without added work. As a complete DevOps platform, GitLab 14 is uniquely capable of delivering visibility into DevOps processes, surfacing out-of-the-box insights from across the product delivery lifecycle and helps users understand what works, what doesn't, and how to make improvements.\n\n## Metrics that matter\n\n![Lead Time for Changes helps you understand your team's velocity, agility, and efficiency, from the first code commit to production.](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/lead_time.png){: .shadow}\nLead Time for Changes helps you understand your team's velocity, agility, and efficiency.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nGitLab 14 delivers operational metrics to help users understand DevOps maturity and benchmark progress. The DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) firm demonstrated how DevOps maturity leads to positive business outcomes like happier customers, greater market share, and increased revenue. They've outlined [four key metrics](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/using-the-four-keys-to-measure-your-devops-performance) that are highly correlated with business performance, and GitLab 14 surfaces two of the four. [Deployment Frequency](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/ci_cd_analytics.html#deployment-frequency-charts) charts help monitor the efficiency of deployments over time, find bottlenecks, and understand when and how to improve deployment process. [Lead Time for Changes](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/ci_cd_analytics.html#lead-time-charts) helps users understand their team's velocity, agility, and efficiency – from the first code commit to all the way through production.\n\n## Actionable insights\n\n![Value Stream Analytics lets you zero in on value blockers and immediately remediate them.](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/value_stream_analytics.png){: .shadow}\nValue Stream Analytics lets you zero in on value blockers and immediately remediate them.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nAfter identifying opportunities for change, you should be able to take action right away with GitLab 14. Our [customizable Value Stream Analytics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/value_stream_analytics.html) tools allow teams to monitor specific workflows tailored to their particular needs and identify high-priority blockers to delivering value to customers.\n\nUnlike products that focus exclusively on visibility and discovery, GitLab 14 makes these insights actionable. With one click, users can move from identifying a merge request stuck in code review or an issue waiting for approval to solving the problem. Actionable insights removes wasteful loops of questions and clarifications, and allows all users to focus on productive work.\n\n## See for yourself\n\nWant to learn more? Learn how GitLab customers like [Crédit Agricole](/customers/credit-agricole/), [Hotjar](/customers/hotjar/),and [others](/customers/) are turning visiblity and and insights into business value, or take the next step and [try GitLab Ultimate for free](/free-trial/)!\n\nThis blog is part two in a three-part series on some of the top features of GitLab 14. Learn more about how GitLab 14 includes some of the [top Security features in part one](/blog/are-you-ready-for-the-newest-era-of-devsecops/). \n",[677,9],{"slug":2015,"featured":6,"template":680},"optimizing-devops-visibility-in-gitlab-14","content:en-us:blog:optimizing-devops-visibility-in-gitlab-14.yml","Optimizing Devops Visibility In Gitlab 14","en-us/blog/optimizing-devops-visibility-in-gitlab-14.yml","en-us/blog/optimizing-devops-visibility-in-gitlab-14",{"_path":2021,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2022,"content":2028,"config":2035,"_id":2037,"_type":13,"title":2038,"_source":15,"_file":2039,"_stem":2040,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-a-gentle-introduction",{"title":2023,"description":2024,"ogTitle":2023,"ogDescription":2024,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2025,"ogUrl":2026,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2026,"schema":2027},"How to optimize your value exchange system","Part one of a pragmatic, business-driven guide to help teams transition from fixating on output to optimizing the value exchange with their customers.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749672701/Blog/Hero%20Images/post-1-cover.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-a-gentle-introduction","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How to optimize your value exchange system\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Gabe Weaver\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-12-16\",\n      }",{"title":2023,"description":2024,"authors":2029,"heroImage":2025,"date":2031,"body":2032,"category":971,"tags":2033},[2030],"Gabe Weaver","2019-12-16","*Reading time: 8 minutes, 28 seconds*\n\n## The problem \n\nBuilding software products is **really** hard. Building an enduring company is even harder. We are constantly looking to [hire](https://www.christenseninstitute.org/jobs-to-be-done/) solutions to help us do this quickly and with as little risk as possible. Companies hire Agile ([R.I.P](https://pragdave.me/blog/time-to-kill-agile.html)) because they believe it will help them be more adaptable, increase productivity, and accelerate software delivery. They hire DevOps as a natural companion to increase speed, reduce defects, safely deploy code, and improve the resilience of infrastructures. \n\nWhile these solutions are directionally correct, we have a long way to go:\n\n- Software failures cost the U.S. economy over [$1t annually](https://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2017/oct/30/glitch-economy-counting-cost-software-failures/).\n- Only 56% of startups [make it to their fourth year](https://smallbiztrends.com/2019/03/startup-statistics-small-business.html).\n- [~40%](https://newproductsuccess.org/new-product-failure-rates-2013-jpim-30-pp-976-979/) of new products fail.\n- Only [6% of teams](https://www.stateofagile.com/#ufh-i-521251909-13th-annual-state-of-agile-report/473508) report that Agile (long live agility) practices are enabling greater adaptability to changing market conditions.\n\nTo get better, we need to fundamentally shift the way we approach building software products and companies. Through a fictitious story about a company called Acme Co., I'm going to provide a pragmatic, business-driven approach of how we can get there. The first step is to change how we define success. We need to move from **output to outcomes**. \n\n## The basics of the value exchange system\n\nI've worked with a lot of companies over the years. Most of them measure the success of product teams by how much they ship. In [Escaping The Build Trap](https://melissaperri.com/book), Melissa Perri correctly identifies the problem with this and the root cause -- companies misunderstand value. As she succinctly describes in her book:\n\n> Instead of associating value with the outcomes they want to create for their businesses and customers, they measure value by the number of things they produce. Let’s go back to the basics to determine what true value is. Fundamentally, companies operate on a value exchange. \n\nShe uses a simple diagram to illustrate the value exchange system:\n\n\u003Cbr>\n![A Simplified Value Exchange System Diagram](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/value-exchange-simple-diagram.png)\n\n\u003Cbr>\nCompanies build products to serve as vehicles for value delivery. When the customer's problems, needs, and wants are fulfilled, they provide value back to the business. Business value is easy to define, as it typically maps to achieving traditional objectives that are universal to all companies:\n\n- **Sustainable Value:** Support the product's core value and create barriers to competition.\n- **Growth:** Grow market share, fulfill more demand, develop new markets, and improve recurring revenue.\n- **Profit:** Support higher prices, improve lifetime value, lower costs, and leverage existing assets.\n\nWhile these are easily measurable, customer value is often more intangible; making it difficult to define and correlate to business objectives. This leads companies to create proxies to represent value that are more straightforward to comprehend and measure -- such as things shipped.\n\nAs we discussed earlier, companies hire solutions like Agile (long live agility) and DevOps because they want to increase the speed and productivity of their value delivery system. The Value Exchange System is a [reinforcing loop](https://thesystemsthinker.com/reinforcing-and-balancing-loops-building-blocks-of-dynamic-systems/), so it naturally follows that if you increase the speed at which you deliver value, you will, therefore, increase the amount of value you capture from your customers. Companies are so fixated on optimizing for speed that a whole market of productivity analytics is emerging to track and report it. For example, the hook on the landing page of a prominent tool on the market promises to help you \"measure your team's success\" by surfacing velocity data to see how fast your team is going. \n\nWhile speed and productivity are good things, optimizing for them in a silo will have a minimal overall impact on increasing the positive reinforcement to the system. This is because output does not necessarily result in outcomes. We need to optimize both how we deliver _and_ capture value. To better understand why, let's jump into an all so common dilemma Acme is currently trying to overcome.\n\n## Let's Meet Acme Co.\n\n> “Bounded rationality means that people make quite reasonable decisions based on the information they have. But they don’t have perfect information, especially about more distant parts of the system.” -- [Thinking In Systems](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557)\n\nAcme is a tech company that provides IoT devices and AI-driven insights to help logistics companies improve the efficiency of their operations. Acme has seen remarkable success over the last several years by leveraging a common growth strategy of steadily increasing investment in R&D, marketing, and selling to capture market share as quickly as possible. While not yet profitable, they believe there is an imminent inflection point where their investment in R&D will begin to pay off, resulting in revenue growth disproportionate to operating expenses. This has been playing out as expected, but the executive team is starting to get concerned given some financial trends over the last few quarters. \n\n| | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Revenue | 36.7 | 44.0 | 48.4 | 50.9 |\n| COGS | 2.2 | 4.0 | 4.8 | 4.6 |\n| **Net Sales** | **34.5** | **40.1** | **43.6** | **46.3** |\n| *Margin* | *94%* | *91%* | *90%* | *91%* |\n|  |  |  |  |  |\n| R&D | 16.5 | 18.3 | 20.3 | 22.7 |\n| Marketing | 4.1 | 5.2 | 6.6 | 7.4 |\n| Sales | 15.0 | 17.8 | 19.9 | 21.2 |\n| G&A | 1.6 | 2.1 | 2.3 | 2.9 |\n| **Total OpEx** | **37.2** | **43.4** | **49.1** | **54.2** |\n| |  |  |  |  |\n| **Net Profit** | **-2.7** | **-3.3** | **-5.5** | **-7.9** |\n| *Profit Margin* | *-7%* | *-8%* | *-11%* | *-16%* |\n\nAcme's board set a -20% acceptable risk threshold for the net profit margin. It believes, that if necessary, it will be able to quickly reduce the deficit through strategic cost-cutting measures. It's clear from the financials that the company is on course to hit the threshold and the executives are scrambling to understand why. They have been easily converting customers from their competitors and are nowhere close to saturating their addressable market. They are investing heavily in delivering new product capabilities and scaling the sales organization to capture the value in return. The executive team decides to create a dedicated cross-functional working group to investigate and solve the problem. \n\n## Practicing kaizen with the improvement kata\n\nThe challenge before the working group is daunting. Acme is an incredibly complex system with hundreds of people and moving parts. They decide to adopt a management processes from the Toyota Product System developed by Taiichi Ohno. The group reviews what it means to practice continuous improvement - [kaizen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen) - by employing a technique called the Improvement Kata.\n\n![Diagram of the Improvement Kata](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/toyota-kata.png){: .center}\n\nThe first thing the group needs to decide is which direction to focus on first. If the challenge is to increase profits, that could be accomplished in a few different ways - increase the growth rate of revenue or decrease operating expenses. Looking at the financials, revenue growth has declined from an average of 20% per quarter to only 5% in the most recent. Given Acme has a sizeable market left to capture, and decreasing R&D spend at this point could hurt their long term growth targets, the group sets a target condition of getting revenue growth back to 10%. This feels like an obtainable goal within the quarter and will demonstrate forward progress to the executives.\n\nWith a target condition in hand, their next task is to identify the root cause of the decline in revenue growth and conduct experiments to reach their goal. They set out to connect with the sales team to begin their investigation. \n\n##  Why is revenue growth declining?\n\nAs the working group sits down with the sales team to review numbers, they use the [5 why's](https://medium.com/productmanagement101/learn-about-the-five-whys-technique-78283d75800f) to try to understand where things are going wrong:\n\n- **Why is revenue growth declining?** The sales team shares that conversion rates from new revenue are holding steady, but their conversion rates from up-sells have fallen dramatically.\n- **Why are up-sells declining?** According to the sales team, Acme is not delivering capabilities fast enough that it had promised during the sales cycle.\n- **Why did the sales team set expectations for capabilities that weren't built yet?** The sales team explained that enterprise customers have complex needs that aren't supported in Acme's core product capabilities yet. To keep up with sales quotas, they found that walking prospects through Acme's product roadmap usually gets the deal over the line. Based on the roadmap and the planned release dates, they had not seen this as a risk because things were expected to be delivered within the customer's acceptable time ranges. \n- **Why weren't things delivered within the customer's acceptable time range?** In further discussions, the sales team reveals that they feel R&D is delivering new features at an increasingly slower rate quarter over quarter.\n- **Why is R&D slowing down on value delivery?** At first glance, R&D's output metrics are consistent month-over-month relative to headcount. While the sales team helped the working group see that lost opportunities in up-sells were driving lower growth rates; it didn't make sense. The group decides to head over to R&D to better understand the value delivery system.\n\n## The importance of measuring the value delivery stream\n\nTo prepare for collaborating with the R&D team, the working group spends a few minutes reviewing the team's productivity metrics. To the surprise of the group, R&D only has one primary metric everyone on the team tracks consistently - the count of work items delivered. As the working group starts discussions with R&D, they explain that the executives set output objectives as a means of measuring the team's success. The rationale for this was due to the way the product is bundled and priced. The categories all roll up into one pricing model and it was difficult for the finance team to figure out a way to attribute revenue to the various categories. They had ultimately decided that measuring productivity was the next best thing.    \n\nSo if work item output is the goal and R&D's output has been consistent quarter over quarter, why was the sales team convinced R&D was slowing down on value delivery? To understand this, the working group needed to better understand the flow of items through the value delivery process within the Value Exchange System. To do this, they generated a simplified value stream map to visualize the stages a work item goes through as it is converted from requirements to a production feature.  \n\n\u003Cbr>\n\n![Acme's Value Stream Map](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/d1.png){: .center}\n\n_Acme's Value Stream Map. Cycle Time = Time in queue + active time + time waiting once started_\n\nThe value stream map reveals that the total lead time for a work item is 2,132 hours (88 days). This is an astonishing revelation to the working group; especially since they didn't include the time a work item spends waiting between when a customer requests a feature and the team starts the planning process. Even though the R&D team delivered ~3,100 work items last month, it took well over three months to satisfy customer requests. The working group needs to collect more data, but they know they are on the right track. Before synthesizing a hypothesis, they finish collecting additional historical metrics to confirm their suspicions. \n\n| | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Items Delivered | 2,275 | 2,524 | 2,800 | 3,131 |\n| Lead Time | 31 | 52 | 69 | 88 |\n| Cost Per Item Delivered | 7,250 | 7,250 | 7,250 | 7,250 |\n\nBased on the data, the working group notices the strong correlation between the increase in lead time and the decrease in up-sell revenue growth. Given their target condition for the upcoming quarter, they create the following hypothesis: \n\n> Decreasing the lead time by ~35% will enable customer requests to be completed 18 days earlier, resulting in a 5% increase in revenue growth\n\nWith a falsifiable hypothesis in hand, they shift their attention to figuring out the best approach for running an experiment. \n\nContinue reading:\n\n- Part 1: A Gentle(ish) Introduction\n- Part 2 (Next): [Reduce Waste To Increase Flow](/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-reduce-waste-to-increase-flow/\n)\n- Part 3: [The Compounding Value Of Shorter Feedback Loops](/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-the-compounding-value-of-shorter-feedback-loops/)\n\n ***Giving credit where it is due:** In [Escaping The Build Trap](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/escaping-the-build/9781491973783/ch01.html), Melissa Perri discusses the Value Exchange System at length and provides unparalleled wisdom for modern-day product managers. The Improvement Kata, Kanban, and Toyota Production System would not exist today if it weren't for Taiichi Ohno. His work has been foundational to many other systems and processes that have evolved over the years.* \n\nCover Photo by Cristina Gottardi on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/boxam4k4rQw)\n",[9,2034,723],"startups",{"slug":2036,"featured":6,"template":680},"optimizing-the-value-exchange-a-gentle-introduction","content:en-us:blog:optimizing-the-value-exchange-a-gentle-introduction.yml","Optimizing The Value Exchange A Gentle Introduction","en-us/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-a-gentle-introduction.yml","en-us/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-a-gentle-introduction",{"_path":2042,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2043,"content":2049,"config":2053,"_id":2055,"_type":13,"title":2056,"_source":15,"_file":2057,"_stem":2058,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-reduce-waste-to-increase-flow",{"title":2044,"description":2045,"ogTitle":2044,"ogDescription":2045,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2046,"ogUrl":2047,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2047,"schema":2048},"Optimizing The Value Exchange: Reduce Waste To Increase Flow","Part two of a pragmatic, business-driven guide to help teams transition from fixating on output to optimizing the value exchange with their customers.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749672713/Blog/Hero%20Images/post-2-cover.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-reduce-waste-to-increase-flow","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Optimizing The Value Exchange: Reduce Waste To Increase Flow\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Gabe Weaver\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-12-16\",\n      }",{"title":2044,"description":2045,"authors":2050,"heroImage":2046,"date":2031,"body":2051,"category":971,"tags":2052},[2030],"If you're new to the series, checkout Part 1: [A Gentle(ish) Introduction](/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-a-gentle-introduction/\n)\n\n_Reading time: 13 minutes, 32 seconds_\n\n## Learning To Identify Waste\n\n> “Systems behavior is particularly sensitive to the goals of feedback loops. If the goals-the indicators of satisfaction of the rules - are defined inaccurately or incompletely, the system may obediently work to produce a result that is not really intended or wanted.” -- [Thinking In Systems](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557)\n\nSince following the Improvement Kata has gotten the group this far, they decide to use another concept from the Toyota Production System (TPS) -- waste reduction. To increase flow through the value delivery system, they start by looking at steps in the workflow that do not add any intrinsic value. TPS categorizes waste into 8 distinct types:\n\n- **Talent:** Underutilizing people's talents, skills, and knowledge.\n- **Inventory:** Excess products and materials not being processed.\n- **Motion:** Unnecessary movements by people.\n- **Waiting:** Wasted time waiting for the next step in a process. \n- **Transportation:** Unnecessary movements of products and materials.\n- **Defects:** Efforts caused by rework, scrap, and incorrect information.\n- **Overproduction:** Production that is more than needed or before it is needed.\n- **Overprocessing:** More work or higher quality than is required by the customer. \n\nWith this in mind, the working group pulls up their value stream map and immediately identifies a common theme across stages in the flow - some stages have a high amount of time spent waiting. The group quickly adds this up to understand the impact.\n\n![Acme's Value Stream Map - Time waiting](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/d2.png){: .center}\n\nIn total, work items spend ~85 days waiting between queues or waiting for additional work needed from other parts of the R&D team. The group is speechless as they realize that it only takes around 3 days of actual labor to move a work item through the value delivery stream. They decide this is the right place to start and prioritize their efforts based on which cycles have the highest amount of time in waiting:\n\n1. **Build** - 863 hours in a queue, 613 hours once a work item has started.\n2. **Plan** - 362 hours once a work item has started.\n3. **Review** - 27 hours in a queue, 95 hours once a work item has started.\n4. **Canary** - 73 hours in a queue.\n5. **Prod** - 22 hours in a queue.\n6. **Staging** - 1 hour in a queue.\n\nThe group is excited about their discovery and is eager to share it with the engineering team. When they sit down and show them the numbers, the engineers are surprised. The conversation continues with the engineers talking through what it looks like for a single engineer in a typical week. The working group captures it in a diagram and confirms with the engineers that it is representative of the conversation.\n\n![Sequence Diagram](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/sequence-diagram.png){: .center}\n\nThe group asks the engineers how they feel about this workflow. They're generally supportive as they don't see an alternative to this despite it being extremely heavy on the context switching. The working group still needs to figure out how to reduce the waiting time for work items in this stage and eliminated unneccessary waiting is a logical place to start. They present their target condition and ask the engineers for suggestions. The engineers feel strongly that the code review process is imperative to maintain code quality. One engineer suggests the team could try pair programming. He heard that it can increase code quality. It would also remove the Review stage entirely as two people contribute to the same work item until it is fully completed.\n\nThey debated back and forth. Many felt that it would slow everything down even more because they would only be able to do half the work they had been doing up to that point. The engineer who brought it up in the first place pointed to an a [experiment](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20030012934.pdf) where NASA engineers completed two like-size projects - one as they normally would and one strictly following [Extreme Programming](http://www.extremeprogramming.org/); which includes a mix of practices like pair programming, collective code ownership, TDD, and small iterations. He presented the team with the following data:\n\n| | Non-XP Projet | XP Project |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| LOC/Hour | 24 | 27 |\n| Util/test LOC | 0 | 1,135 |\n| Prod LOC | 2,144 | 912 |\n| Total LOC | 2,144 | 2,545 |\n\nHe explained that part of the reason why the team was able to produce less production code at a faster overall rate was due to the pair pushing each other not to cut corners by focusing on quality; ruthlessly refactoring code as they went. He also discussed the concept of the driver and navigator roles, and how that led to better architecture decisions the first time around. The engineers were skeptical but were willing to give it a try. Together, everyone agreed that the engineers would run an experiment to try pair programming for the upcoming quarter. They also agreed to only work on one item from start to merged before picking up the next item.\n\n## Increased flow does not equal increased value\n\nAt the end of the quarter, the working group got together to review an updated value stream map. \n\n![Acme's Value Stream Map - Updated](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/d3.png){: .center}\n\nThe work in progress limits and pair programming dramatically improved flow through the value stream. Lead time dropped to 893 hours or 37 days. A 57% reduction was much better than the working group had anticipated. The books for the quarter weren't closed, but the working group knew it was going to be a huge win. They eagerly shared the results with the executive team.\n\nAs the quarterly financials were released, the group got a call from the CFO. He was disappointed. He had expected to not only achieve the 5% incremental revenue growth but do much better given the results of the experiment. The working group was stunned. Revenue growth only increased from 5% to 9%. Despite missing the mark, the executives agreed to continue sponsoring the working group as it did produce tangible results and business outcomes. \n\n**Financials**\n\n| | Previous | Current | \n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Revenue | 50.9 | 55.4 |\n| COGS | 4.6 | 5.0 |\n| **Net Sales** | **46.3** | **50.1** |\n| *Margin* | *91%* | *91%* |\n|  |  |  |\n| R&D | 22.7 | 23.1 | \n| Marketing | 7.4 | 8 |\n| Sales | 21.2 | 22.9 |\n| G&A | 2.9 | 3.8 |\n| **Total OpEx** | **54.2** | **57.8** |\n| |  |  |\n| **Net Profit** | **-7.9** | **-7.3** |\n| *Profit Margin* | *-16%* | *-13%* |\n\n\u003Cbr>\n**Value Delivery Economics**\n\n| | Previous | Current |\n| --- | --- | --- | \n| Items Delivered | 3,131 | 5,002 |\n| Lead Time | 88 | 37 |\n| Cost Per Item Delivered | 7,250 | 4,617 |\n\nThey combed through the financials and productivity metrics to figure out what had happened. The value delivery system had become much more efficient. The cost per item delivered decreased. What went wrong? They circled back to where they started with the sales team to ask for an update. The sales team reported that they still felt like speed on delivering customer requests was moving slowly. It had gotten a little bit better in a few areas, but overall it was having a nominal impact on fixing the problem of declining up-sell rates. Determined to get to the bottom of things, the working group decides to dig a bit deeper into the kind of work flowing through the R&D value stream. \n\nThis is what they discovered upon further investigation into the breakdown on types of work items R&D was delivering:\n\n| | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q1 |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Feature | 63% | 46% | 38% | 44% |\n| Defect | 13% | 22% | 29% | 36% |\n| Technical Debt | 24% | 32% | 33% | 20% |\n\nA light bulb clicked. No wonder the sales team felt like things were moving slowly. The amount of new value being delivered to customers was near an all-time low. It was certainly better than the previous quarter thanks to the improvement in lead time, but this trend was concerning to the group. \n\nAs they followed the same path from the first time around, they connected with the R&D team to ask questions. After presenting the work item breakdown by type, R&D was not surprised at all. They look at this ratio quite often. When the group asked them why they hadn't surfaced this earlier, they explained that the pace of constant feature prioritization over the last several years gave the team little extra time to refactor parts of the codebase that were critical to the value delivery system. \n\nIn continuing to listen intently, the team conveyed that they had brought this up on several occasions. Upper management insisted that the team focus on creating new value to fuel the growth targets set by the company leaders. The team also explained that because the company has SLAs with customers, they have had to prioritize severe defects over new features; leaving little time for anything else. \n\nA product manager stepped forward and openly confessed that he regularly makes pacts with his engineering manager to repay technical debt in short order if they would do whatever it took to get the feature shipped. He said they rarely followed through to go back and clean up technical debt. Everyone in the meeting confirmed that this was an acceptable practice. The working group started to see the long term consequences that are so easily masked by strong financial growth. As the R&D team cut corners to ship features, technical debt mounted. Unable to take the time to address it, defect count had started increasing at a consistent rate. The R&D team now had to split focus across three different areas - trying to keep the lights on, delivering new value, and trying to find time to repay the technical debt. \n\n![Technical Debt Diagram](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/tech-debt.jpg){: .center}\n\nDespite this revelation, the working group was still responsible for delivering on their target condition. Now it was on them to convince leadership to take technical debt seriously. As they mulled over ways to present this, they asked for a report of all the inventory that was waiting to be produced. For this to resonate with the executives, they needed to communicate it in a way that provided justifiable business reasons to throttle back on feature development. They calculated the cost per quarter that the company was spending on work that did not add intrinsic customer value or positively reinforce the Value Exchange System.\n\n| | Type | Quarterly Cost |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Features | 38% | 8.8 | \n| Defects | 22% | 5.1 | \n| Tech Debt | 40% | 9.2 | \n\nThe company was investing $14.3 million in activities that did not have any tangible impact on driving revenue growth. This was something the leadership team could not ignore. As they presented their case, the executives were concerned that slowing down on feature development in any way would adversely impact revenue growth. The working group talked around this by helping them understand that slowing down for a little bit right now would enable them to accelerate much faster as they would be able to more than double their investment in value-adding features once defects and technical debt were in check. The leadership agreed to the working group's proposal. \n\nOver the next few quarters, R&D invested heavily in paying down technical debt and reducing defects. They also made optimizations to the value stream and were able to replace both the staging and canary environments by deploying directly to production behind feature flags. Product managers were able to test things out in production and as soon as a feature was ready for release, they clicked a button and it would become incrementally available to everyone. New defects were at an all-time low and the team was confident all of the efforts would produce huge dividends. \n\nThe working group double-checked the value stream in anticipation of reviewing the quarterly financials that contained the first full quarter where the team spent 80% of their time on value-adding features. \n\n![Acme's Value Stream Map - 80% features%](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/d4.png){: .center}\n\n**Value Delivery Economics**\n\n| | W/ Tech Debt | 80% Features |\n| --- | --- | --- | \n| Items Delivered | 5,002 | 11,467 |\n| Lead Time | 37 | 11.9 |\n| Cost Per Item Delivered | 4,617 | 2,014 |\n\nThey were pleased with their value stream. It was fine-tuned, waste-free, and incredibly efficient.  Leads times were hovering around 286 hours (11.9 days). The company had continued to invest in scaling the R&D team and they were able to churn out an astonishing 11,467 work items. But then came the financials. \n\n| | W/ Tech Debt | Paying It Down | 80% Features | \n| --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Revenue | 55.4 | 57.7 | 68.04 |\n| COGS | 5.0 | 5.2 | 6.1 |\n| **Net Sales** | **50.5** | **52.5** | **61.9** |\n| *Margin* | *91%* | *91%* | *91%* |\n|  |  |  | |\n| R&D | 23.1 | 25.3 | 27.2 | \n| Marketing | 8 | 8.9 | 9.6 |\n| Sales | 22.9 | 24 | 25.6 |\n| G&A | 3.8 | 5.1 | 6.4 |\n| **Total OpEx** | **57.8** | **63.3** | **68.8** |\n| |  |  | |\n| **Net Profit** | **-7.3** | **-10.8** | **-6.9** |\n| *Profit Margin* | *-13%* | *-19%* | *-10%* |\n\nThey only improved revenue growth rates by 9 points, from 9% to 18%. The working group was surprised the CFO hadn't called. When they checked their calendars, a week-long onsite meeting had been scheduled with heads from every division at the company. It wasn't all too surprising. They continued to fail to meet the mark, but could not figure out why. The cost per work item had been reduced by 72%. Investment in value-adding work items was at an unprecedented all-time high. The value delivery stream was a well-oiled machine, but growth rates weren't responding.\n\nAs the working group prepared to meet their fate, they decided to conduct a retrospective to try to gain an understanding of where they went wrong. During the conversation, one of the group members reminded the team of the earlier conversation with R&D discussing success metrics; where R&D recounted that Acme had never really figured out how to more formally tie business outcomes to the output they were creating. The group didn't know the answer, but they agreed to spend some time before the on-site to explore the topic.\n\nThe group talked to peers at other companies and read as many books as they could get their hands on. One of them was [The Goal](https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951/ref=asc_df_0884271951/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312175933381&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10925659369993672127&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031326&hvtargid=pla-434522630098&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=60258871817&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312175933381&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10925659369993672127&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031326&hvtargid=pla-434522630098) by Eliyahu Goldratt, a story much similar to the journey that the working group had been on. As the group discussed the book, they finally realized the fatal flaw they had made -- they had spent all of their time fixated on trying to achieve the local maximum of R&D instead of aligning the feedback loops between the value delivery system and the value capture system. \n\nThe most effective way to do this is by focusing on the efficiency of the Value Exchange System as a whole. As the group learned, this can be accomplished by measuring the Value Exchange System's throughput. It's important to note that this kind of throughput should not be confused with the definition in Kanban (work output), but rather the rate at which a system generates revenue through sales. The group had achieved a new level of alignment...almost. To start measuring this, they first needed to learn more about throughput accounting. \n\n## Throughput Accounting 101\n\n> “The most marvelous characteristic of some complex systems is their ability to learn, diversify, complexify, and evolve…Like resilience, self-organization is often sacrificed for purposes of short-term productivity and stability. Productivity and stability are the usual excuses for turning creative human beings into mechanical adjuncts to production processes.” -- [Thinking In Systems](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557)\n\nIn stark contrast to cost-based accounting, [throughput accounting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throughput_accounting) prioritizes value creation over cost-cutting. It consists of [three primary metrics](https://www.amazon.com/Scaling-Lean-Mastering-Metrics-Startup/dp/1101980524):\n\n- **Throughput** is the rate at which monetizable value is generated from a company's customers over their lifetime minus any variable costs such as the cost of customer acquisition. \n- **Inventory** represents all of the money a company has invested into the Value Exchange System including current product capabilities, unfinished goods (requirements, features, job stories, etc.), equipment, and infrastructure. \n- **Operating Expenses** are the costs expended turning inventory into throughput. This includes research and development, sales, and general expenses. \n\nThese metrics are then built up to determine the financial health of a given Value Exchange System:\n\n- **Throughput (T)** = Lifetime Value (LTV) - Cost of Customer Acquisition (COCA)\n- **Profit (P)** = Total Throughput (T) - Operating Expenses (OE)\n- **Return On Investment (ROI)** = Profit (P) / Inventory (I)\n\nHere is where the differences between cost-based accounting and throughput accounting start to manifest. As Ash Maurya, points out in Scaling Lean:\n\n> Cost-based accounting places more emphasis on the right-hand side of the profit equation — decrease operating expenses. It focuses on scalable efficiency and squeezing out costs — especially labor costs. This typically manifests itself as policies requiring detailed weekly timesheets broken down by task, as well as downsizing, outsourcing, and other cost-reducing measures.\n\n> It is much more powerful to try to affect the left-hand side of the profit equation — increase throughput — because cost-cutting has a theoretical limit of zero. Increasing throughput has no theoretical upper limit. You can find ways to add more value to an existing product, build more add-on products, or expand the market — provided, of course, that these efforts lead to a positive return on investment.\n\nWhat's also important about looking at the Value Exchange System through the lens of throughput accounting is that it provides the preferred order for where to focus optimization efforts:\n\n1. Throughput\n1. Decreasing inventory\n1. Reducing operating expenses\n\n## The Universal Goal\n\nAs Eliyahu Goldratt, creator of throughput accounting and author of [The Goal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_(novel)), frames it:\n\n> The universal goal of every business is to increase throughput while minimizing inventory and operating expenses provided doing that doesn't degrade throughput\n\nThe working group was starting to think differently. Throughput accounting provides a simple, but powerful decision support framework. Every target condition should map to one of three desired outcomes in the Value Exchange System - increase throughput (T), reduce investment (I), or reduce operating expenses (OE). It's also important to point out that throughput accounting does not use the balance sheet to [stash deferred expenses](https://www.scienceofbusiness.com/throughput-accounting/) to be realized later. This is a practice that many companies use to manipulate the income statement depending on the kind of story they want to tell. This ultimately masks the true health of the Value Exchange System. \n\nWhile excited about what they are learning, the working group was still a bit stumped about how to implement it within Acme in a way that would help drive improved revenue growth and profitability. They weren't able to formalize a proposal in time for the onsite, but they were now equipped with some better data points around why they had failed and planned to share the news with the executive group.\n\nContinue reading:\n\n- Part 1: [A Gentle(ish) Introduction](/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-a-gentle-introduction/\n)\n- Part 2 : Reduce Waste To Increase Flow\n- Part 3 (Next): [The Compounding Value Of Shorter Feedback Loops](/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-the-compounding-value-of-shorter-feedback-loops/)\n\n***Giving credit where it is due:** Throughput Accounting and the Theory Of Constraints was originally pioneered by Eliyahu Goldratt. Introduced in his book, [The Goal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_(novel)), these concepts have revolutionized the way businesses operate.*",[9,2034,723],{"slug":2054,"featured":6,"template":680},"optimizing-the-value-exchange-reduce-waste-to-increase-flow","content:en-us:blog:optimizing-the-value-exchange-reduce-waste-to-increase-flow.yml","Optimizing The Value Exchange Reduce Waste To Increase Flow","en-us/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-reduce-waste-to-increase-flow.yml","en-us/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-reduce-waste-to-increase-flow",{"_path":2060,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2061,"content":2067,"config":2071,"_id":2073,"_type":13,"title":2074,"_source":15,"_file":2075,"_stem":2076,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-the-compounding-value-of-shorter-feedback-loops",{"title":2062,"description":2063,"ogTitle":2062,"ogDescription":2063,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2064,"ogUrl":2065,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2065,"schema":2066},"Optimizing The Value Exchange: The Compounding Value Of Shorter Feedback Loops","Part three of a pragmatic, business-driven guide to help teams transition from fixating on output to optimizing the value exchange with their customers.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749672726/Blog/Hero%20Images/post-3-cover.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-the-compounding-value-of-shorter-feedback-loops","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Optimizing The Value Exchange: The Compounding Value Of Shorter Feedback Loops\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Gabe Weaver\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-12-16\",\n      }",{"title":2062,"description":2063,"authors":2068,"heroImage":2064,"date":2031,"body":2069,"category":971,"tags":2070},[2030],"If you're new to the series, checkout Part 1: [A Gentle(ish) Introduction](/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-a-gentle-introduction/\n)\n\n*Reading time: 12 minutes, 8 seconds*\n\n## The Problem Of The Tree Swing\n\n> “The most powerful ways to influence the behavior of a system is through its purpose or goal. That’s because the goal is the direction-setter of the system, the definer of discrepancies that require action, the indicator of compliance, failure, or success toward which balancing feedback loops work.” -- [Thinking In Systems](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557)\n\nThe working group sat down with the leadership and department heads; things were tense. The CEO announced some major news -- the board planned to start cutting R&D budget in an attempt to drive profitability. A hiring freeze would be put into effect if profitability wasn't achieved within the next fiscal year. The board would also be considering a massive round of layoffs as an extreme measure. Everyone in the room understood the stark reality of the situation. There was a fundamental problem in how the company was operating.  \n\nAs discussions progressed, the team reviewed the dozens of major initiatives that had shipped over the last several quarters. As they went through these one-by-one, it was not immediately clear how they impacted business outcomes. Sales said that they were all the things customers requested. Product said they talked to the customers and had a validation process for work items during the planning stage. Someone from the working group asked a focusing question -- how does Acme understand how a product capability is used once it has been delivered to a customer? The roadmap was supposedly organized by needs that customers had expressed, but nothing was linking them to quantifiable changes in customer behavior that would result in specific business outcomes.\n\nProduct said they measured certain kinds of activities, but it didn't help them get a clear sense of whether something was working or not. Sales said that account managers regularly checked in with customers and kept track of the feedback. Customer support mentioned they share tickets with product from time-to-time. To grasp where the root issues were in the product, the team decided to call customers that requested features but hadn't fully adopted them. After dozens of interviews and ethnographic observations, everyone started to see a common pattern emerge.\n\n![Insert Tree Diagram](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/tree-swing.jpeg){: .center}\n\nAcme wasn't building what customers needed. How had this happened? Each team interpreted things differently; each with a slight bias based on their functional area. They were never fully aligned. Even worse, they didn't understand what their customers needed to move their own businesses forward. They just built what they thought customers wanted. This is the essence of the tree swing problem. \n\nThe working group shared their revelation about optimizing for the wrong thing within R&D and suggested reviewing how success was being measured across the company. Each department pulled up their objectives and key results. Nearly all of them were aimed at each department seeking local maximum. Sales had their quotas to meet. R&D had specific output targets. Customer support was focused on triaging and closing tickets as quickly as possible. The company had grown rapidly, but that just amplified the underlying problems. The signal had been completely lost in the noise.\n\nAs the systemic problems became clear, the working group presented the concept of throughput accounting and how it could help align the organization around a single measure of success. The other team members were skeptical. Nothing else was working and the worst-case scenario was already upon them. Acme finally agreed to give it a try. They spent the next several days discussing what the transition would look like and the mechanics of how it could be measured. They also tackled ways to create tighter alignment across functional areas of the company. Together, they came up with a list of core things they would implement - all to shift the focus from measuring output to measuring outcomes.\n\n## Adopt throughput accounting over cost-based accounting\n\nThe first thing they tackled was converting their traditional cost-based accounting model to the throughput accounting model. They still maintained the traditional models for public reporting, but internally, they would make decisions based upon ROI as defined in throughput accounting.\n\nAcme's original cost-based approach for the previous quarter:\n\n| Income Statement | Previous Period |\n| --- | --- |\n| Revenue | 68.0 |\n| COGS | 6.1 |\n| **Net Sales** | **61.9** |\n| _Margin_ | _91%_ |\n|  |  |\n| R&D | 27.2 |\n| Marketing | 9.6 | \n| Sales | 25.6 | \n| G&A | 6.4 |\n| **Total OpEx** | **68.8** |\n| |  |\n| **Net Profit** | **-6.9** |\n| _Profit Margin_ | _-10%_ |\n\nAcme's original balance sheet for the previous quarter (simplified of course):\n\n| Balance Statement | Previous Period |\n| --- | --- |\n| Cash | 201.2 |\n| Accounts Receivable | 3.1 |\n| Goodwill (Product/Intangibles Last 2 Qs) | 52.4 (25.2 + 27.2) |\n| | |\n| **Total Assets** | **284.7** |\n|  |  |\n| Current Liabilities | 16.9 |\n| Long Term Liabilities | 21.5 | \n| **Total Liabilities** | **38.4** | \n|  | |\n| Retained Earnings | -6.9 |\n| Shareholder's Equity | 253.2 |\n| |  |\n| **Total Liabilities & Equity** | **284.7** |\n\nThe working group explained how this approach artificially rewarded the company by converting expenses in R&D to an intangible goodwill asset. There is no feedback on how that asset generates and captures value -- throughput. It also came to light that the financial team was deferring certain R&D expenses as a way to bolster performance on the income statement in the short term. They had planned to realize the expenses when Acme hit the inflection point as a tax mitigation strategy, but that never happened. \n\nOnce they were finished converting their financials to throughput accounting, they were overwhelmed by the reality of their situation.\n\n| TA | Previous Period |\n| --- | --- |\n| Revenue | 68.0 |\n| Total Variable Costs (COCA) | 13.6 |\n| **Throughput** | **54.4** |\n| _Efficiency_ | _80%_ |\n|  |  |\n| R&D | 34.2 |\n| Marketing | 2.1 | \n| Sales | 25.6 | \n| G&A | 6.4 |\n| **Total OpEx** | **68.3** |\n| | |\n| **Profit** | **-13.8** |\n| | |\n| Inventory: Goodwill (previous quarter R&D) | 25.2 |\n| Inventory: 6 Months of Requirements | 120,868 |\n| **Total Inventory** | **120,893.2** |\n| | |\n| **Return On Investment** |  **-.01%** = (-13.8/120,893.2) |\n\nSince thoughput accounting (TA) defines inventory as completed and uncompleted assets within the Value Exchange System, Acme's ROI was tanked by all of the work waiting to be completed. The powerful thing that this helped Acme understand was that creating more inventory drains the overall return on investment. It also learned that by treating some of the variable costs related to COCA as an operating expense, they missed critical opportunities for increasing the efficiency of marketing operations.\n\nLooking at the financials through this perspective, Acme struggled to determine where to focus their efforts. The ongoing conversation about this exposed another critical flaw in how Acme had been approaching the Value Exchange System. Due to the speed at which they had scaled, 60,000+ work items piled up in their backlog. They struggled to understand their potential impact and effectively map them to customer and business outcomes. A product manager shared how they used they had successfully used the RICE model when they were smaller, but it had become highly inaccurate at scale given the quality of the input data and variability across product teams. She continued to explain that often, the loudest voice in the room would ultimately influence when things were worked on. In listening to her describe the flow of information between sales, customer support, and R&D, it was clear that everyone was working hard, but with such a high volume of communications, it was nearly impossible to take into account all the variables across the disparate contexts when prioritizing the roadmap.\n\nA data scientist overheard the group talking about their challenges and interjected with a suggestion -- Acme was already using machine learning and advanced statistics in their products. Why not use the same approach to optimizing their own Value Exchange System?\n\n## The first iteration towards intelligent decision support\n\nThe data scientist explained that by using pre-existing data from sources across their toolchain, it was possible to build a decision support framework using [natural language processing (NLP)](https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/automated-keyword-extraction-from-articles-using-nlp-bfd864f41b34) to extract topics and sentiment from text-based data across all of the core tools that Acme used to sell, deliver, and support their products. Teams would not have to adopt new tools or processes, and there would be no disruption to existing business functions. Everyone put their heads together and came up with the scope for the first MVC of their intelligent decision support framework.\n\n![Decision Support Framework - Iteration 1](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/d5.png){: .center}\n\nOnce they achieved this level of visibility, they used the topics to create alignment across teams. Additionally, instead of continuing forward using traditional project-based Gannt charts for communicating progress on timelines and deliverables, they adopted an Opportunity Tree map that better reflected the relationship between business outcomes and solving customer needs. Based on the number of customers and the sentiment of a given topic, Acme prioritized where to focus their efforts to yield the biggest impact. Looking through all of a topic's related texts across their various communication channels within a single interface, they were able to more efficiently and effectively synthesize opportunities and connected them to outcomes.   \n\n![Acme's Opportunity Tree](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/d6.png){: .center}\n\nTo ensure they were building what the customers needed and that the solutions captured the opportunity, they started using a [continuous innovation](https://leanstack.com/library/categories/fundamentals/courses/what_is_continuous_innovation/lessons/fundamental_shift) framework to systemically validate their assumptions and solutions through [lean sprints](https://blog.leanstack.com/the-lean-sprint-bc3f9f8caafd). This did not require the introduction of a new tool, but rather a change in mindset and process among the teams.\n\n![The Lean Srint Diagram from Scaling Lean by Ash Maurya](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/lean-sprints.png){: .center} \n\nEach sprint established a target condition, hypothesis, experiment, and measurable outcome to validate or invalidate the hypothesis. This new mental model and approach to lean product development helped Acme reduce risk and establish a repeatable cadence that accomplished the following:\n\n1. **Goal** — Break a big vision into smaller time-boxed goals.\n2. **Orient** — Align the team around problems versus solutions.\n3. **Leverage** — Source/rank a wide diversity of possible solutions or strategies for achieving the goal.\n4. **Experiment** — Test these strategies additively using experiments.\n5. **Analyze** — Reevaluate learning against the goal.\n6. **Next Action** — Decide what’s next. \n\n![The Lean Cycle Diagram from Scaling Lean by Ash Maurya](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/lean-cycles.png){: .center} \n\nIt wasn't just product teams that adopted this process -- marketing, sales, and customer support all learned how to leverage this process to drive throughput. Before any initiative was funded, the team had to justify the effort by stating a quantifiable hypothesis that explained how it would increase throughput (T), decrease inventory (I), or reduce operating expenses (OE). By being disciplined, lean, manually improving processes, and having a rudimentary decision support framework powered by their existing data, they started to see enormous gains in their throughput. Acme was just starting to scratch the surface of the possibilities for optimizing their Value Exchange System. \n\n## The Importance Of A Timely Decision Support Framework\n\n> “You can make a system work better with surprising ease if you can give it more timely, more accurate, more complete information” -- [Thinking In Systems](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557)\n\nAcme continued to invest in enhancing their intelligent decision support tool. Their ultimate goal was to model a new value stream that incorporated both the value delivery system and the value capture system. In their next iteration, they added new dimensions and types of features that were extracted from their various operational systems. They also connected their behavior analytics collection service to more effectively map how customer behavior drove specific outcomes and experiments. \n\n![Decision Support Tool - Iteration 2](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/d7.png){: .center}\n\nBy pulling in financial data from their CRM, they derived the potential value for every single opportunity and how each mapped to the key business drivers in the Value Exchange System -- acquisition, activation, adoption, up-sell, and retention. Additionally, they automatically calculated the RICE score across all work items in a consistent manner. As a result, they removed over 99% of their inventory that did not map to valuable opportunities and adopted a \"just in time\" approach for requirements definition, drastically reducing inventory and improving ROI.\n\nAcme went a step further and augmented its Opportunity Tree used for strategic planning with a dynamic value stream map to report on the health of the Value Exchange System. Since the software code and features were integrated into the decision support framework, they consolidated all of their analytics, logging, tracing, and reporting tools that required complex queries to surface meaningful insights with a simple visual diagram of the critical paths customers took through their product. This effectively tied the Opportunity Tree to their actual product in a way that was easy for anyone at Acme to understand. It also surfaced low hanging fruit that enabled Acme to increase the value capture rate of the assets they already had.\n\n![Acme's New Value Stream Map](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/d8.png){: .center}\n\nTo put their journey succinctly -- Acme transitioned from sensing and responding to predicting and acting. They did not become sales-led, engineering-centric, or product-first. They became throughput driven. They still have a long way to go before becoming ROI positive due to the inefficiencies of the past, but the progress thus far indicates an upward trajectory. Because of their successful transition to profitability, the board pushed Acme to continue scaling R&D and operating expenses. The CEO politely declined; showing the board their intelligent decision support tool that highlighted hundreds of millions of dollars in potential revenue just by improving what was already there. He explained that more people won't solve the problem or help them go faster. Better decisions will. \n\n![Insert Sense and Respond](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/optimizing-the-value-exchange/predictive-analytics.png){: .center} \n\nThe biggest challenge they face moving forward is staying disciplined and not falling into old habits -- something most companies are notorious for doing. It's one of the primary reasons why there are very few truly great companies out there today. Luckily, the investment in making better decisions through shorter, more effective feedback loops will let them know the day that starts happening. \n\n\u003Cbr>\n**Acme's Final Set of Reported Financials**\n\u003Cbr>\n\n| TA | Without Decision Support | Starting The Journey | Fully Integrated |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Revenue | 68.0 | 88.4 | 138.8 |\n| Total Variable Costs (COCA) | 13.6 | 11.2 | 7.6 |\n| **Throughput** | **54.4** | **77.2** | **131.2** |\n| _Efficiency_ | _80%_ | _87%_ | _95%_ |\n|  |  | | |\n| R&D | 34.2 | 37.1 | 40.5 |\n| Marketing | 2.1 | 3.2 | 4.5 | \n| Sales | 25.6 | 28.6 | 31.9 |\n| G&A | 6.4 | 8.0 | 9.5 |\n| **Total OpEx** | **68.3** | **76.9** | **86.4** |\n| | | | |\n| **Profit** | **-13.8** | **0.3** | **44.8** |\n| | | | |\n| Inventory: Goodwill | 25.3 | 59.5 | 96.6 |\n| Inventory: Requirements | 120,868 | 117,567 | 1,176.2 |\n| **Total Inventory** | **120,893.3** | **117,626.5** | **1,272.8** |\n| | | | |\n| **Return On Investment** |  **0%** | **0.0%** | **3.5%** |\n\n\u003Cbr>\n\n## Ending On A Personal Note\n\n> “Remember that hierarchies exist to serve the bottom layers, not the top. Don’t maximize parts of the systems or subsystems while ignoring the whole. Aim to enhance total system properties, such as growth, stability, diversity, resilience, and sustainability - whether they are easily measured or not.” -- [Thinking In Systems](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557)\n\nI acknowledge Acme's story and financials were maybe extreme and, at times, overly exaggerated. I did so to help illustrate the main themes that nearly every company I've been a part of has struggled with to varying degrees. Ultimately, the longer we continue to rely on a Value Exchange operating structure and toolchain that consists of dozens of siloed point solutions and people organizations, the longer we will be fixated on the local optimization of its parts. We need to shift our focus towards achieving the global maximum of the Value Exchange System. This will be an ongoing challenge for nearly every company as tranditional organizational theory is over [250 years old](https://aboutleaders.com/10-traditional-organizational-culture-problems/#gs.ij731t) and was designed to replicate factories and machines, not dynamic systems and subsystems that are constantly evolving and changing.  \n\nAs we wrap up, you might be thinking the intelligent decision support tool I described is far fetched and a pipe dream. Topic extraction, cluster analysis, sentiment analysis, Bayesian inference, and NLP does not rely on Strong AI or necessarily adopting a whole new suite of tools. It is all achievable by a capable team of data scientists and engineers using currently available open-source packages, ML libraries, and advanced statistics leveraging data most companies already have on hand. As DevOps continues to take hold and organizations shift from a project to product mindset, it's just a matter of time until someone capitalizes on the tremendous opportunity there is in optimizing the feedback loops from sales, marketing, product, engineering, UX, and customer support at scale.\n\nWhen I first started at GitLab, I thought the idea of building a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle was insane and nearly unachievable. That challenge is part of what drew me to the company. Now that I have more perspective, I'm starting to realize that maybe we've been thinking too small. Anyone up for some dogfooding?   \n\nAll posts in the series:\n\n- Part 1: [A Gentle(ish) Introduction](/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-a-gentle-introduction/\n)\n- Part 2: [Reduce Waste To Increase Flow](/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-reduce-waste-to-increase-flow/)\n- Part 3: The Compounding Value Of Shorter Feedback Loops\n\n_**Giving credit where it is due:** The Lean Sprint and Continuous Innovation Framework were developed by Ash Maurya, founder of [LeanStack](https://leanstack.com/)._\n\nCover photo by Ryan Hafey on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/PdJjT-zYg_E)\n",[9,2034,723],{"slug":2072,"featured":6,"template":680},"optimizing-the-value-exchange-the-compounding-value-of-shorter-feedback-loops","content:en-us:blog:optimizing-the-value-exchange-the-compounding-value-of-shorter-feedback-loops.yml","Optimizing The Value Exchange The Compounding Value Of Shorter Feedback Loops","en-us/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-the-compounding-value-of-shorter-feedback-loops.yml","en-us/blog/optimizing-the-value-exchange-the-compounding-value-of-shorter-feedback-loops",{"_path":2078,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2079,"content":2085,"config":2093,"_id":2095,"_type":13,"title":2096,"_source":15,"_file":2097,"_stem":2098,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/placebo-lines-on-the-pipeline-graph",{"title":2080,"description":2081,"ogTitle":2080,"ogDescription":2081,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2082,"ogUrl":2083,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2083,"schema":2084},"Placebo Lines on the Pipeline Graph","Have you noticed the connecting lines missing on your pipelines lately? Here's why","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749679507/Blog/Hero%20Images/ci-cd.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/placebo-lines-on-the-pipeline-graph","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Placebo Lines on the Pipeline Graph\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Sam Beckham\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2021-05-11\",\n      }",{"title":2080,"description":2081,"authors":2086,"heroImage":2082,"date":2088,"body":2089,"category":971,"tags":2090},[2087],"Sam Beckham","2021-05-11","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\n\nHave you ever pressed the close door button on the elevator, in the hope that you'll save a few precious seconds?\nOr got frustrated at the person stood next to you at the cross-walk, neglecting to press the button?\nWell, maybe they know something you don't, or perhaps you know this already.\nMany buttons in our society lie to us.\n[David McRaney](https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/02/10/placebo-buttons/) dubbed these, \"Placebo buttons\" and they're everywhere.\nThose elevator doors won't close any faster and the cross-walk button has no effect on the lights.\nThe only lights they control are the lights on the buttons themselves.\nThey give you the feedback you crave, but that's all they're doing.\n\nThese placebos aren't constrained to the physical world, they're prevalent in [UI design](/blog/the-evolution-of-ux-at-gitlab/) too.\nFrom literal placebo buttons like [YouTube's downvote](https://www.quora.com/Does-downvoting-a-comment-on-YouTube-even-do-anything), to more subtle effects like Instagram always [pretending to work](https://www.fastcompany.com/1669788/the-3-white-lies-behind-instagrams-lightning-speed), or progress bars that have a [fixed animation](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/why-some-apps-use-fake-progress-bars/517233/).\nThey're everywhere if you know where to look.\n\nAt GitLab, we created a placebo of our own in one of our core features; the pipeline graph.\n\nThose of you who have used our pipeline graph, will be familiar with its appearance.\nThere's a series of jobs, grouped by stages, connected by a series of lines depicting the relationships between the jobs.\nBut these lines might be lying to you.\nThese lines are indiscriminately drawn between each job in a stage, regardless of their relationship.\nThese lines are placebos.\n\n![The old pipeline rendering with lines connecting every job in a stage](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/placebo-lines_old-graph.png)\n\nThis wasn't a problem to begin with.\nA basic pipeline has several jobs across a handful of stages.\nJobs in each stage would run parallel to each other, but each stage would run sequentially.\nIn the image shown above, all the jobs in the test stage would trigger at the same time. Once those jobs had finished, all the jobs in the build stage would trigger.\nWe used rudimentary CSS to draw lines connecting each job in one stage to each job in the next.\nThese lines weren't calculated based on their connections, but still reflected the story they were telling.\n\nSince the introduction of `needs` relationships in [v12.2](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/issues/47063), pipelines got a bit more complicated.\nNow you could configure a job in a later stage to trigger as soon as a job in an earlier stage completed.\nLooking at our old example, we could set the API deployment to run as soon as our spec tests passed.\nThis skips the remaining tests and the entire build stage, turning our lines into pretty little liars.\n\nWe had many internal discussions about these lines, and how to show the relationships between jobs.\nThere's the [`needs` visualization](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/directed_acyclic_graph/#needs-visualization), which does an excellent job of displaying these relationships, but the main pipeline graph was still inaccurate.\nFor the past few months, we've been [refactoring the pipeline graph](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/276949), giving it a new lease of life and fixing some of its issues along the way.\nOne of those issues were the faked lines.\nIn the new version, we can accurately draw lines between jobs.\nLines that actually depict the relationships jobs have with each other.\nNow the lines no-longer lie!\n\n![The newer pipeline graph showing the correct needs links between jobs](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/placebo-lines_new-graph.png)\n\nThe above image shows an unreleased version of the pipeline graph.\nYou can see the lines drawn between the jobs to show that the `deploy:API` job can start as soon as the `rspec` job is successful.\nSomething the old lines (shown earlier in this post) would have been unable to depict.\n\nOne unfortunate downside of this is that these lines can be quite expensive to calculate.\nThey're actual DOM nodes, drawn deliberately and placed precisely.\nOn smaller graphs this isn't a problem, but some of our initial tests have found pipelines with a potential 8000+ job connections.\nThat kind of calculation would grind the browser to a halt, and nobody wants that.\n\nAt GitLab, we believe in boring solutions.\nWe make the simple change that sets us on the path towards where we want to be.\nShip it, get feedback, and iterate.\nSo that's what we did.\nIn the first phase of this rollout, we shipped the new pipeline graph with no lines connecting the jobs.\nWe don't have to worry about the expensive calculations, and we still get to roll out the refactored pipeline graph.\n\n![The current (v13.11) pipeline graph showing no links between jobs](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/placebo-lines_current-graph.png)\n\nWe know some of you will miss them, but fear not.\nBoring solutions are just technical debt if you don't iterate on them.\nSo the [improved lines are coming](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/4509) in a future release, along with several other improvements to the pipeline graph.\nWe're already starting to roll out the new [Job Dependencies](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/298973) view which shows the jobs in a (much closer to) execution order.\nStay tuned for more updates, and watch [Sarah Groff Hennigh Palermo's talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2EKqKjB7OQ) for the technical side of this effort and a deeper dive into some of the decisions we made.\n",[2091,2092,9,973],"CI","frontend",{"slug":2094,"featured":6,"template":680},"placebo-lines-on-the-pipeline-graph","content:en-us:blog:placebo-lines-on-the-pipeline-graph.yml","Placebo Lines On The Pipeline Graph","en-us/blog/placebo-lines-on-the-pipeline-graph.yml","en-us/blog/placebo-lines-on-the-pipeline-graph",{"_path":2100,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2101,"content":2106,"config":2110,"_id":2112,"_type":13,"title":2113,"_source":15,"_file":2114,"_stem":2115,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/project-management-using-gitlab-platform",{"title":2102,"description":2103,"ogTitle":2102,"ogDescription":2103,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1442,"ogUrl":2104,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2104,"schema":2105},"Can DevOps and project management co-exist? Yes, on the daily at GitLab","Stay agile by using GitLab for DevOps project management","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/project-management-using-gitlab-platform","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Can DevOps and project management co-exist? Yes, on the daily at GitLab\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Vick Kelkar\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2021-05-11\",\n      }",{"title":2102,"description":2103,"authors":2107,"heroImage":1442,"date":2088,"body":2108,"category":948,"tags":2109},[718],"\n\nGitLab is best known as an all-in-one DevOps platform, but it is also an effective tool for project management. Non-technical teams at GitLab, such as [the Marketing team](/blog/gitlab-for-project-management-one/), use the GitLab DevOps platform for project management, and recently the Alliances team learned that DevOps and project management work well for our purposes.\n\n## About the IBM partnership\n\n[GitLab recently launched a partnership with IBM](/press/releases/2021-01-14-gitlab-IBM-to-support-acceleration-of-devops-automation.html) to help the organization automate their DevOps platform. Since I work on the Alliances team, I needed an efficient, compatible, and high-performance project management application to manage the many moving parts of the GitLab and IBM partnership as well as other projects related to our partnerships.\n\nMy very first instinct was to test a few of the project management web applications on the market, but this would involve a tedious process of convincing my colleagues to join me on this journey to explore a sprawling new set of tools. Then I thought why not explore our own Gitlab DevOps platform as a project management tool? The beauty of GitLab is that it is a [DevOps platform](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wChaqniv3HI) delivered as a single easy-to-use application.\n\nSome of my early questions were:\n\n- Can the GitLab DevOps platform work as a project management tool for the strategic Alliance team?\n- Can GitLab manage and track business activities over a period of time?\n- Can team members collaborate and manage various projects using a single application?\n\nIn the end, the journey to adopting GitLab as a DevOps platform and project management tool was similar to the journey many of our customers experience. In this blog post, I will dive deeper into how the Alliance team uses GitLab for project management, explain how we used GitLab to onboard a new strategic partner, and launched support of [GitLab Ultimate for IBM Cloud Paks](https://www.ibm.com/products/gitlab-ultimate). All the pre- and post-onboarding activities in particular required collaboration and contributions from various teams across the organization.\n\n## Applying DevOps features to project management\n\n### About epics and roadmaps\n\nWhy organize work into a hierarchy? I began the strategic partnership effort by organizing the work into multi-level epics. The [idea behind epics is to aggregate similar work](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/#epics) (or issues) into epics and manage delivery of work. In the example below, you'll see the top-level epic was called \"IBM cloud paks\" which contained three child epics.\n\n![An example of a multi-level epics from the IBM cloud paks project](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/proj-mgmt-epic.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nWork is divided into three time-bound levels for the IBM cloud paks project: Pre-launch, 0-90 days, and 90-180 days.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nAnother way to represent the epics is through a [roadmap view](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/roadmap/#roadmap). The main advantage of this feature is that it allows the collaborators on epics and issues to monitor project progress using a calendar timeline view.\n\n![An example of a project management timeline for the IBM cloud paks project using the epics roadmap view](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/proj-mgmt-timeline.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nThe same IBM cloud paks project epic is depicted using the Roadmap view, which adopts a timeline view.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n### How issues are used to capture work\n\nClick into any of the epics to find a set of issues that make up the epic. I use [issues as the basic unit of work](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/). Contained within the \"IBM cloud paks: Pre-launch\" epic are 33 issues.\n\n![The list view shows inside the \"IBM cloud paks: Pre-launch\" epic are 33 issues](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/proj-mgmt-issue.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nInside the \"IBM cloud paks: Pre-launch\" epic are 33 issues\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nOne thing to note is that an issue can have a single assignee or owner, or it can have multiple assignees.\n\n### How to use issue boards\n\nAn [agile board](/blog/gitlab-for-agile-portfolio-planning-project-management/) can help a user visualize work and manage all the open threads in a given epic and/or project. The board can help you move issues efficiently through various phases of work. On the Alliances team, we are always iterating on how to better track the status of issues. [Here is more information about the current status flows for the Alliances team](/handbook/alliances/#status-alliance---status--status).\n\nThe screenshot below shows how an [issue board can be applied as a Kanban board by filtering for the \"IBM\" label](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html#issue-boards). To see transitions between work stages, use [scoped labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/labels.html#scoped-labels), which are mutually exclusive and represent transitions between various workflow statuses, such as \"status::1\" and \"status::2\"\n\n![Kanban board showing how labels can be used to organize issues into work stages](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/proj-mgmt-board.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nHow we use boards for the IBM cloud paks project.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n### Milestones help time-box events\n\nWhile an epic is a collection of related issues, [merge requests](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/), and sub-epics and is generally used to scope a long-running initiative or program (e.g., a marketing campaign or a new product category) epics can also contain smaller, more discrete and timeboxed events, such as monthly releases or calendar quarters. These [timeboxes are represented as Milestones](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/), which roll up issues and merge requests in the same way as higher-level epics. Apply the \"Milestone view\" to track progress on the smaller deliverables within an epic.\n\n![Milestone view showing Alliances team projects](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/proj-mgmt-milestone.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nHow milestones can be used to track work progress within a specific time frame.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n### How Milestone burnup and burndown charts chart progress\n\n[Burnup and burndown charts are used by project managers to measure progress](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/burndown_and_burnup_charts.html). Burndown charts analyze how much work is left in a project before it can be finished successfully. Burnup charts measure the work that has been done against the total work for the project. Both types of charts are available in the GitLab DevOps platform. I relied mostly on epics and milestones to track work progress for the IBM partnership.\n\n![burndown](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/proj-mgmt-burndown.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nThe burdown and burnup charts for the IBM cloud paks partnership project.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n### Inside analytics and insights project management tools\n\nMost project management tools are great at capturing project details, and can help answer questions such as \"where does the project stand on actual vs. planned activities?\" or can help track progress using milestones and due dates. [Project analytics and insights dashboards](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/#project-level-analytics) are built into the GitLab DevOps platform. There are many built-in analytics dashboards, such as CI/CD, code review, merge requests, and issues. For the IBM partnership project, I used the [issues dashboard analytics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/issues_analytics/index.html) to see how many issues were opened compared to how many issues were closed. This tool helped me manage the team capacity and identify any bottlenecks in the project.\n\n![The insights dashboard shows how many issues were opened and closed](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/proj-mgmt-insights.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nThe insights dashboard shows many issues were opened vs. how many issues were closed each month.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n[Value Stream Analytics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/) is a particularly unique feature of GitLab's analytics suite. Since GitLab is a complete DevOps platform with a single data store, GitLab can automatically generate reports to not only identify high-level metrics and blockers, but also drill down into those blockers and improve value flow with just a few clicks.\n\n![Showing recent project activity: 32 new issues and 19 commits](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/proj-mgmt-analysis.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nAnalytics showing recent project activity.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nThe Value Stream Analytics provides a high-level view into common stages of the SDLC out-of-the-box, making it easier to monitor the overall workflow from discussion to code changes, through review and collaboration, and out to production – with no additional work required. And since the code changes and collaboration are happening within GitLab, just one click on an item will take you to the blocked issue or merge request, so you can comment, reassign, or contribute to move things along.\n\nSince all the necessary data is already in GitLab's system, customizing Value Stream Analytics can be completed in just a few clicks: Hiding and reordering stages and even creating your own with simple drop-down menus.\n\n![The customized value stream shows the average amount of time spent in the selected stage for each item](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/proj-mgmt-valuestream.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nThe custom value stream above shows the number of days to completion.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n## DevOps platform and project management in one\n\nThere are many project management tools in the marketplace and solutions for managing the SDLC of a project. The GitLab DevOps platform and project management tool satisfied my need to track partnership-related activities while also managing the technical demos and workshops developed for the IBM partnership. I look forward to continuing to explore the constantly-evolving GitLab platform to grow and manage our strategic partnerships on the Alliances team.\n\nCover image by [Martin Sanchez](https://unsplash.com/@martinsanchez?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/MD6E2Sv__iA)\n{: .note.text-center}\n",[9,700,950,783,723],{"slug":2111,"featured":6,"template":680},"project-management-using-gitlab-platform","content:en-us:blog:project-management-using-gitlab-platform.yml","Project Management Using Gitlab Platform","en-us/blog/project-management-using-gitlab-platform.yml","en-us/blog/project-management-using-gitlab-platform",{"_path":2117,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2118,"content":2124,"config":2129,"_id":2131,"_type":13,"title":2132,"_source":15,"_file":2133,"_stem":2134,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/safe-without-silos-in-gitlab",{"title":2119,"description":2120,"ogTitle":2119,"ogDescription":2120,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2121,"ogUrl":2122,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2122,"schema":2123},"SAFe without silos in GitLab","Learn how to map the Scaled Agile Framework to the native capabilities of the DevSecOps platform and the advantages that come from doing so.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097569/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%2811%29_2hcwWx49wQ7CHfvhhkVH6S_1750097569126.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/safe-without-silos-in-gitlab","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"SAFe without silos in GitLab\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Amanda Rueda\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2025-04-08\",\n      }",{"title":2119,"description":2120,"authors":2125,"heroImage":2121,"date":2126,"body":2127,"category":842,"tags":2128},[990],"2025-04-08","Let's talk about what happens when your organization adopts the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) to scale to enterprise levels. You've got multiple teams working on complex products, and you need a way to coordinate all that work. But here's a common headache: Your planning happens in one tool, while your actual development work lives somewhere else entirely.\n\nThis divide creates real problems day-to-day. Developers jump between systems constantly. Product managers struggle to get an accurate picture of progress. And everyone wastes time manually copying information from one place to another. It's precisely the kind of disjointed experience that SAFe was designed to eliminate.\n\nWhile your development teams might already be using GitLab for source code management, CI/CD, and security, you may wonder whether GitLab can also support your planning needs within the SAFe framework. The good news is that GitLab's Agile project management capabilities offer strong support for SAFe, in this article, you'll learn how GitLab maps to SAFe concepts and ceremonies, all within the same DevSecOps platform your software developers already know and love.\n\n## What is SAFe?\n\nSAFe, or the Scaled Agile Framework, is a way to bring Agile principles to large organizations without losing speed, alignment, or customer focus. It takes the iterative and flexible teamwork model of small teams and applies its principles across big organizations that have multiple teams, roadmaps, and stakeholders. This brings the organization into alignment, all planning and executing in the same direction. For product managers, SAFe helps connect strategy to execution so you’re not just shipping fast, you’re shipping the right things, backed by clear priorities and cross-team alignment.\n\nSAFe reduces silos, encourages collaboration, and helps teams rally around customer outcomes, not just tasks. When integrated in GitLab, the magic really happens: visibility, traceability, and delivery all live in one place.\n\n## SAFe terminology in GitLab\n\nFirst, let's establish how SAFe concepts map to GitLab:\n\n| SAFe | GitLab |\n| :---- | :---- |\n| Epic | Top-level Epic |\n| Capability | Sub-epic (Level 1) |\n| Feature | Sub-epic (Level 2) |\n| User Story | Issue |\n| Task | Task |\n| Team | Custom Field / Scoped Label |\n| Sprint | Iteration |\n| Program Increment (PI) | Milestone |\n| Value Stream | Top-level Group |\n| Agile Release Train (ART) | Top-level Group |\n\n\u003Cbr>\u003C/br>\n\nWith this mapping as your guide, you can set up GitLab to mirror your SAFe implementation. The group structure lets you organize around your value streams and ARTs, while the work item hierarchy (with up to seven levels of nested epics!) gives you all the depth you need for complex product portfolios. Whether you're working at the portfolio level (with top-level groups), program level (with subgroups), or team level (with projects), GitLab's organizational structure aligns perfectly with SAFe's hierarchy.\n\n## Supporting SAFe ceremonies in GitLab\n\nNow for the fun part - how do you actually run your SAFe ceremonies in GitLab? Let's walk through each one.\n\n### PI planning\n\nTo facilitate the cross-team alignment and dependency management that makes PI planning successful, GitLab offers several capabilities:\n\n* Use the [Roadmap](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/group/roadmap/) view to visualize features across teams and time periods\n* Assign features to the PI [milestone](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/milestones/)\n* Document and visualize cross-team [dependencies](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/issues/related_issues/#blocking-issues) as they're identified\n\nGitLab gives you flexibility for PI planning through both the Epic boards (which can be configured to show team assignments) and the Roadmap view (which shows features over time like a Gantt chart). You can switch between these views during your planning session depending on whether you're focusing on the timeline or team organization.\n\n![Roadmap view and epic board](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097577/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image3_aHR0cHM6_1750097576746.gif)\n\n\u003Cbr>\u003C/br>\n\n![Roadmap view with Gantt chart](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097577/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image5_aHR0cHM6_1750097576747.png)\n\n### Refinement\n\nAs a product manager, running effective refinement sessions means having clear visibility into your feature backlog. You can run your refinement session right inside GitLab. No more updating one tool during the meeting and then having to update another tool afterward.\n\nGitLab powers refinement sessions with:\n\n* [Epic boards](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/group/epics/epic_boards/) that group features based on status\n* The ability to view story points directly in the [overview](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/group/epics/epic_boards/#view-count-of-issues-weight-and-progress-of-an-epic)\n* Comprehensive [drawer views](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/group/epics/manage_epics/#open-epics-in-a-drawer) that let you interact with work items without losing context\n* The ability to create and link [child issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/group/epics/manage_epics/#add-an-issue-to-an-epic) directly from epics\n\n![SAFe - image 3](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097577/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image2_aHR0cHM6_1750097576749.gif)\n\n### Sprint planning\n\nWhen it's time to figure out what your team can tackle in the next sprint, GitLab gives you:\n\n* [Issue boards](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/issue_board/) that provide a comprehensive view of your backlog\n* [Total weight](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/issue_board/#sum-of-issue-weights) of user stories displayed directly on boards\n* The ability to easily move issues between iterations\n* A collapsible view that simplifies moving stories between sprints\n\nThis means you can keep everything in one place and spend your planning meetings actually planning instead of jumping between tools.\n\n![Sprint planning with GitLab](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097577/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image4_aHR0cHM6_1750097576751.gif)\n\n*💡 Check out [this tutorial on using GitLab to facilitate Scrum](https://docs.gitlab.com/tutorials/scrum_events/) for a detailed glimpse into the power of GitLab in Agile planning and sprint tracking.*\n\n### Daily stand-ups\n\nYour team can gather around the board during daily stand-ups and actually see what everyone's working on, what's stuck, and what's ready for review – all in one view. For your dev team's daily stand-ups, GitLab lets you:\n\n* Create [iteration-scoped](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/issue_board/#iteration-lists) boards that show the current sprint's work\n* Display story points/weights directly on cards\n* Use the [drawer view](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/issues/managing_issues/#open-issues-in-a-drawer) to access details without leaving the context\n* Highlight tasks at risk through [health status](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/issues/managing_issues/#health-status)\n\n![Daily stand-up board](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097577/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image6_aHR0cHM6_1750097576755.png)\n\n### Sprint review\n\nWant to know how your team is doing over time? GitLab provides comprehensive metrics with:\n\n* [Burndown and burnup charts](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/group/iterations/#iteration-burndown-and-burnup-charts) for iterations\n* Velocity tracking\n* [Lead and cycle time](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/group/value_stream_analytics/#lifecycle-metrics) metrics\n* Dashboards that can be scoped to teams\n\nThese metrics help you understand if your team is getting faster, where they're getting stuck, and what you might want to talk about in your next retrospective.\n\n![Burndown and burnup charts](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750097577/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image1_aHR0cHM6_1750097576758.png)\n\n## 5 reasons a unified platform provides an advantage\n\nI know there are plenty of planning tools that can handle SAFe ceremonies. But there are game-changing reasons why I genuinely believe GitLab is different:\n\n1. **No more context switching** - Your planning, coding, testing, and security all happen in one place.\n2. **Everything's connected** - You can trace work from the big epic down to the code and deployment.\n3. **Everyone's on the same page** - Developers, product folks, and security teams all work together in the same tool.\n4. **Total visibility** - Stakeholders have one place to check for updates.\n5. **The full picture** - You see planning and development metrics together, so you know what's really going on.\n\nIf your dev teams already love GitLab, why make them jump to another tool for planning or create some complex, cobbled-together integrations? Bringing your SAFe planning into GitLab creates a much smoother experience for everyone.\n\n## Implementation principles\n\nI've worked with teams transitioning from traditional SAFe tools to GitLab, and here's what I've learned: Focus on **what each ceremony is trying to accomplish**, not on recreating exact replicas of your old tools.\n\nThe teams that get the most out of GitLab are the ones who embrace its native capabilities instead of fighting against them. Yes, it takes some initial work to figure out how to map your SAFe concepts and set up your workflows. But once you do, you'll find your processes actually get simpler rather than more complex.\n\nThe key is defining conventions that everyone follows. Which labels mean what? How will you track teams? What goes in an epic versus an issue? With a little upfront investment in these decisions, you'll end up with an intuitive system that eliminates all that cross-tool coordination overhead.\n\n## Getting started\n\nReady to give this a shot? Here's how to start implementing SAFe in GitLab:\n\n1. **Set up your structure** - Create groups and subgroups that [match your organization](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/best-practices-to-set-up-organizational-hierarchies-that-scale/).\n2. **Define your work breakdown** - Decide how you'll use [epics](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/unlocking-agile-excellence-gitlab-epics-for-seamless-portfolio-management/), [issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/issues/managing_issues/), and [tasks](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/tasks/).\n3. **Create your iterations** - Set up your [sprint schedule](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/group/iterations/#create-an-iteration-cadence).\n4. **Add your milestones** - [Milestones](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/milestones/#create-a-milestone) will represent your Program Increments in GitLab.\n5. **Build your boards** - Create different views for different ceremonies.\n6. **Agree on conventions** - Document how you'll use labels and custom fields.\n\nTaking time to think through these decisions upfront will save you many headaches later. And remember, you don't have to perfect it on day one - you can always adjust as you learn.\n\n## Bringing it all together\n\nGitLab gives you a solid foundation for running SAFe, especially if your dev teams are already GitLab fans. When you bring planning and development into the same tool, you eliminate those painful handoffs, make collaboration way easier, and get everything moving faster.\n\nThe beauty of GitLab's planning tools is that they're flexible enough to adapt to your specific flavor of SAFe. You're not locked into rigid workflows - you can evolve your approach as your teams mature and your needs change.\n\n> Ready to see how much better life is without those planning silos? [Start your free trial today](https://about.gitlab.com/free-trial/) and experience firsthand how GitLab can transform your SAFe implementation.\n\n*💡 If you liked this topic check out this related post - [GitLab for Agile Software Development](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-for-agile-software-development/)*\n",[9,474,950,926,928],{"slug":2130,"featured":90,"template":680},"safe-without-silos-in-gitlab","content:en-us:blog:safe-without-silos-in-gitlab.yml","Safe Without Silos In Gitlab","en-us/blog/safe-without-silos-in-gitlab.yml","en-us/blog/safe-without-silos-in-gitlab",{"_path":2136,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2137,"content":2143,"config":2149,"_id":2151,"_type":13,"title":2152,"_source":15,"_file":2153,"_stem":2154,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/seamlessly-migrate-from-jira-to-gitlab-with-jira2lab-at-scale",{"title":2138,"description":2139,"ogTitle":2138,"ogDescription":2139,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2140,"ogUrl":2141,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2141,"schema":2142},"Seamlessly migrate from Jira to GitLab with Jira2Lab at scale","Discover how Jira2GitLab simplifies large-scale Jira-to-GitLab migrations by handling complex data transfers, improving scalability, and ensuring efficient integration.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749663129/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945__28_.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/seamlessly-migrate-from-jira-to-gitlab-with-jira2lab-at-scale","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Seamlessly migrate from Jira to GitLab with Jira2Lab at scale\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Maximilien Belinga\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-10-10\",\n      }",{"title":2138,"description":2139,"authors":2144,"heroImage":2140,"date":2146,"body":2147,"category":842,"tags":2148},[2145],"Maximilien Belinga","2024-10-10","[Atlassian Server reached end of life in February](https://about.gitlab.com/move-to-gitlab-from-atlassian/), prompting many customers to explore alternatives like Atlassian Cloud or Data Center. However, enterprises using Atlassian Server are increasingly seeking Agile planning solutions that offer more flexibility, cost-efficiency, and robust DevSecOps integration. They also need to tackle challenges related to data volume, customization, user mapping, performance, and data integrity during migration. This is where [GitLab’s Jira2Lab](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/professional-services-automation/tools/migration/jira2lab) comes into play, offering a seamless solution for large-scale Jira migrations to GitLab, while providing full CI/CD integration.\n\n## The problem with large-scale Jira migrations\n\nMigrating from Jira to GitLab can be a significant hurdle, especially for enterprises with complex workflows and thousands of issues to move. Here are the most common challenges faced during such migrations:\n\n- **Massive data migration:** As the number of issues, attachments, comments, and projects increases, so does the complexity of migrating them without performance issues or data loss.\n\n- **Custom fields and workflows:** Jira instances often contain custom workflows, fields, and issue types that do not have a one-to-one mapping in GitLab. This gap creates friction during migration, as existing tools often require manual intervention to translate these elements.\n\n- **Lack of full DevSecOps integration:** While many migration tools handle project management data, they do not integrate GitLab’s full DevSecOps capabilities. As a result, teams are left to manually configure their [CI/CD](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/ci-cd/) pipelines and source control management systems after the migration.\n\n## Introducing Jira2Lab\n\nJira2Lab was designed from the ground up to solve the specific challenges of migrating from Jira to GitLab at scale. It’s not just about moving data; it’s about enabling teams to seamlessly transition into GitLab’s powerful DevSecOps environment without downtime or data loss.\n\n### Key features of Jira2Lab\n\n1. Efficient data handling at scale\u003Cbr> \nJira2Lab is optimized to handle thousands of issues, attachments, comments, and custom fields across multiple projects without sacrificing performance. It scales effortlessly to accommodate even the largest enterprise migrations.\n\n2. Custom workflow and field mapping\u003Cbr>\nOne of the standout features of Jira2Lab is its ability to automatically map custom workflows and fields from Jira to GitLab. The tool provides a flexible mapping configuration that eliminates the need for manual intervention during the migration process, making sure everything moves smoothly from Jira to GitLab.\n\n3. CI/CD pipeline integration\u003Cbr>\nJira2Lab doesn’t just migrate your issues and projects — it integrates GitLab’s full CI/CD pipeline into the migration process. This ensures that development teams can start using GitLab’s DevSecOps features, such as automated testing and deployment pipelines, immediately after migration.\n\n4. Pilot migrations\u003Cbr>\nOur tool supports pilot migrations to allow teams to test their configurations and workflows before scaling up. This ensures that any issues can be caught early, preventing disruptions during the full migration.\n\n5. Real-time monitoring\u003Cbr>\nThe tool provides real-time monitoring and logs during migration, giving complete transparency to ensure every step is performed correctly and without errors.\n\n6. Customizable and flexible\u003Cbr>\nEven if your Jira instance has unique configurations or workflows, Jira2Lab offers the flexibility to customize the migration according to your specific requirements, ensuring nothing is lost in translation.\n\n### Feature comparison: Jira vs. GitLab\n\nMigrating from Jira to GitLab helps consolidate workflows and unlock advanced features native to GitLab. Here’s a quick comparison of the core features of both platforms:\n\n| **Feature**             | **Jira**                        | **GitLab**                    |\n|-------------------------|----------------------------------|-------------------------------|\n| **Issue Tracking**       | Yes (Highly customizable)       | Yes (Integrated with DevSecOps)   |\n| **Agile Boards**         | Yes (Kanban, Scrum)             | Yes (Issue Boards, Milestones) |\n| **CI/CD**                | No (Requires external tools)    | Yes (Built-in CI/CD)           |\n| **Source Control**       | No (Requires GitHub/Bitbucket)  | Yes (Native Git support)       |\n| **DevSecOps Tools**         | Limited integrations            | Full DevSecOps lifecycle          |\n\nWith Jira2Lab, we ensure that all critical aspects, from issue tracking to CI/CD pipelines, are transitioned smoothly, taking full advantage of GitLab’s integrated approach to development and operations.\n\n## The migration methodology\n\nJira2Lab follows a structured, five-phase migration methodology, ensuring seamless transition with minimal disruption:\n\n### 1. Discovery and planning\n\nWe start by thoroughly understanding the customer’s Jira setup, identifying all necessary custom workflows, fields, and projects that need to be migrated. This phase also involves a gap analysis to compare Jira and GitLab features and map out the migration process.\n\n### 2. Setup\nIn this phase, we configure the migration tool and set up the necessary environments for both Jira and GitLab. This includes verifying all permissions and setting up a backup of Jira data before the migration begins.\n\n### 3. Pilot migrations\nBefore migrating the entire dataset, we run pilot migrations on selected projects to test the migration process, workflows, and data integrity. This allows us to identify and resolve any issues early in the process.\n\n### 4. Scaled migrations\nAfter validating the pilot migration, we scale the migration across all projects, ensuring minimal downtime and smooth transitions for development teams.\n\n### 5. Wrap-up and post-migration support\nOnce the migration is complete, we provide ongoing support, ensuring all teams are fully operational in GitLab. This phase also includes user training and the decommissioning of the Jira instance, if required.\n\n## Case study: Tackling scale with Jira2Lab\n\nIn a recent migration, a large enterprise faced the challenge of migrating over 20,000 issues across 50 projects from Jira to GitLab. The project had highly customized workflows and thousands of comments and attachments that needed to be transferred.\n\nWith Jira2Lab, we were able to:\n\n- Migrate all data, including custom fields, without any data loss.\n- Set up CI/CD pipelines within GitLab so that teams could immediately continue their work post-migration.\n- Conduct a pilot migration of two projects, which allowed us to identify and fix minor workflow discrepancies before scaling up to the entire organization.\n\nThe result was a seamless transition to GitLab, with the entire process completed within the planned timeline and no significant downtime.\n\n## Get started with Jira2Lab today\n\nJira2Lab stands out in the market by addressing the limitations that other migration tools cannot handle. It is designed specifically for large-scale migrations and can integrate with GitLab’s full DevSecOps lifecycle, unlike most tools that only handle project management data. The tool’s ability to map custom workflows and integrate CI/CD pipelines makes it the perfect solution for enterprises looking to enhance their development workflows while migrating to GitLab.\n\n> Ready to scale your development processes with GitLab? Explore our [Professional Services catalog](https://about.gitlab.com/services/catalog/) to learn how we can help your team migrate efficiently and effectively. Contact us through the form at the end for a personalized demo of GitLab's Jira2Lab.\n",[9,108,1115,950,926],{"slug":2150,"featured":90,"template":680},"seamlessly-migrate-from-jira-to-gitlab-with-jira2lab-at-scale","content:en-us:blog:seamlessly-migrate-from-jira-to-gitlab-with-jira2lab-at-scale.yml","Seamlessly Migrate From Jira To Gitlab With Jira2lab At Scale","en-us/blog/seamlessly-migrate-from-jira-to-gitlab-with-jira2lab-at-scale.yml","en-us/blog/seamlessly-migrate-from-jira-to-gitlab-with-jira2lab-at-scale",{"_path":2156,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2157,"content":2163,"config":2169,"_id":2171,"_type":13,"title":2172,"_source":15,"_file":2173,"_stem":2174,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/secure-journey-continuous-delivery",{"title":2158,"description":2159,"ogTitle":2158,"ogDescription":2159,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2160,"ogUrl":2161,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2161,"schema":2162},"Securing the journey to continuous delivery","The UK Dept for Work and Pensions bring security best practices to the forefront of a massive transition to continuous delivery.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749678442/Blog/Hero%20Images/londoncommit.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/secure-journey-continuous-delivery","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Securing the journey to continuous delivery\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Vanessa Wegner\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2019-10-30\",\n      }",{"title":2158,"description":2159,"authors":2164,"heroImage":2160,"date":2165,"body":2166,"category":698,"tags":2167},[695],"2019-10-30","\n[Adam Moss](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-moss/?originalSubdomain=uk) is the\nHead of Engineering Strategy, Technical Leadership, DevOps, and SRE at the\nDepartment for Work and Pensions. At this year’s GitLab Commit in London, Adam\nspoke about how his organization transitioned from waterfall to Agile, and how\nthey built security into both their organization's infrastructure and culture.\n\nThe Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is the United Kingdom’s largest\ngovernment department. It comprises 84,000 employees and serves 22 million\ncitizens, with systems containing approximately 55 million lines of code and\nseeing about 10,000 changes per year.\n\nIn other words, it’s a big deal.\n\nBut their infrastructure and operations were less than stellar. Adam and his\nteam wanted to offer 24/7 service availability, improve their user experience,\nand reduce operational costs. So, they went Agile.\n\n## Big change for big gains\n\nBefore the transformation, the DWP had outsourced services for 30 years. To get\nto [continuous delivery](/topics/continuous-delivery/), they brought everything in-house. In addition to massive\noperational change, this also required an enormous cultural shift within the\norganization. Insourcing meant taking responsibility for everything – they couldn't blame a third party should anything go wrong. Teams also had to take on an iterative mindset: Changing their standard maximum viable product into a minimum one.\n\nThen there was the question of tools, which also brought the question of\nsecurity: What tools would best enable developers, without leaving gaping holes\nin their systems?\n\n## Owning the risk\n\nAs a government organization, the DWP was used to managing risk – but they\nsuddenly found themselves without an outsourced partner to blame. Now that Adam’s\nteam was fully responsible for security efforts, they needed to become much\nmore risk averse. Taking ownership of security is also a big change for\ndevelopers, even for organizations not undergoing massive transformation.\n\n### The journey to DevOps security\n\n#### Considerations\n\nTo keep both processes and systems secure, the DWP took a multi-layered\napproach with people, devices, and code among the top aspects considered.\n\nDevelopers are often highly privileged users, which poses certain risks to your\nenvironment. While it’s necessary to protect both systems and people,\norganizations need to be clear about their security policies and intent in\norder to build and maintain employee trust. Adam puts it this way: Think about\ndisciplinary policies – if a piece of vulnerable code is released and causes a\nproblem, is it the individual’s fault? Or is it a fault of the processes you’ve\nput in place?\n\nAdam also emphasized that restrictions might not be the best answer: Developers\nwill find a way around, so it’s better to implement something that allows\nthem to achieve their objectives without creating any backdoor processes.\n\nThere was also the consideration of open source – while it provides great\nbenefits, there are challenges that must also be managed appropriately. Adam’s\nteam chose to implement continuous vulnerability monitoring (with [GitLab](/solutions/security-compliance/))\nto keep track of any risky dependencies that might spring a data leak. They\nalso chose to use GitLab as a central point of control and single source of\ntruth, increasing transparency for the organization.\n\n#### Lessons learned\n\nIn his presentation, Adam shared some valuable tips for a successful\ntransition to continuous delivery. Here are a few favorites:\n\n##### Automate, automate!\nAutomation will make things immensely easier – not just because of the time\nsaved, but also because of its repeatability and reduced risk for human error.\nFocus on the low-hanging fruit early on in the process. There will always be things you can’t\nautomate, so pick the easy battles first.\n\n##### Identify your pain point\nTake a look across your operations and organization. What is the biggest\nchallenge you can solve? Or, what change will bring a lot of value in the move\nto continuous delivery? Try to achieve ROI as soon as possible.\n\n##### Anticipate risks from an external POV\nAdam recommends threat modeling, and looking at security from the outside in.\nWhat might an adversary be thinking? Why and how might they attack? Some tools\nwill even generate possible situations that you’ve never considered.\n\n##### Continuous doesn’t always mean automatic\nWhile you may want to automate functions as much as possible, the catalyst can\nstill be human. Separation of duties can serve as a useful defense mechanism to\nensure that big changes won’t cause undue risk.\n\n## The journey doesn’t end with DevOps\n\nAdam concludes with some wisdom for the future: Always be thinking about how\nyou’re going to evolve your organization, and make sure your roadmap continues to change as well.\nHe suggests looking externally for options you might not have yet considered,\nlike the capabilities planned for [your favorite DevOps tools](/direction/#devops-stages).\n\nTo build some new ideas into your own roadmap, watch Adam’s talk from GitLab\nCommit London.\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/c8zFXUkPb2c\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n",[701,677,9,2168,266],"CD",{"slug":2170,"featured":6,"template":680},"secure-journey-continuous-delivery","content:en-us:blog:secure-journey-continuous-delivery.yml","Secure Journey Continuous Delivery","en-us/blog/secure-journey-continuous-delivery.yml","en-us/blog/secure-journey-continuous-delivery",{"_path":2176,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2177,"content":2183,"config":2188,"_id":2190,"_type":13,"title":2191,"_source":15,"_file":2192,"_stem":2193,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/secure-stage-for-appsec",{"title":2178,"description":2179,"ogTitle":2178,"ogDescription":2179,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2180,"ogUrl":2181,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2181,"schema":2182},"How GitLab's application security dashboard helps AppSec engineers","GitLab Security features help application security engineers collaborate more efficiently and better assess the security posture of the projects they oversee.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749663482/Blog/Hero%20Images/ralph-kayden-4Cg5T03B_8s-unsplash.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/secure-stage-for-appsec","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How GitLab's application security dashboard helps AppSec engineers\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Fernando Diaz\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-07-07\",\n      }",{"title":2178,"description":2179,"authors":2184,"heroImage":2180,"date":2185,"body":2186,"category":948,"tags":2187},[1051],"2020-07-07","\n[Application Security (AppSec)](/topics/devsecops/) engineers focus on enhancing an application's security, by\nfinding, resolving, and preventing vulnerabilities. But managing all these\nvulnerabilities across different teams and projects is not an easy process. Managing vulnerabilities\ncan be simplified by using the [GitLab Secure](/stages-devops-lifecycle/secure/)\nfeatures found in [GitLab Ultimate](/pricing/ultimate/).\n\nOne of the significant capabilities of GitLab Secure is the accurate, automated, and continuous assessment of the\nsecurity of your applications and services through a unified dashboard.\n\nIn this blog post, I will show four ways GitLab Secure makes life easier for the AppSec\nengineer.\n\n---\n\n## Finding vulnerabilities with security scans\n\nThe first capability that AppSec engineers will find useful is the robust security scanning capabilities in [GitLab Ultimate](/pricing/ultimate/).\n\nThese capabilities allow you to proactively identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses to minimize your security risk\nusing a variety of defense-in-depth techniques. The security scans include the following:\n\n* [Static Application Security Testing (SAST)](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/sast/)\n* [Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/dast/)\n* [Container Scanning](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/container_scanning/)\n* [Dependency Scanning](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/dependency_scanning/)\n* [License Scanning](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/compliance/license_compliance/index.html)\n\n![pipeline with security scans](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/secure-stage-for-infosec-professionals/pipeline.png)\nGitLab pipeline running security scans\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nSimply add a [template](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/tree/master/lib/gitlab/ci/templates/Security)\nto your [.gitlab-ci.yml](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/#includetemplate) or by enable [Auto DevOps](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/) to set-up the scans.\n\nWhen submitting a merge request (MR), the security scans will run and populate the MR with\ndata on the vulnerabilities detected and how to resolve them. This data allows AppSec engineers\nto begin risk analysis and remediation.\n\n## Managing vulnerabilities with the Security Dashboard\n\nThe second most useful capability for AppSec engineers is the [Security Dashboard](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/security_dashboard/), which helps\nkeep projects organized and summarizes the relevant security details for an application, all in one place.\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/t-3TSlChHy4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\nThe Security Dashboard in [GitLab Ultimate](/pricing/ultimate/) provides a high-level overview of the status of all the vulnerabilities\ndetected in groups, projects, and pipelines.\n\n![security dashboard with group view](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/secure-stage-for-infosec-professionals/dashboard-group.png)\nSecurity Dashboard Group-Level view\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nBy using the Security Dashboard, an AppSec engineer can drill down into each\nvulnerability to obtain additional information, such as how to resolve the vulnerability,\nhow it was handled by the developer, and if a work ticket (or GitLab issue) has been opened\nfor remediation.\n\nThe Security Dashboard also shows which file the vulnerability was detected in. Each vulnerability\nis assigned a severity and a report type. By using this information an AppSec Engineer\ncan quickly identify which items is the most critical for the team to tackle first.\n\n![security dashboard with project view](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/secure-stage-for-infosec-professionals/dashboard-project.png)\nSecurity Dashboard project-level view\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nIt's important to note the Security Dashboard supports integrations with third-party scanners.\nFor example, if you are using [WhiteSource](https://www.whitesourcesoftware.com/gitlab/), the\nscans results can added to and managed in the Security Dashboard.\n\n## Auditing with the Security Dashboard\n\nA third capability GitLab Secure offers AppSec engineers is auditing. The engineer can use this capability to audit\na project or group based on the vulnerabilities revealed in various tests. By using the Security Dashboard,\nthe AppSec engineer can see which vulnerabilities have been dismissed, the developer who dismissed them, as\nwell as the reason why they were dismissed. This is helpful for several reasons:\n\n* Check to make sure the development team is practicing secure coding\n* Confirm there are no malicious actors dismissing issues\n* Keep track of the status of vulnerabilities which could not be immediately resolved\n\n![security dashboard vulnerability info](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/secure-stage-for-infosec-professionals/dashboard-info.png)\nVulnerability info displayed in Security Dashboard\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nAn AppSec engineer can also track and create [confidential issues](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issues/confidential_issues.html) from the\nSecurity Dashboard. A team can keep track of the status\nof a vulnerability in private, and make sure it is still on track to being resolved when using confidential issues. A\nconfidential branch can be created along with the issue, so that the development team\ncan work on a resolution without tipping off malicious actors.\n\n![security dashboard confidential issue creation](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/secure-stage-for-infosec-professionals/dashboard-issue-creation.png)\nConfidential issues created via Security Dashboard\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n## Managing software licenses\n\nThe final capability we recommend AppSec engineers use is our license management.\n\nTypically, developers will use a variety of open source dependencies instead of reinventing the wheel.\nThere is a problem though: using a dependency with a restrictive license can invalidate your application.\n\nAn AppSec engineer is able to add a policy to mark licenses as acceptable or unacceptable for a project and its dependencies.\nIf an unacceptable license is found, the MR can be blocked. The video below provides\nan overview:\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/42f9LiP5J_4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\nGitLab Secure capabilities enhance the effiency of AppSec engineers, ultimately\nleading to the production of more secure applications and a more security-empowered\ndevelopment team. Learn more at [DevSecOps](/solutions/security-compliance/) and\ncheckout the [GitLab Secure direction page](/direction/secure/) for more\ninformation on the upcoming features and integrations.\n\n### Level up your DevSecOps knowledge:\n\n  [GitLab's security tools and the HIPAA risk analysis](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/gitlab-security-tools-and-the-hipaa-risk-analysis/)\n  [A deep dive into the Security Analyst persona](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/a-deep-dive-into-the-security-analyst-persona/)\n  [Compliance made easy with GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/compliance-made-easy/)\n\nCover image by [Ralph Kayden](https://unsplash.com/@ralphkayden) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/4Cg5T03B_8s)\n{: .note}\n\n## Learn more about DevSecOps\n\n- [Efficient DevSecOps: 9 tips for shifting left](/blog/efficient-devsecops-nine-tips-shift-left/)\n- [Want better DevSecOps? Try cross-functional collaboration](/blog/achieve-devsecops-collaboration/)\n- [Compliance made easy with GitLab](/blog/compliance-made-easy/)\n\n\u003C%= partial \"includes/blog/blog-merch-banner\" %>\n",[701,677,723,9],{"slug":2189,"featured":6,"template":680},"secure-stage-for-appsec","content:en-us:blog:secure-stage-for-appsec.yml","Secure Stage For Appsec","en-us/blog/secure-stage-for-appsec.yml","en-us/blog/secure-stage-for-appsec",{"_path":2195,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2196,"content":2202,"config":2207,"_id":2209,"_type":13,"title":2210,"_source":15,"_file":2211,"_stem":2212,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/tech-debt",{"title":2197,"description":2198,"ogTitle":2197,"ogDescription":2198,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2199,"ogUrl":2200,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2200,"schema":2201},"How to use DevOps to pay off your technical debt","Technical debt is a universal problem with an equally universal solution – DevOps. Here's how DevOps can reduce the tech debt burden and help you deploy faster and more frequently.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749681643/Blog/Hero%20Images/greenery.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/tech-debt","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How to use DevOps to pay off your technical debt\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Sara Kassabian\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-10-05\",\n      }",{"title":2197,"description":2198,"authors":2203,"heroImage":2199,"date":2204,"body":2205,"category":698,"tags":2206},[779],"2020-10-05","\n\nOne of the primary resource constraints in the [DevOps](/topics/devops/) world is technical debt. Technical debt is a metaphor created by Ward Cunningham that compares the build-up of cruft (deficiencies in the internal quality of software systems) to the accumulation of financial debt, where the effort it takes to add new features is the interest paid on the debt, writes [Martin Fowler](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebt.html).\n\nIt’s common for a busy developer to write code with known imperfections, but because the priority is to ship new features as quickly as possible, deliverables are often prioritized over correcting the inefficiencies in the process.\n\nOne of the major dilemmas with determining the value of spending precious time fixing cruft versus building new features is that the costs are not objectively measurable, says Fowler. Just like with paying off financial debt, the right call is largely circumstantial as opposed to absolute.\n\n\"Given this, usually the best route is to do what we usually do with financial debts, pay the principal off gradually,\" writes Fowler.\n\nBy cleaning up some of the cruft as you work on the new features, you ensure that the most relevant code is tidier for future iterations. When it comes to crufty, but stable, code, you can leave it alone. This method is similar to paying the monthly balance on a low interest rate loan – the impact is minimal.\n\n \"In contrast, areas of high activity need a zero-tolerance attitude to cruft, because the interest payments are cripplingly high,\" writes Fowler.\n\nOne way to start dealing with technical debt is to conduct a rough audit and triage your technical debt by \"interest rate\" – high interest rate cruft is addressed with the same priority as shipping new features, while medium-to-low interest rate cruft can be dealt with in a ratio that best suits your team’s situation, because dealing with your most urgent technical debt sooner rather than later will help you save resources in the long-term.\n\n## How tech debt accumulates in your workflow\n\nIt’s not just code that contains cruft. A lot of the time, we have cruft that slows down our engineering processes. When it comes to investing time and money into updating DevOps processes, it seems there is never enough of either resource.\n\n\"We don’t let our teams spend time on improving their process because we think it’s wasted effort,\" says [Brendan O’Leary](/company/team/#brendan), senior developer evangelist at GitLab. \"But if you can spend a day fixing some things that make your workflow inefficient, and you save an hour a week from now until eternity, that’s a big difference.\"\n\nTake for instance manual deployment versus the use of automated pipelines. We know that deploying manually takes an enormous amount of time, but the upfront cost of allocating time to building automated pipelines can seem daunting.\n\nIf your team is trapped in a time-consuming cycle of technical debt, take a peek at how Minnesota-based consulting firm, [BI Worldwide](/customers/bi-worldwide/) (BIW), was able to accelerate deployments by transitioning to GitLab. In the case study, the BIW Corporate Products Development Team explains how they were stuck in a rut of manual testing and manual deployments on their on-prem infrastructure. Their toolchains were complex and inefficient, which created a dense backlog.\n\n\"It was entirely time-consuming to apply all of those code changes,\" said Adam Dehnel, product architect, BIW, in the case study. As a result, deployments were infrequent and slow as too many features were crammed into each release.\n\nThe first step to increase the speed of their deployments was to update and modernize their processes.\n\n\"[BIW] had practices and tools in place at the time but were spending time on items that weren’t business differentiating features. They faced classic issues surrounding a lack of cross-team communication including inefficient mechanisms for intra-organization workflows and individualized toolsets.\"\n\nFirst, BIW made the painful transition from CVS to Git. Next, the company aimed to automate the build, test, and deployment process and built a toolchain with tools such as GitHub, Jenkins, JIRA, and Confluence.\n\nFor BIW, this complex toolchain was buggy. One thing that was not mentioned in this specific use case, but still merits recognition, is the hidden cost of maintaining all of these different tools.\n\n\"The argument to be made there is not only is it cost of using these various tools, but also that the more tools you have, there is the overhead cost of upgrading them, maintaining them, and integrating them,\" says Brendan. \"There’s a massive hidden cost behind the cost of doing business.\"\n\nIn the next iteration, BIW embraced the efficiency of an all-in-one tool by transitioning to GitLab.\n\nBIW went from a pre-Git pace of shipping a release every nine to 12 months to deploying nearly ten times a day using GitLab Ultimate, no doubt putting a serious dent in the technical debt that followed their slower, laborious release cycle.\n\n## Conserve valuable resources and pay off technical debt with DevOps\n\nIn a previous blog post, we examined [communication strategies to get non-technical stakeholders to buy-in to DevOps](/blog/devops-stakeholder-buyin/). DevOps can help you deploy faster and more frequently, giving your business an edge over the competition, but it is also a strategy for paying off your technical debt. By first taking into account inefficiencies in your code and engineering processes, you can make a rough triage of your team's technical debt. This type of audit is the first step to identifying cruft you can trim to help speed up your cycle time, clear your backlog, and modernize your engineering processes.\n\n## Read more\n\n- [Need DevOps buy-in? Here's how to convince stakeholders](/blog/devops-stakeholder-buyin/)\n- [A guide to cloud native storage for beginners](/blog/cloud-native-storage-beginners/)\n- [Want to iterate faster? Choose boring solutions](/blog/boring-solutions-faster-iteration/)\n\nCover Photo by [Vadim L](https://unsplash.com/@sk3tch?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/plants?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)\n",[784,9,677,108],{"slug":2208,"featured":6,"template":680},"tech-debt","content:en-us:blog:tech-debt.yml","Tech Debt","en-us/blog/tech-debt.yml","en-us/blog/tech-debt",{"_path":2214,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2215,"content":2221,"config":2227,"_id":2229,"_type":13,"title":2230,"_source":15,"_file":2231,"_stem":2232,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/the-devops-platform-for-agile-business",{"title":2216,"description":2217,"ogTitle":2216,"ogDescription":2217,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2218,"ogUrl":2219,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2219,"schema":2220},"The DevOps Platform for agile business","For a truly agile business, in every sense of the word, we think you need GitLab's DevOps Platform. Here's why.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749668155/Blog/Hero%20Images/devops-strategy-devops-toolchain.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/the-devops-platform-for-agile-business","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"The DevOps Platform for agile business\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Cormac Foster\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2021-11-03\",\n      }",{"title":2216,"description":2217,"authors":2222,"heroImage":2218,"date":2223,"body":2224,"category":674,"tags":2225},[839],"2021-11-03","\n\nIf you’ve spent time on the site, you already know that GitLab is The DevOps Platform, a single-application solution that is radically different than DIY DevOps toolchains. Have questions? Great — because we have answers, and [we’d love to chat](/demo/). But let’s address the most important question of all right here: “What’s in it for me?” Our approach is objectively different from other solution providers, but why should you care?\n\nIt’s a valid question, and one you should feel comfortable asking any solution provider. You don’t trade your station wagon for a Ferrari for looks, you get the Ferrari because it wins races. In our case, [The DevOps Platform](/solutions/devops-platform/) will absolutely make you better at “doing DevOps.” You can simplify your infrastructure like [Glympse](/customers/glympse/), which consolidated 20 tools into one. You can speed your delivery like [Goldman Sachs](/customers/goldman-sachs/), which increased deployments from two per month to 1,000 per day. You can run security scans concurrently with development like [Chorus](/customers/chorus/). These are all substantial improvements that can [generate real ROI](/resources/report-forrester-tei/) right away while improving quality of life for your employees. On its own, that’s fantastic — but incremental gains are just the start of the journey. \n\nUltimately, the point of The DevOps Platform isn’t doing DevOps better; it’s transforming your business and improving agility.\n\n_That’s a pretty bold statement._\n\nQuite, but it’s also true. We don’t want to improve DevOps outputs. We want to help you realize business outcomes. \n\nDevOps broke down silos between Development and Operations, ramping efficiency and velocity, but did that ultimately make businesses more profitable or innovate? Frequently, no, because the blocker to value creation just moved somewhere else — like Security, Product or Compliance. You can deploy 100x per day, but if a weeks-long audit process stands between any build and your customer, those efficiency gains might not matter. That’s where The DevOps Platform shines. As a single source of truth with a single data store, it provides visibility and context to every stakeholder in the company, whether they’re a Developer, Designer, Auditor, Security Professional or anyone else with a part to play.\n\nGot it. It’s about collaboration.\n\nAbsolutely. Our [mission statement](/company/mission/#mission) is “Everyone can contribute” because collaboration equals innovation. But you can’t just throw a wiki or a ticketing system at a problem and call it fixed. Contextual collaboration matters. If I’m a product owner and development is blocked or a security pro who sees that a known vulnerability wasn’t remediated, I need to know why, when and by whom. If you aren’t collaborating inside the system of work with real-time data, you’re probably missing critical context, which leads to poor decisions and, ultimately, less value in the hands of customers. When every company is a software company, every member of the business needs to be involved with and understand some aspect of software delivery.\n\n_So, now we’re talking about DevSecProductDesignFinanceAuditOps?_\n\nSure. But that’s a mouthful. Let’s just call it “agile business” because that’s really what The DevOps Platform gives you in the end. We’re extending the benefits of DevOps to a broader range of roles to remove those blockers at the edges of the process. This allows your whole organization to engage in and reap the rewards of agile thinking. And that brings us back to transformation. A platform is what’s been missing from so many Digital Transformation initiatives over the years, and a big reason why, even though businesses have gained efficiencies here and there, the primary goal of doing big things differently has been so hard to reach.\n\nNo software solution — not even GitlLab — can do the work for you, but that’s OK. You already know how to run your business. You have ideas and talent. You just need the software behind your software to get out of your way and support your business as you innovate. If you’ve already invested in transformation initiatives, The DevOps Platform can unlock the value of those investments. If you’re just getting started, it can help you scale your innovation immediately. To see how The DevOps Platform can work for you, [try GitLab Ultimate for free](/free-trial/).\n",[677,9,2226],"customers",{"slug":2228,"featured":6,"template":680},"the-devops-platform-for-agile-business","content:en-us:blog:the-devops-platform-for-agile-business.yml","The Devops Platform For Agile Business","en-us/blog/the-devops-platform-for-agile-business.yml","en-us/blog/the-devops-platform-for-agile-business",{"_path":2234,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2235,"content":2241,"config":2246,"_id":2248,"_type":13,"title":2249,"_source":15,"_file":2250,"_stem":2251,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/three-steps-to-optimize-software-value-streams",{"title":2236,"description":2237,"ogTitle":2236,"ogDescription":2237,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2238,"ogUrl":2239,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2239,"schema":2240},"GitLab's 3 steps to optimizing software value streams","Discover the power of GitLab Value Streams Dashboard (VSD) for optimizing software delivery workflows.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749667893/Blog/Hero%20Images/workflow.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/three-steps-to-optimize-software-value-streams","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"GitLab's 3 steps to optimizing software value streams\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Haim Snir\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2023-06-26\",\n      }",{"title":2236,"description":2237,"authors":2242,"heroImage":2238,"date":2243,"body":2244,"category":674,"tags":2245},[1348],"2023-06-26","\n\n\u003Ci>This is part three of our multipart series introducing you to the capabilities within GitLab Value Stream Management and the Value Streams Dashboard. In part one, [learn about the Total Time Chart](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/value-stream-total-time-chart/) and how to simplify top-down optimization flow with Value Stream Management. In part two, learn how to [get started with the Value Streams Dashboard](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-value-streams-dashboard/). \u003C/i>\n\nIt’s no news that software development is a complex process that involves many different stages, teams, and tools. With significant investments made in digital transformation and adopting new tools following the shift to remote work, measuring and managing the business value of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) have become more complex.\n\nThis is where Value Stream Management (VSM) comes in. VSM is a methodology that helps organizations optimize their software delivery process by visualizing, measuring, and improving the flow of value (a.k.a. the “value stream”) from ideation to production. Some examples are: the amount of time it takes to go from an idea to production, the velocity of the project, bottlenecks in the development process, and long-running issues or merge requests. As you’ve probably guessed from its title, this blog will cover how the [new capabilities of GitLab Value Streams Dashboard](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2023/05/22/gitlab-16-0-released/#value-streams-dashboard-is-now-generally-available) can help you do all that, and optimize your software delivery.\n\n## Value Stream Management in a nutshell \nGitLab [VSM](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/value-stream-management/) provides end-to-end visibility into your software delivery process. It enables you to [map out your value stream](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/#create-a-value-stream-with-custom-stages), identify bottlenecks, measure key metrics, and identify the places where you are either lagging or doing exceptionally well. It then also allows you to take action on these insights. In essence, GitLab VSM helps you to understand and optimize your development processes to deliver software faster and better.\n\n![GitLab Value Stream Analytics](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-05-24-vsm-overview.png){: .shadow}\nWith Value Stream Analytics, you can establish a baseline for measuring software delivery performance progress and identifying the touchpoints in the process that do not add value to the customer or your business.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nAnd if you’re wondering how GitLab VSM is able to do that, it’s because GitLab provides an entire DevSecOps platform as a single application and, therefore, holds all the data needed to provide end-to-end visibility throughout the entire SDLC. So now, your decisions rely on actual data rather than blind estimation or gut feelings. Additionally, since GitLab is the place where work happens, these insights are also actionable, allowing your users to move from “understanding” to “fixing” at any time, from within their workflow and without losing context.\n\n## How VSM works: The three-step analysis\nLet’s take a look at how GitLab VSM helps you optimize your SDLC in three easy steps:\n\n**Step 1:** Get an end-to-end view across your entire organization and pinpoint the value streams you need to focus on.\n\nThe [Value Streams Dashboard](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/value_streams_dashboard.html) is a centralized view where you can see and compare all of the SDLC metrics of all your organization's projects. This dashboard enables you to identify hotspots in your SDLC streams — projects or teams that are underperforming, with longer stages and cycle times. It also shows you where you have the largest value contributors, so you can identify and learn what is working well and what's not. With this information at hand, you can now prioritize your efforts and understand where to spend your time.\n\n![VSM illustration](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-05-24_vsm1.gif){: .shadow}\n\n\nThis centralized UI acts as a single source of truth for your organization, where all the relevant stakeholders can access, view, and analyze the same set of metrics. This ensures everyone is on the same page, promoting consistency in analysis and decision-making.\n\nRead more: [Getting started with the new GitLab Value Streams Dashboard](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/getting-started-with-value-streams-dashboard/)\n\n**Step 2:** Drill down into a specific project.\n\nWhen you select a project from the main dashboard, you are directed to that project's Value Stream Analytics (VSA), where you see its value stream. The project's metrics are presented for each stage of the project, helping you understand where the main work lies and which stages need improvement. The VSA overview provides valuable insights into lead times, cycle times, and other critical metrics that help you identify areas for optimization.\n\n![VSM illustration](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-05-24_vsm2.gif){: .shadow}\n\n\nRead more: [Value stream management: Total Time Chart simplifies top-down optimization flow](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/value-stream-total-time-chart/)\n\n**Step 3:** Dive deep into the Value Stream Analytics dashboard to analyze and fix issues.\n\nOnce the main areas of interest are identified, GitLab Value Stream Analytics (VSA) enables you to drill down further into a specific stage of the project. In the stage table, you can sort the **Last event** column to view the most recent workflow event, and sort the items by **duration** so you can rearrange the events and gain insights faster. This way, you can easily detect work items that are slowing down the project in that stage. Here's an example how we dogfood [VSA on gitlab-org](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/value_stream_analytics). \n\nYou can identify the owner of the work items responsible for the delays, examine code changes, and perform a comprehensive analysis of the issue. This level of visibility and traceability empowers you to take targeted actions and make the necessary improvements to optimize the value stream, all within the context of your current workflow.\n\n![VSM illustration](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-05-24_vsm3.gif){: .shadow}\nUse GitLab Value Stream Management to visualize the progress of work from planning to value delivery, and gain actionable context.\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n## The value of Value Stream Management\nGitLab VSM is a powerful solution that fits seamlessly into your SDLC. By providing end-to-end visibility and granular, actionable insights into the value stream, VSM enables you to optimize your software delivery and provide value to your customers faster. Access the information you need, when you need it — and easily act on it from within your workplace. VSM offers you the best of both worlds: out-of-the-box functionality and the ability to customize features.\n\nSay goodbye to time-consuming searches and hello to instant access to the information you need most. To learn more, check out the [Value Stream Analytics documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/value_streams_dashboard.html).\n\nTo help us improve the Value Stream Management, please share feedback about your experience in this [survey](https://gitlab.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_50guMGNU2HhLeT4).\n",[9,677,950,1352,723],{"slug":2247,"featured":6,"template":680},"three-steps-to-optimize-software-value-streams","content:en-us:blog:three-steps-to-optimize-software-value-streams.yml","Three Steps To Optimize Software Value Streams","en-us/blog/three-steps-to-optimize-software-value-streams.yml","en-us/blog/three-steps-to-optimize-software-value-streams",{"_path":2253,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2254,"content":2259,"config":2264,"_id":2266,"_type":13,"title":2267,"_source":15,"_file":2268,"_stem":2269,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/tips-for-a-successful-jira-to-gitlab-migration",{"title":2255,"description":2256,"ogTitle":2255,"ogDescription":2256,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1265,"ogUrl":2257,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2257,"schema":2258},"Tips for a successful Jira to GitLab migration","If you are considering a migration to GitLab for Agile planning, this blog is for you! Learn some tips to help in your transition.","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/tips-for-a-successful-jira-to-gitlab-migration","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Tips for a successful Jira to GitLab migration\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Melissa Ushakov\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2023-10-24\",\n      }",{"title":2255,"description":2256,"authors":2260,"heroImage":1265,"date":2261,"body":2262,"category":842,"tags":2263},[1250],"2023-10-24","\n_Atlassian is ending support for all Server products in February 2024. [Learn more about the benefits of migrating from Atlassian to GitLab here](https://about.gitlab.com/move-to-gitlab-from-atlassian/)._\n\nWith the [end of life of Jira Server approaching](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/atlassian-server-ending-move-to-a-single-devsecops-platform/), many organizations are considering a migration from Jira to GitLab for Agile planning to streamline organizational processes. Moving your team to a new Agile planning tool can seem daunting, but this change is worth the effort. GitLab empowers your teams to collaborate seamlessly in a single DevSecOps platform, leading to increased delivery of user value. We have helped many customers of all sizes and Agile maturities transition to GitLab and are ready to help. In this blog, you'll find practical tips to help you in your journey migrating to GitLab for Agile planning.\n\n## Tips for your migration\n\n### Examine your Jira setup\n\nTake the time to understand your current Jira setup — consider this an opportunity to [simplify your configuration](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/five-reasons-to-simplify-agile-planning-tool-configuration-gitlab/). Moving to a new Agile planning tool allows you to rethink processes and find ways to empower your teams to deliver software faster.\n\n### Start with an integration\n\nThe [GitLab Jira integration](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/integration/jira/configure.html) allows you to see your Jira issues in GitLab. That way, you can retain Jira as your source of truth for Agile planning while you migrate other DevSecOps processes into GitLab. Your engineers will be able to stay within GitLab for their day-to-day work, and Product, Project, and Design team members can explore GitLab before transitioning. Easing your way into a new tool gives your users time to adjust to a new way of working.\n\n![Issue View in Jira](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/atlassianjira/issueview.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nIssue View in Jira\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n### Plan your GitLab setup\n\nFocusing on planning up front will save you time down the road and prevent unnecessary change management. GitLab has several key features that can greatly improve your experience and allow you to get the best value from your investment, including:\n- [Groups and projects](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/): Jira doesn't allow you to create a hierarchy for containers of Agile planning work items. Groups and projects in GitLab unlock portfolio \"team of teams\" planning, permissions management, and data rollups. Consider how you want to roll up data and assign permissions when creating a group and project structure. We recommend creating a group to represent your team where you can manage epics, labels, and boards. Child projects under your team's groups can house your repositories and related issues. \n- [Labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/labels.html): GitLab offers many ways to customize your experience based on labels. We recommend creating a set of scoped labels to represent statuses. We also often see users create scoped labels for work categorization, such as `bug`, `enhancement`, or `maintentance`. If you had a custom field for a value in Jira or you want to be able to filter or pull analytics by a specific attribute, just create a label for it in GitLab.\n- [Milestones and iterations](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/): Use milestones to longer-running planning, such as Releases or Program Increments in the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®). This is typically a Fix Version in Jira. Iterations represent team sprints. In GitLab, you can view a burnup or burndown chart for both milestones and iterations.\n\n![Group and project example](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-09-28-tips-for-a-successful-jira-to-gitlab-migration/group_projects_setup.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\nUse groups and projects to model your organizational hierarchy\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n### Determine the scope of your data migration\n\nMigrating to a new tool is an opportunity to do some backlog clean up! When deciding what data to migrate, focus on what you'll need to successfully continue your team's work. Bringing large volumes of historical data to a new tool will increase the complexity and effort to migrate, and many times offers limited value. Historical data can remain in your Jira instance, or you can archive it so that it's accessible without migrating it into GitLab. Once you've narrowed down your dataset, use [the Jira issue importer](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/jira.html) to migrate data into GitLab. Our [REST](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/rest/index.html) and [GraphQL](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/graphql/index.html) APIs are available for those that want to build a more customized migration experience.\n\n![Jira importer](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-09-28-tips-for-a-successful-jira-to-gitlab-migration/import_issues_from_jira.png){: .shadow.small.center}\nUsing GitLab Jira importer, you can import your Jira issues to GitLab.com or to your self-managed GitLab instance\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n### Plan your migration timeline\n\nIn a typical organization, there will be different levels of proccess complexity and maturity within the teams migrating to GitLab. Run a pilot with a team that has a simple setup and is willing to provide feedback. This will allow you to smooth out potential problems, improve your configuration, and document best practices. We recommend planning for time in your schedule to iterate on your configuration. \n\n### Document and share best practices \n\nKnowledge sharing is an important part of improving your process. Provide teams that are onboarding the opportunity to give feedback and share best practices. You can use [GitLab wikis](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/wiki/) to serve as a central source of knowledge for your Agile planning process and to document best practices.\n\n\n### Monitor progress and improvements\n\nAfter migrating to GitLab, your teams will unlock new analytics capabilties that allow you to track the flow of value across a value stream. As a result, you'll have the data you need to celebrate successes and learn from missteps. With [Value Stream Analytics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/) and the [Value Stream Dashboard](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/value_streams_dashboard.html), you can monitor the positive effect of moving Agile planning workflows from a siloed tool to an integrated DevSecOps platform. \n\n![Value Stream Analytics gives you an overview of the time spent at each stage of your DevSecOps workflow](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-05-07-vsa-overview.gif){: .shadow.medium.center}\nValue Stream Analytics gives you an overview of the time spent at each stage of your DevSecOps workflow\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n\n## Getting started\n\nBy following the tips outlined in this blog, you can help your migration be more efficient and maximize the potential of GitLab for your Agile needs. You can get started today with the [the Jira issue importer](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/jira.html). Once you've onboarded into GitLab, you can scale your Agile processes further with [portfolio]( https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/portfolio-management/) and [value stream management](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/value-stream-management/). \n\nHave questions about migrating from Jira to GitLab? [We're here to help](https://about.gitlab.com/sales/).\n",[9,474],{"slug":2265,"featured":6,"template":680},"tips-for-a-successful-jira-to-gitlab-migration","content:en-us:blog:tips-for-a-successful-jira-to-gitlab-migration.yml","Tips For A Successful Jira To Gitlab Migration","en-us/blog/tips-for-a-successful-jira-to-gitlab-migration.yml","en-us/blog/tips-for-a-successful-jira-to-gitlab-migration",{"_path":2271,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2272,"content":2278,"config":2283,"_id":2285,"_type":13,"title":2286,"_source":15,"_file":2287,"_stem":2288,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/unlocking-agile-excellence-gitlab-epics-for-seamless-portfolio-management",{"title":2273,"description":2274,"ogTitle":2273,"ogDescription":2274,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2275,"ogUrl":2276,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2276,"schema":2277},"Unlocking Agile excellence: GitLab Epics for seamless portfolio management","Explore how GitLab's multi-level epics revolutionize Agile portfolio management, offering a structured yet flexible approach for strategic planning and efficient execution.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750098713/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/agile_agile.png_1750098713577.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/unlocking-agile-excellence-gitlab-epics-for-seamless-portfolio-management","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Unlocking Agile excellence: GitLab Epics for seamless portfolio management\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Amanda Rueda\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Melissa Ushakov\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-02-06\",\n      }",{"title":2273,"description":2274,"authors":2279,"heroImage":2275,"date":2280,"body":2281,"category":842,"tags":2282},[990,1250],"2024-02-06","Effective portfolio management is crucial for the success of organizations in the ever-evolving landscape of software development. Placing the right bets, optimally allocating resources, and mitigating risks are all required for effectively executing on your business strategy.\n\nGitLab's portfolio management capabilities offer a structured yet flexible approach for connecting strategy to execution. In this blog post, we'll explore the advantages of GitLab's multi-level epics and their pivotal role in Agile portfolio management.\n\n## Understanding GitLab's multi-level epics\nGitLab's multi-level epics allow organizations to organize their work in a hierarchical structure, providing a clear and detailed view of projects and their interdependencies so that teams can make informed decisions, anticipate potential challenges, and streamline their workflows for enhanced efficiency and successful project delivery. Unlike other tools, GitLab allows nesting epics up to seven layers deep across different groups and projects, enabling efficient cross-functional coordination.\n\n![epics portfolio management - image 1](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750098728/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image3_aHR0cHM6_1750098727863.png)\n\n## Advantages of multi-level epics in portfolio management\n\nThe following are four advantages of multi-level epics in portfolio management.\n\n### 1. Flexible compatibility with Agile frameworks\n\nEpics seamlessly adapt to various scaled Agile frameworks, allowing teams to adjust GitLab to your preferred way of working. Multi-level epics offer a flexible construct to represent different higher-level planning work items with minimal configuration required. This adaptability means teams can efficiently use GitLab for product planning workflows without the need for extensive setup so that they can focus more of their time on strategic planning and less on configuring tools.\n\n### 2. Granular work breakdown\n\nGitLab's multi-level epics enable organizations to break down intricate projects into smaller, manageable components so that teams can identify smaller iterations, allowing for the faster and more frequent delivery of tangible user value. Higher-level epics provide a strategic overview that can span multiple years, while epics closer to deliverables can typically be completed in a handful of sprints. Epics can be broken down into issues and tasks to tie strategic objectives to more tactical deliverables.\n\n![epics portfolio management - image 2](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750098728/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image4_aHR0cHM6_1750098727864.png)\n\n### 3. Real-time visibility and collaboration\n\nGitLab epics offer real-time visibility into progress, promoting effective team collaboration. GitLab offers unparalleled traceability, with automatic epic progress updates based on downstream DevSecOps activity for connected work items, allowing stakeholders to make informed decisions based on the most up-to-date information, allocate resources effectively, and maintain a proactive approach to managing product timelines.\n\n![epics portfolio management - image 3](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750098728/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image2_aHR0cHM6_1750098727866.png)\n\n### 4. Cross-team planning\n\nMulti-level epics facilitate efficient planning across multiple teams by providing a centralized view of work breakdown and dependencies from teams across your organization, ensuring cohesive collaboration and alignment of efforts. All information for your organization's Agile planning processes and execution of the work lives within a single tool, providing the shared context of how a team's work relates to higher-level strategy.\n\n![epics portfolio management - image 4](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750098728/Blog/Content%20Images/Blog/Content%20Images/image1_aHR0cHM6_1750098727871.png)\n\nGitLab’s portfolio management tools, including multi-level epics, ensure that strategic planning aligns seamlessly with the execution of projects, allowing teams to navigate the complexities of software development with precision, efficiency, and a clear focus on overarching business goals.\n\nReady to harness the full potential of GitLab's multi-level epics and elevate your portfolio management experience? Explore our subscription options on our [pricing page](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/), and unlock a host of powerful features designed to fuel collaboration, enhance transparency, and propel your projects toward success.",[9,1115,474],{"slug":2284,"featured":90,"template":680},"unlocking-agile-excellence-gitlab-epics-for-seamless-portfolio-management","content:en-us:blog:unlocking-agile-excellence-gitlab-epics-for-seamless-portfolio-management.yml","Unlocking Agile Excellence Gitlab Epics For Seamless Portfolio Management","en-us/blog/unlocking-agile-excellence-gitlab-epics-for-seamless-portfolio-management.yml","en-us/blog/unlocking-agile-excellence-gitlab-epics-for-seamless-portfolio-management",{"_path":2290,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2291,"content":2296,"config":2301,"_id":2303,"_type":13,"title":2304,"_source":15,"_file":2305,"_stem":2306,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/unveiling-a-new-epic-experience-for-improved-agile-planning",{"title":2292,"description":2293,"ogTitle":2292,"ogDescription":2293,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":1284,"ogUrl":2294,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2294,"schema":2295},"Unveiling a new epic experience for improved Agile planning","Explore the update for GitLab epics that enhances planning and improves workflows – all with seamless migration for better project management.","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/unveiling-a-new-epic-experience-for-improved-agile-planning","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Unveiling a new epic experience for improved Agile planning\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Amanda Rueda\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2024-07-03\",\n      }",{"title":2292,"description":2293,"authors":2297,"heroImage":1284,"date":2298,"body":2299,"category":842,"tags":2300},[990],"2024-07-03","In our ongoing journey to enhance the Agile planning experience in GitLab, we [recently unveiled a new look](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/first-look-the-new-agile-planning-experience-in-gitlab/). This update marks a significant step toward creating a unified and flexible planning tool tailored to your needs. This article explores a crucial part of that initiative: the new epic experience. You'll learn about upcoming epic features and the motivations behind these changes, which are designed to elevate your project management capabilities.\n\n## Why the new epic experience?\n\n### Addressing user feedback\nAs part of our mission to provide a comprehensive Agile planning experience, we've listened closely to your feedback. Users have highlighted challenges with the current epic implementation, such as inconsistent features between epics and issues and a lack of flexibility to support diverse workflows. Some pain points focused on workflow tools, including the absence of assignees on epics and a lack of reusable templates. The new epic experience addresses these pain points and makes Agile planning more intuitive and efficient.\n\n### Unified Work Items framework\nTo tackle these issues, we've introduced a unified Work Items framework. This new architecture ensures consistency across all planning objects — epics, issues, and tasks — simplifying the user experience and enhancing functionality. By consolidating the underlying code, we can deliver new features and improvements faster, ensuring a smoother and more reliable planning process.\n\n> Read more about [what is to come with GitLab Agile planning](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/first-look-the-new-agile-planning-experience-in-gitlab/).\n\n## Key features of the new epic experience\n\n### Enhanced detail page\nOne of the most notable changes is the revamped epic detail page. The new design offers a cleaner, more intuitive interface, making it easier to manage and track your epics.\n\nHere are some new key features:\n* **Assignees** - assign epics to team members, improving accountability and oversight.\n* **Health status** - quickly gauge the status of your epics with new health indicators.\n* **Time tracking** - create better visibility over time spent and ensure efficient use of resources across your projects.\n* **Ancestry** - view the entire hierarchy lineage of the epic.\n* **Condensed description** - easily view long work item descriptions without having to scroll excessively. Descriptions are truncated by default, with a \"Show more\" link to expand the full text on demand. This streamlines your workflow by allowing you to quickly scan descriptions and only expand them when needed, reducing clutter and improving readability.\n* **Custom color** - customize the color related to epics viewed on the roadmap now with the ability to define a custom color, use HEX or RGB codes, or choose from an expanded predefined palette. \n\n![new epic experience screenshot](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749674437/Blog/Content%20Images/Screenshot_2024-07-10_at_4.22.45_p.m..png)\n\n### Consistency across planning objects\nThe new epic experience aligns closely with the new issues experience coming soon (spoiler alert!) and tasks, providing a seamless and cohesive user experience. This consistency helps streamline workflows and reduces the learning curve for new users.\n\n### Additional functionality\nWe plan to iteratively add exciting new features that will enhance your planning capabilities. Our goal is to allow you to tailor planning processes within GitLab to best fit your organization’s unique needs. Once we’ve released the new epics experience, you can expect to see additional functionality with every release! There are many great features to come – here are some of my favorites:\n- [Templates](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/428690)\n- [Custom fields](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/235)\n- [Configurable statuses](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5099)\n- [Project-level epics](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/31840)\n- [Cloning](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/339768)\n- [Moving to another group/project](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/339766)\n- [Milestones](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/329)\n\n## Migration expectations\nWe understand that any change can be disruptive, so we've designed the migration to the new epic experience to be as seamless as possible. All existing epic data, APIs, and URLs will continue to function as expected. Users do not need to take any action to prepare for this transition. For our self-managed customers, learn how you can preview the new experience in a test environment ahead of general availability [here](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/epic_work_items.html).\n\n## Community feedback and engagement\nWe value your input and encourage you to share your experiences with the new epic experience. Your feedback is essential to help refine and improve our tools. Please visit our [epic experience feedback issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/494462) to provide your thoughts and suggestions.\n\n## What's next\nThe new epic experience in GitLab represents a significant leap forward in our Agile planning capabilities. With enhanced features, improved consistency, and a user-centric approach, we are confident that these changes will greatly benefit your project management processes. We invite you to explore the new features, provide feedback, and stay tuned for more updates as we continue to innovate and improve.\n\n> [Bookmark this page](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/categories/agile-planning/) to keep up with our Agile planning news.",[9,474,950,926,723],{"slug":2302,"featured":6,"template":680},"unveiling-a-new-epic-experience-for-improved-agile-planning","content:en-us:blog:unveiling-a-new-epic-experience-for-improved-agile-planning.yml","Unveiling A New Epic Experience For Improved Agile Planning","en-us/blog/unveiling-a-new-epic-experience-for-improved-agile-planning.yml","en-us/blog/unveiling-a-new-epic-experience-for-improved-agile-planning",{"_path":2308,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2309,"content":2315,"config":2322,"_id":2324,"_type":13,"title":2325,"_source":15,"_file":2326,"_stem":2327,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/use-cases-for-epics",{"title":2310,"description":2311,"ogTitle":2310,"ogDescription":2311,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2312,"ogUrl":2313,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2313,"schema":2314},"How the GitLab UX team uses epics","UX Manager Sarrah Vesselov shares how the UX team is using epics to manage their workflow.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749680187/Blog/Hero%20Images/how-ux-team-uses-epics.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/use-cases-for-epics","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How the GitLab UX team uses epics\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Sarrah Vesselov\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2018-03-19\",\n      }",{"title":2310,"description":2311,"authors":2316,"heroImage":2312,"date":2318,"body":2319,"category":948,"tags":2320},[2317],"Sarrah Vesselov","2018-03-19","\n\nOne of the challenges for UX here at GitLab is how to work iteratively, making the smallest changes possible, while maintaining a holistic view of the application. As the manager for the UX department, I was curious to see how we could use [epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/) to better plan and track UX efforts over time.\n\n\u003C!-- more -->\n\n## What are epics?\n\nThe term 'epic' is most commonly associated with Agile methodology. In Agile, an epic is a collection of user stories that describe a larger user flow, typically consisting of multiple features. So, what does ‘epic’ mean at GitLab? Here, epics contain a title and description, much like an issue, and allow you to attach multiple child issues to indicate hierarchy. In short, an epic is a feature that allows you to manage a portfolio of projects more efficiently and with less effort by tracking groups of issues that share a theme, across projects and milestones.\n\nWhat this meant for the UX team was that we finally had an efficient way to plan, track, and execute a group of thematically related issues. Take the merge request page for example. We have over 100 issues related to UX improvements for this feature alone! Each issue, taken on its own, represents just one piece of a much bigger picture. Epics would allow us to define the goal we have for the entire page and organize issues specific to that effort.\n\n## Getting started with epics\n\nTo get started with epics, we put together a UX strategy template. This template would be filled out and added to the epic description. The template defined the following:\n\n- **Challenges:** What user problem are we trying to solve? What business problem are we trying to solve? Are there obstacles standing in the way?\n\n- **Vision:** What do we want to achieve?\n\n- **Focus Areas:** What will we focus our attention on to have the most impact?\n\n- **Mission:** How will we achieve this goal?\n\n- **Activity/Deliverables:** What will we do and what will we deliver?\n\n- **Measure:** How will we measure success qualitatively and quantitatively?\n\nThe template also includes links to any relevant [personas](/blog/discovering-gitlabs-personas/) and [research](/blog/conducting-remote-ux-research/) we should consider when working toward the overall goal.\n\n## Creating our first epic\n\nWith the template ready to go, we chose the merge request page as our first area of focus. We started by reviewing the existing UX research for this page. It was essential to use data to understand the pain points and opportunities. We also examined the entire backlog of issues related to this page, matching existing issues to the research findings. With the significant pain points identified, we were able to fill out the template and create our very first epic.\n\n![Merge Request Epic](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/epics-ux.png){: .shadow}\n\nWith a holistic view of what we wanted to achieve, we could go back and find issues in the backlog that were critical to the vision. These issues were added to the epic and ordered according to priority. As we discover new information, we can reorder these issues to match the change in priority. As the scope expands, we can aggressively break things out into new epics for development at a later time or parallel to the existing epic. In the future, [sub-epics](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/4282) will make this process even more fluid.\n\n![Merge Request Epic Issues](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/epic-ux-issues.png){: .shadow}\n\n*\u003Csmall>Issues are listed under the epic description. They can be easily reordered by dragging and dropping them into place.\u003C/small>*\n\nWe also set a time frame for this overall effort to be achieved. Having a set timeframe allows us to resource plan with the product team and make adjustments accordingly.\n\n## Looking ahead\n\nSo far, epics have proven to be well suited for planning long-term UX efforts. It has allowed us to maintain a holistic view of product area while still working iteratively. Epics also give other departments better visibility into what UX considers important. We are already looking beyond the merge request page and using epics to plan other efforts spanning multiple milestones. Epics are still relatively new, and there are many additions yet to come. In future releases, they will support [labeling](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/4032), [discussions](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/3889), [project-level epics](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/4019), and integration with [issues](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/4684) and [roadmaps](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/3559).\n\n![Roadmap feature for epics](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/roadmaps.png){: .shadow}\n\nThe [Roadmap feature](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/3559), pictured above, is set to be released in 10.5. Roadmaps offer a graphical, high level overview of an epic, or multiple epic's, goals and deliverables presented on a timeline. The blue roadmap bar and the epic list item are clickable and will navigate to that epic's detail page.\n\n## Resources\n- [Portfolio Management Roadmap](/direction/#portfolio-management-and-issue-management )\n\nPhoto by [Dmitri Popov](https://unsplash.com/) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/search/photos/scale?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)\n{: .note}\n",[9,723,700,2321],"UX",{"slug":2323,"featured":6,"template":680},"use-cases-for-epics","content:en-us:blog:use-cases-for-epics.yml","Use Cases For Epics","en-us/blog/use-cases-for-epics.yml","en-us/blog/use-cases-for-epics",{"_path":2329,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2330,"content":2336,"config":2341,"_id":2343,"_type":13,"title":2344,"_source":15,"_file":2345,"_stem":2346,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/value-stream-total-time-chart",{"title":2331,"description":2332,"ogTitle":2331,"ogDescription":2332,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2333,"ogUrl":2334,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2334,"schema":2335},"Value stream management: Total Time Chart simplifies top-down optimization flow","Learn how this new analytics feature provides immediate insights about the time spent in each stage of your workstream.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749667913/Blog/Hero%20Images/clocks.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/value-stream-total-time-chart","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Value stream management: Total Time Chart simplifies top-down optimization flow\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Haim Snir\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2023-06-01\",\n      }",{"title":2331,"description":2332,"authors":2337,"heroImage":2333,"date":2338,"body":2339,"category":674,"tags":2340},[1348],"2023-06-01","\n\nUnderstanding where time is spent during the development lifecycle is a crucial insight for software leaders when optimizing the value delivery to customers. Our new Value Stream Analytics Total Time Chart is a visualization that helps managers uncover how long it actually takes to complete the development process from idea to production. Managers also can learn how much time teams spend in each stage of the workflow.\n \n![The VSA Total Time Chart displays the average time to complete each value stream stage.](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/2023-05-07-vsa-overview.gif){: .shadow}\nValue Stream Analytics Total Time Chart\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nValue Stream Analytics is available out of the box in the GitLab platform. It surfaces the process and value delivery metrics through the unified data model that stores all the records around development efforts. Value Stream Analytics uses a backend process to collect and aggregate stage-level data into [three core objects](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/#how-value-stream-analytics-works):\n\n- Value streams - container objects with stage list \n- Value stream stage - an event pair of start and end events\n- Value stream stage events - the smallest building blocks of the value stream. For example, from Issue created to Issue first added to board. See the [list of available stage events](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/#value-stream-stage-events).\n\n> [Register for the GitLab 16 webinar](/sixteen/), where we will unveil the latest innovations in our AI-powered DevSecOps platform.\n\nWe added in the new chart the stages breakdown as a stacked area chart to make it easier to understand how each stage contributes to the total time, and how that changes over time. Each area in the chart represents a stage. By comparing the heights of each area, you can get an idea about how each stage contributes to the total time of the value stream. We also added a tool tip with the stages breakdown sorted top to bottom, to help you understand the stages in their correct order.\n\nThe new chart is available in the Value Stream Analytics Overview page (on the left sidebar, select **Analytics > Value stream**). This page includes four sections:\n  1.  Data filter text box - on the top of the Overview page you can use the [Data filters](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/#data-filters) to view data that matches specific criteria or date range. \n  2. Stage navigation bar - below the filter text box you can use the the stage navigation bar to investigate what happened in the specific stage and to identify the items (issues/MRs) that are slowing down the stage time.\n  3. Key metrics tiles - the summary of the stream performance is displayed, above the chart in the [Key metrics tiles](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/#key-metrics). \n  4. Overview charts - the newly added Total Time Chart and the [Task by type](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/#view-tasks-by-type) chart. \n\nBut that's not all. The Total Time Chart also simplifies the top-down optimization flow, starting from the Value Streams Dashboard organization-level view to a drill-down into the performance of each project:\n\n\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/EA9Sbks27g4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen>\u003C/iframe>\n\n\nFrom the Value Stream Analytics overview page, you can drill down from Key metrics tiles into other GitLab analytics pages for deeper investigations. You can also go up to the Value Streams Dashboard, or investigate the [DORA metrics](/solutions/value-stream-management/dora/) that are also available in the new dashboard.\n\nIt's important to note that the chart data is limited to items completed within the selected date range. Also, there could be points in time with no [\"stage event\"](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/#value-stream-stage-events) actions. In these cases, the chart will display a dashed line to represent the missing data. These gaps can add contextual information about the workstream, and usually do not represent interruptions in the data. When there is \"no data\" for a specific stage, the stage line will be flat.\n\nTo learn more check out the [Value Stream Analytics documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/value_stream_analytics/).\n\nWith the Value Stream Analytics Total Time Chart, you get immediate insights about the time spent in each stage over time to determine if progress is being made. Try it out today and see the difference it can make in your workstream!\n",[9,677,950,1352,723],{"slug":2342,"featured":6,"template":680},"value-stream-total-time-chart","content:en-us:blog:value-stream-total-time-chart.yml","Value Stream Total Time Chart","en-us/blog/value-stream-total-time-chart.yml","en-us/blog/value-stream-total-time-chart",{"_path":2348,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2349,"content":2355,"config":2361,"_id":2363,"_type":13,"title":2364,"_source":15,"_file":2365,"_stem":2366,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/vcc-with-a-single-app",{"title":2350,"description":2351,"ogTitle":2350,"ogDescription":2351,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2352,"ogUrl":2353,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2353,"schema":2354},"A single application for your end-to-end DevOps needs starts with Version Control & Collaboration","Version Control & Collaboration is centered at the core of your end-to-end DevOps single application needs","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749681652/Blog/Hero%20Images/markus-spiske-MkwAXj8LV8c-unsplash.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/vcc-with-a-single-app","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"A single application for your end-to-end DevOps needs starts with Version Control & Collaboration\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Tye Davis\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-10-07\",\n      }",{"title":2350,"description":2351,"authors":2356,"heroImage":2352,"date":2358,"body":2359,"category":971,"tags":2360},[2357],"Tye Davis","2020-10-07","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\n\n[Source code](/solutions/source-code-management/) acts as a single source of truth and a collection of a product’s knowledge, history, and solutions. [Version control](/topics/version-control/) serves as a safety net to protect the source code from irreparable harm, giving the development team the freedom to experiment without fear of causing damage or creating code conflicts. If developers code concurrently and create incompatible changes, version control identifies the problem areas so that team members can quickly revert changes to a previous version, compare changes, or identify who committed the problem code through the revision history. \n\nWith [version control systems](/topics/version-control/), a software team can solve an issue before progressing further into a project. Through code reviews, software teams can analyze earlier versions to understand how a solution evolved. With source code as a starting point to GitLab being a single source of truth, the capabilities expand beyond version control systems that does everything from project planning and source code management, to CI/CD, monitoring, and security.\n\nGitLab enables portfolio planning and management through epics, groups (programs) iterations and milestones to organize and track progress. Regardless of your methodology from Waterfall to DevOps, GitLab’s simple and flexible approach to planning meets the needs of small teams to large enterprises. GitLab helps teams organize, plan, align and track project work to ensure teams are working on the right things at the right time and maintain end to end visibility and traceability of issues throughout the delivery lifecycle from idea to production.\n\nGitLab helps teams design, develop and securely manage code and project data from a single distributed version control system to enable rapid iteration and delivery of business value. GitLab repositories provide a scalable, single source of truth for collaborating on projects and code which enables teams to be productive without disrupting their workflows.\n\nGitLab helps delivery teams fully embrace continuous integration to automate the builds, integration and verification of their code. GitLab’s industry leading CI capabilities enables automated testing, Static Analysis Security Testing, Dynamic Analysis Security testing and code quality analysis to provide fast feedback to developers and testers about the quality of their code. With pipelines that enable concurrent testing and parallel execution, teams quickly get insight about every commit, allowing them to deliver higher quality code faster.\n\nGitLab enables teams to package their applications and dependencies, manage containers, and build artifacts with ease. The private, secure container registry and artifact repositories are built-in and preconfigured out-of-the box to work seamlessly with GitLab source code management and CI/CD pipelines. Ensure [DevOps acceleration with automated software](/topics/devops/) pipelines that flow freely without interruption\n\nGitLab allows for security practices to be enabled at the creation phases of the project, increasing resilience to external attacks, internal threats and ability to resume activity promptly. GitLab incorporates several security capabilities to make development more secure even before build happens. They can detect secrets and license compliance issues, find vulnerabilities in source code or in its dependencies before merging, find vulnerabilities in running apps before merging, as well as containers. These capabilities can even reproduce what thousand of users input in seconds to detect faults and other issues with Fuzz testing. \n\nWith zero-touch Continuous Delivery (CD) built right into the pipeline, deployments can be automated to multiple environments like staging and production, and the system just knows what to do without being told - even for more advanced patterns like canary deployments. With feature flags, built-in auditing/traceability, on-demand environments, and GitLab pages for static content delivery, you'll be able to deliver faster and with more confidence than ever before.\n\nGitLab helps teams to configure and manage their application environments. Strong integration to Kubernetes reduces the effort needed to define and configure the infrastructure required to support your application. Protect access to key infrastructure configuration details such as passwords and login information by using ‘secret variables’ to limit access to only authorized users and processes. GitLab looks to provide feedback that decreases the frequency and severity of incidents and improves operational and product performance.\n\nSource code management is more than simply tracking changes, versions, and branches of code.  The ability to connect every phase of the Software Development Lifecycle in one [single DevOps platform](/solutions/devops-platform/) via one data layer, one design system, one set of commands to manage all the different stages of software design, development, build and deployment gives an organization a resource like no other. \n\nWatch this short video (3 minutes) to learn how [VC&C Single App](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/coverage_fuzzing/) on GitLab.\n\n\u003Ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/SAfpdJ7jpHQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen>\u003C/iframe>\n\nCover image by [Markus Spiske](https://unsplash.com/@markusspiske) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/)\n{: .note}\n\n",[108,701,9],{"slug":2362,"featured":6,"template":680},"vcc-with-a-single-app","content:en-us:blog:vcc-with-a-single-app.yml","Vcc With A Single App","en-us/blog/vcc-with-a-single-app.yml","en-us/blog/vcc-with-a-single-app",{"_path":2368,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2369,"content":2375,"config":2380,"_id":2382,"_type":13,"title":2383,"_source":15,"_file":2384,"_stem":2385,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/whitesource-for-dependency-scanning",{"title":2370,"description":2371,"ogTitle":2370,"ogDescription":2371,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2372,"ogUrl":2373,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2373,"schema":2374},"How to secure your dependencies with GitLab and WhiteSource","We walk you through how to configure WhiteSource in your GitLab instance to enhance your application security.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749663445/Blog/Hero%20Images/snowymtns.jpg","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/whitesource-for-dependency-scanning","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"How to secure your dependencies with GitLab and WhiteSource\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Fernando Diaz\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2020-08-10\",\n      }",{"title":2370,"description":2371,"authors":2376,"heroImage":2372,"date":2377,"body":2378,"category":701,"tags":2379},[1051],"2020-08-10","\nGitLab's WhiteSouce integration empowers developers to enhance application security\ndirectly within the GitLab UI. The integration provides dependency scanning with\nin-depth analysis, along with actionable insights, and auto-remediation. WhiteSource for\nGitLab enhances your team's productivity, security, and compliance.\n\n[Rhys Arkins](https://twitter.com/rarkins?lang=en), Product Director at WhiteSource, and I hosted a webinar on \"[Harnessing development to scale AppSec](/webcast/scalable-secure-ci/)\"\nshowcasing the features of GitLab's WhiteSource integration for open source dependency scanning.\n\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n\u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/yJpE_ACt9og\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\u003C!-- blank line -->\n\nThis blog post will guide you through setting up WhiteSource in your private GitLab instance\nand show you how the integration with WhiteSource enhances your application's security within GitLab.\n\n## Installing the WhiteSource integration\n\nFirst, let's go over how to install the WhiteSource integration. In this section, I will review how to\nset up GitLab service credentials, generate a WhiteSource configuration,\nbuild WhiteSource containers, and how to run them in a Kubernetes cluster.\n\n### Requirements for WhiteSource integration\n\nBut first, the WhiteSource integration requires that you have the following setup:\n\n- [GitLab on-prem instance](/pricing/#self-managed): The GitLab instance where the WhiteSource integration will run.\n- [WhiteSource account](https://www.whitesourcesoftware.com/whitesource-pricing/): Provides access to the WhiteSource integration.\n- [Kubernetes cluster](/solutions/kubernetes/): Deploys the WhiteSource containers.\n\n### Create GitLab service credentials\n\nThe next step is to create GitLab service credentials. This can be accomplished in three simple steps:\n\n- In your GitLab instance, go to `Admin Area > System Hooks` and create a system hook as follows:\n    - **URL:** `https://whitesource.INGRESS_URL.com/payload`\n    - **Secret Token:** Make up a token, you can use `openssl rand -base64 12`\n    - **Trigger:** All except `Tag push events`\n    - **Enable SSL Verification:** `Yes`\n\n  Note: Make sure you save the secret token for use in the next section.\n- Create a user named `@whitesource`, with a developer role. An email is not required.\n- As the `@whitesource` user, go to `Settings > Access tokens` and create a personal access token:\n    - **Name:** `WhiteSourceToken`\n    - **Scopes:** `all`\n- Remember to save the access token for use in the next section.\n\n### Generate the WhiteSource configuration\n\nNext, we generate the WhiteSource configuration, which is used to configure the WhiteSource integration containers.\nThis can be done in a few simple steps:\n\n- Login to [WhiteSource](https://saas.whitesourcesoftware.com/Wss/WSS.html#!login) and click on\nthe `Integrate` tab.\n\n![whitesource webpage view](https://about.gitlab.com/images/whitesource-integration/whitesource_webpage_view.png)\nWhiteSource mainpage\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n- Expand the `WhiteSource for GitLab server` bar and fill the following:\n    - **GitLab Server API URL:** `https://GITLAB_SERVER_URL/api/v4`\n    - **GitLab Webhook URL:** `https://whitesource.INGRESS_URL.com/payload`\n    - **GitLab Webhook secret:** Use the same secret generated in GitLab credentials section\n    - **GitLab personal access token:** `@whitesource` user access token\n\n![whitesource integration view](https://about.gitlab.com/images/whitesource-integration/whitesource_integration_setup.png)\nWhiteSource integrations page\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n- Press `Get Activation Key` and copy the generated key\n- Open the [wss-configurator](https://gitlab.com/fjdiaz/whitesource-helm/-/blob/master/whitesource/wss-configuration/index.html) with your browser\n- Select `Export` from the menu, and select the [prop.json](https://gitlab.com/fjdiaz/whitesource-helm/-/blob/master/whitesource/wss-configuration/config/prop.json)\n- Click on the `General` tab\n- Paste the generated key and click `Export` to save a new `prop.json` file\n\n### Build the WhiteSource containers\n\n- Move the generated prop.json from the previous section to [wss-gls-app](https://gitlab.com/fjdiaz/whitesource-helm/-/tree/master/whitesource/wss-gls-app/docker/conf), [wss-remediate](https://gitlab.com/fjdiaz/whitesource-helm/-/tree/master/whitesource/wss-remediate/docker/src), and [wss-scanner](https://gitlab.com/fjdiaz/whitesource-helm/-/tree/master/whitesource/wss-scanner/docker/conf).\n- Build and push the Docker containers:\n\n```bash\n$ docker build -t wss-gls-app:19.12.2 whitesource/wss-gls-app/docker\n$ docker push wss-gls-app:19.12.2\n\n$ docker build -t wss-scanner:19.12.1.2 whitesource/wss-scanner/docker\n$ docker push wss-scanner:19.12.1.2\n\n$ docker build -t wss-remediate:19.12.2 whitesource/wss-remediate/docker\n$ docker push wss-remediate:19.12.2\n```\n\n### Running the WhiteSource containers\n\nGitLab provides native Kubernetes cluster integration. This means that GitLab allows you\nto deploy software from [GitLab CI/CD](/topics/ci-cd/) pipelines directly to your Kubernetes cluster.\n\nWhiteSource containers can be deployed and managed within the same Kubernetes cluster\nused to deploy your application, all by running a simple Helm commands.\n\n- Download the WhiteSource [Helm chart](https://gitlab.com/fjdiaz/whitesource-helm)\n- Edit [values.yaml](https://gitlab.com/fjdiaz/whitesource-helm/-/blob/master/helm/whitesource/values.yaml)\n- In vaules.yaml set `whitesource.ingress` to **https://whitesource.INGRESS_URL.com**\n\nYou can get the INGRESS_URL from your Kubernetes cluster settings\n\n![ingress url location](https://about.gitlab.com/images/whitesource-integration/base_domain.png)\nIngress URL location\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n- Make sure Ingress is installed.\n\n![ingress installation](https://about.gitlab.com/images/whitesource-integration/ingress_installation.png)\nInstalling Ingress\n{: .note.text-center}\n\n- Install [Helm](https://helm.sh/docs/intro/install/)\n- Deploy WhiteSource with Helm template:\n\n```bash\nhelm upgrade -f helm/whitesource/values.yaml --install whitesource-gitlab ./helm/whitesource\n```\n\n## Using WhiteSource\n\nOnce the WhiteSource plugin has been installed we can add the `@whitesource` user to the repositories\nwe wish to scan. A merge request (MR) with the `.whitesource` file will be generated automatically.\n\nWhiteSource will now scan your repository and generate issues for all the vulnerabilities discovered on the main (master)\nbranch. These issues will provide detailed information on the vulnerability as well as how to resolve it. Some issues\ncan even be auto-remediated.\n\n![whitesource issue view](https://about.gitlab.com/images/whitesource-integration/whitesource_issues.png)\nWhiteSource vulnerability issues\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nEach time a new MR is pushed, a WhiteSource scan will run, and provide a detailed output.\n\n![whitesource merge request view](https://about.gitlab.com/images/whitesource-integration/whitesource_merge_requests.png)\nWhiteSource MR scanning\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nEach link provided by WhiteSource shows detailed information on the vulnerabilities the scan detected:\n\n![whitesource web links](https://about.gitlab.com/images/whitesource-integration/whitesource_advanced_issues.png)\nWhiteSource vulnerability information\n{: .note.text-center}\n\nWhiteSource can be integrated into the [GitLab Security Dashboard](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/security_dashboard/) so that your security team can manage the\nstatus of these vulnerabilites. Access to the Security Dashboard requires a [GitLab Ultimate account](/pricing/ultimate/).\n\nFor integrating WhiteSource to the Security Dashboard, add the following to the CI.yaml:\n\n```\nwhitesource-security-publisher:\n  image: openjdk:8-jdk\n  when: manual\n  script:\n    - curl \"{{WEBHOOK_URL}}/securityReport?repoId=$CI_PROJECT_ID&repoName=$CI_PROJECT_NAME&ownerName=$CI_PROJECT_NAMESPACE&branchName=$CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME&defaultBranchName=$CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH&commitId=$CI_COMMIT_SHA\" -o gl-dependency-scanning-report-ws.json\n  artifacts:\n    paths:\n      - gl-dependency-scanning-report-ws.json\n    reports:\n      dependency_scanning:\n        - gl-dependency-scanning-report-ws.json\n    expire_in: 30 days\n```\n\nFor more details on the integration checkout [WhiteSource for GitLab](https://whitesource.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/WD/pages/806191420/WhiteSource+for+GitLab).\nLearn more at [DevSecOps](/solutions/security-compliance/) and checkout the [Secure direction page](/direction/secure/) for more\ninformation on the upcoming features and integrations.\n\n## Learn more about application security at GitLab\n\n- [How application security engineers can use GitLab to secure their projects](/blog/secure-stage-for-appsec/)\n- [Get better container security with GitLab: 4 real-world examples](/blog/container-security-in-gitlab/)\n- [How to capitalize on GitLab Security tools with external CI](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/integration/jenkins.html)\n\nCover image by [Alexandra Avelar](https://unsplash.com/@alexandramunozavelar) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/snow-capped-mountains)\n{: .note}\n",[108,701,230,9,1055],{"slug":2381,"featured":6,"template":680},"whitesource-for-dependency-scanning","content:en-us:blog:whitesource-for-dependency-scanning.yml","Whitesource For Dependency Scanning","en-us/blog/whitesource-for-dependency-scanning.yml","en-us/blog/whitesource-for-dependency-scanning",{"_path":2387,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2388,"content":2394,"config":2400,"_id":2402,"_type":13,"title":2403,"_source":15,"_file":2404,"_stem":2405,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/why-gitlab-self-managed-is-the-perfect-partner-for-the-public-sector",{"title":2389,"description":2390,"ogTitle":2389,"ogDescription":2390,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2391,"ogUrl":2392,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2392,"schema":2393},"Why GitLab self-managed is the perfect partner for the public sector","Planning, source code management, CI/CD, app security, and compliance features make the DevSecOps platform a great pairing for government environments.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749664472/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlabflatlogomap.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/why-gitlab-self-managed-is-the-perfect-partner-for-the-public-sector","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"Why GitLab self-managed is the perfect partner for the public sector\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Sandra Gittlen\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2023-12-13\",\n      }",{"title":2389,"description":2390,"authors":2395,"heroImage":2391,"date":2397,"body":2398,"category":674,"tags":2399},[2396],"Sandra Gittlen","2023-12-13","While Atlassian Server is closing in on [end of life](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/atlassian-server-ending-move-to-a-single-devsecops-platform/) (February 15), GitLab is expanding the capabilities of its self-managed DevSecOps platform to fully support the needs of the public sector. GitLab’s [Agile Planning and Delivery features](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/agile-delivery/) help public sector teams consolidate their various Atlassian tools into GitLab’s comprehensive DevSecOps platform. With GitLab, everyone can truly collaborate and efficiently deliver value and consistent quality throughout the DevSecOps lifecycle, including planning, source code management, and continuous integration and delivery – all wrapped with application security and compliance.\n\n\"GitLab self-managed is not only something we offer, but it is important to us. It's a path we are going to continue to support with new functionality and a strong security SLA for critical and high vulnerabilities,\" says Joel Krooswyk, GitLab Federal CTO.\n\nGitLab is [trusted across the public sector](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/public-sector/) in federal civilian agencies, all branches of the U.S. Department of Defense, the intelligence community, state and local governments, and many government contractors and system integrators due to its best-in-class DevSecOps features. GitLab’s application security and compliance features help public sector organizations meet increasing requirements to secure their software factories and supply chains when developing and delivering solutions to their customers. \n\nHere are some of the benefits of the GitLab DevSecOps Platform for the public sector.\n\n## Migrations your way\n\nGitLab can help organizations expedite their migration from Atlassian Server to a self-managed instance of the DevSecOps platform. Connectivity between Atlassian and GitLab is built into the GitLab platform to automate and simplify data transfer from Jira, Bitbucket, Bamboo, and more. Also, because the process is not a wholesale \"lift and shift,\" organizations can carry out their migration at their own pace, even running the Atlassian and GitLab platforms in parallel, if necessary.\n\n\"Customers can stage their migrations in the way that works best for them, moving teams over in a careful, phased approach. And, if you have a program that is ending soon, you don't have to include it in the migration at all,\" Krooswyk says.\n\nThese guides will help ease the migration from Atlassian to GitLab:\n- [Jira-to-GitLab migration](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/tips-for-a-successful-jira-to-gitlab-migration/)\n- [Bitbucket Server-to-GitLab migration](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/bitbucket_server.html)\n- [Bamboo-to-GitLab CI/CD migration](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/migrating-from-bamboo-to-gitlab-cicd/)\n\n## Process-neutral planning\n\nGitLab is process-neutral; Agile features can be leveraged to utilize a variety of processes from simple to complex, such as Scaled Agile, on a project-by-project basis. Public sector teams can tailor their work to best meet their needs, while also using [group-defined labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/labels.html#view-group-labels) to roll information up to management [group-level boards](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/issue_board.html#group-issue-boards) and [analytics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/analytics_dashboards.html) to track progress across their organization.\n\n## Reduced administration burden\n\nPublic sector organizations can reduce their administrative burden in numerous ways with GitLab, from simplifying procurement processes to streamlining DevSecOps toolchains.\n\nFor instance, if an organization has a conglomerate of boutique contractors all under a single umbrella, they can consolidate licensing into a single purchase and achieve cost savings. They also can eliminate fragile and complex DIY toolchains that impede collaboration and innovation by [consolidating onto a single DevSecOps platform](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/shake-off-sprawling-diy-toolchains-with-a-devsecops-platform/).\n\n## Support for security automation and strong SLAs\n\nGitLab features security automation and governance at scale at every step of the DevSecOps lifecycle. Public sector organizations can practice defense in depth and set granular policies and rules that automate compliance, ensuring a secure software supply chain. Developers can use security automation to minimize manual repetitive tasks so they can focus on deep, value-generating work. At the same time, GitLab's governance guardrails assure security teams that developers are following best practices across the entire company.\n\nFor instance, [required merge request approvals](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/approvals/#required-approvals) for [protected branches](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/approvals/rules.html#approvals-for-protected-branches) and approval rules enable an organization to [support zero trust in the DevSecOps lifecycle](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/why-devops-and-zero-trust-go-together/) by [defining code owners for reviews](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/approvals/rules.html#code-owners-as-eligible-approvers). Approval rules also can call out when [application security scanning](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/approvals/rules.html#security-approvals) or [license scanning](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/compliance/license_approval_policies.html) finds a vulnerability or license that needs additional team members with that expertise to join the review and approval process. \n\nGovernment customers can choose to deploy the GitLab DevSecOps Platform as [a single, hardened application](https://about.gitlab.com/press/releases/2020-07-01-gitlab-announces-hardened-container-image-in-support-of-the-us-department-of-defense-enterprise-devsecops-initiative/) that simplifies end-to-end visibility and traceability. \n\nWith GitLab, security and compliance policies are managed and enforced consistently across an organization's DevSecOps processes. GitLab has worked closely with government customers to ensure that the [platform operates in a fully offline environment](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/offline/) to support the development needs of sensitive programs related to national security.   \n\nGitLab's [vulnerability remediation timelines or SLAs](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/security/threat-management/vulnerability-management/#remediation-slas) are based on many factors, such as regulatory compliance, customer SLOs and SLAs, vulnerability impact, scope, prevalence in GitLab environments, impact if exploited, and defining reasonable turn-around times for mitigation and remediation to protect GitLab and its customers. All of these factors will be considered when mapping the priority to [GitLab’s priority labels](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/labels/index.html#priority-labels). All components in scope of vulnerability management are subject to the same SLAs. \n\n## Compliance across the entire software supply chain\n\nSecuring the whole software supply chain is about more than just the platform being compliant; GitLab  also helps the public sector develop and deliver compliant software to their own customers. For instance, GitLab supports [NIST SSDF](https://trust.gitlab.com/) guidance right out of the box, including the ability to generate a software bill of materials ([SBOM](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-sboms/)).\n\nGitLab also has critical features to keep the software supply chain secure such as [continuous vulnerability scanning](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/continuous_vulnerability_scanning/), which can detect new vulnerabilities outside of an organization's pipeline and in the latest CycloneDX SBOM reports for the default branch. The [compliance dashboard](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/compliance/compliance_center/) enables public sector organizations to report on and manage standards adherence, violations, and compliance frameworks for groups.\n\nControlling access is a key aspect of compliance and GitLab gives public sector organizations complete control over who has access to their development environment. Following zero trust principles, GitLab supports role-based permissions [out of the box](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/permissions.html) as well as [custom roles](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/custom_roles.html).\n\n> Find out [how Lockheed Martin used GitLab's compliance framework](https://about.gitlab.com/customers/lockheed-martin/) to enforce software quality and automation to make releases and dependency management more efficient. \n\n## Pipeline best practices everyone can access\n\nWith GitLab, organizations can easily share knowledge internally and across agencies by leveraging [innersourcing](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/innersource/). Teams can centralize their best practices around CI/CD and enable sharing of pipeline processes, including integrations with other tools, that have already been approved.\n\n\"As pipeline improvements are made, they are contributed back to that shared CI/CD knowledge,\" Krooswyk says. \n\nFor instance, public sector organizations can use compliance frameworks to describe the type of compliance requirements projects must follow and compliance pipelines to define a pipeline configuration to run for any projects with a given compliance framework. Teams can also [create CI/CD templates](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/examples/#adding-templates-to-your-gitlab-installation) to accelerate new development projects.\n\nCustomers also can build a CI component catalog to make reusing pipeline configurations easier and more efficient. Users can discover and collaborate on pipeline constructs so that they can be evolved and improved over time.\n\n> Get an [introduction to GitLab CI component catalogs](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/introducing-ci-components/) and how to best use them.\n\n## Support for cloud-neutral environments\n\nThe public sector has a mandate to remain cloud-neutral. Because GitLab isn’t commercially tied to any specific cloud provider, organizations can de-risk their multi-cloud strategy and avoid being locked into a single vendor. The DevSecOps platform also is designed to meet the unique needs of cloud-native applications and the infrastructure upon which they rely.\n\n## Visibility across the software development lifecycle\n\nA key aspect of succeeding at DevSecOps is visibility — it's necessary to measure, monitor, and make decisions. GitLab's [dashboarding and visualization](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/value-stream-management/) features help organizations to leverage people, processes, and technology to create value-stream-driven software development and go from idea to customer value with the fastest cycle time possible. With one unified data store, teams on GitLab can measure efficiency, productivity, and other key metrics in one place, including [applying industry-standard DORA metrics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/analytics/dora_metrics.html). Get a holistic view of everything from DevOps adoption to developer productivity, vulnerability detection, software quality, innovation, and more.\n\n## Experienced professionals at the ready\nGitLab's professional services team has extensive experience in the public sector and understands your particular requirements. If you have multiple services, servers, and programs you need to migrate, we will help you plan that out.\n\n> Ready to migrate to GitLab? [Contact our sales team](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/public-sector/) to start a conversation today.\n",[1115,677,1055,9,183],{"slug":2401,"featured":6,"template":680},"why-gitlab-self-managed-is-the-perfect-partner-for-the-public-sector","content:en-us:blog:why-gitlab-self-managed-is-the-perfect-partner-for-the-public-sector.yml","Why Gitlab Self Managed Is The Perfect Partner For The Public Sector","en-us/blog/why-gitlab-self-managed-is-the-perfect-partner-for-the-public-sector.yml","en-us/blog/why-gitlab-self-managed-is-the-perfect-partner-for-the-public-sector",{"_path":2407,"_dir":243,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"seo":2408,"content":2414,"config":2420,"_id":2422,"_type":13,"title":2423,"_source":15,"_file":2424,"_stem":2425,"_extension":18},"/en-us/blog/4-ways-to-use-gitlab-issue-boards",{"title":2409,"description":2410,"ogTitle":2409,"ogDescription":2410,"noIndex":6,"ogImage":2411,"ogUrl":2412,"ogSiteName":666,"ogType":667,"canonicalUrls":2412,"schema":2413},"4 ways to use GitLab Issue Boards","By leveraging the power of labels, GitLab Issue Boards can be easily customized to support any workflow. Here are four examples.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749671759/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlab-issue-board-cover.png","https://about.gitlab.com/blog/4-ways-to-use-gitlab-issue-boards","\n                        {\n        \"@context\": \"https://schema.org\",\n        \"@type\": \"Article\",\n        \"headline\": \"4 ways to use GitLab Issue Boards\",\n        \"author\": [{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"Victor Wu\"}],\n        \"datePublished\": \"2018-08-02\",\n      }",{"title":2409,"description":2410,"authors":2415,"heroImage":2411,"date":2416,"body":2417,"category":298,"tags":2418},[1191],"2018-08-02","\nThere are many different ways to build software and run projects. When we began\nto build portfolio and project management tools within GitLab, we asked\nourselves, \"How do you build tools to support a diverse array of workflows\nwithout crippling users with complexity?\" Our conclusion? Build fewer, but more\nflexible tools. GitLab's built-in [issue boards](/stages-devops-lifecycle/issueboard/) is a\ngreat example of how choosing to build a single, versatile tool can significantly\nreduce complexity and tooling maintenance for the user without limiting its\ncapabilities.\n\n> How do you build tools to support a diverse array of workflows without crippling\nusers with complexity? Build fewer, but more flexible tools.\n\nManaging projects and software is inherently complex, but the tools don't have to be.\nRegardless of how many projects, people, or products you're managing, getting the\nvisibility you need to keep things running smoothly should be the easy part.\n\n## GitLab issues board\n\nA GitLab Issues Board is a simplified approach to a complex problem. We built on\ntop of GitLab's existing issue-tracking functionality and leverage the power of\nGitLab issue labels by utilizing them as lists on a Kanban board. You can construct different\nviews of your issue board while maintaining the same filtering and sorting abilities\nyou see across the issue tracker. You can create multiple boards to capture every\nlayer of visibility you need, and define the scope of the board by milestone,\nlabels, assignee, and weight.\n\nAn Issue Board is based on its project's label structure, therefore, it applies\nthe same descriptive labels to indicate placement on the board, keeping\nconsistency throughout the entire development lifecycle. And, you can click\ndirectly into an issue from the board to get started on your work.\n\n## 4 uses for the GitLab issues board\n\nAn Issue Board shows you what issues your team is working on, who is assigned to\neach, and where in the workflow those issues are.\n\n### 1. Workflow tracking with GitLab issues\n\nWhether you are a project manager trying to stay on top of a project's status, or\na manager of a product who needs to report on progress, workflow visibility is critical.\n\nTo create a workflow issue board, simply create labels for each stage of your workflow\nand add them as lists on a board. Once you've labeled an issue, it will automatically\nappear on the list. When the issue is ready to move on to the next stage, simply drag\nand drop it into the next list. You can also update the labels directly in the issue\nand your changes will automatically appear on the board.\n\n![Using an issue board for workflow tracking](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/workflow.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\nFor example, your workflow might look something like this:\n\n1. Development\n1. Design\n1. Review\n1. Test\n1. Deploy\n\nTo see this on a board, simply create a label for each stage. Create a new board\nand add a list for each stage. You can drag and drop lists to put them in the\ndesired order.\n\n### 2. Cross-functional planning with different categories\n\nSimilar to the workflow view, you can create a GitLab issues board based on categories.\n\nWhen working on a particular product or feature, you might want a high-level view\nof what each team is working on. You might create a label and a list for each team,\nor, perhaps you want to see what's being worked on across many projects or product lines.\n\n![Using an Issue Board for planning with categories](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/categories.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\nIn the example above, we have three label lists: `time tracking`, `portfolio management`,\nand `description templates`. Each list represents a particular product area. So\nwith this one board, you'll be able to see what open issues belong to those three\nareas. If you further scope the board to a particular milestone, you'll be able\nto see which of those issues are targeted to be worked on in that milestone.\n\nThis is just one example of how you can use an issue board for planning your work.\nAgain, because the issue board is created using labels, your options are unlimited!\n\n### 3. Team visibility with assignee lists\n\nYou can easily monitor what has been assigned to individuals on your team with\nassignee lists. Assignee lists show issues that are assigned to a specific user,\nand you can create a board to display a list for everyone on your team for a\nquick view of who is working on what.\n\n![Example assignee issue board view](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/team-board.png){: .shadow.large.center}\n\n### 4. GitLab Issues and milestone planning\n\nAs part of our project management capabilities, we've built in [milestones](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/).\nMilestones are used to track issues and merge requests associated with a specific goal\nto be accomplished within a specific time frame.\n\nSimilar to our assignee lists, you will be able to quickly create a milestone view directly from your board. This is particularly\nuseful for those leveraging an [Agile workflow](/solutions/agile-delivery/). With the milestone list, you can\neasily move issues (stories) between different milestones (i.e. sprints, iterations).\n\n| Adding a milestone list | Milestone list |\n|-------------------------|----------------|\n| ![Create milestone list](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/create-milestone-list.png){: .shadow} | ![Milestone list example](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/milestone-list-issue-board.png){: .shadow} |\n\nOf course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned for the our next post on\nusing GitLab for [portfolio planning and management](/blog/gitlab-for-agile-portfolio-planning-project-management/) where we will cover a few of other favorite GitLab features like [Epics](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/epics/), [Roadmaps](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/roadmap/), and [Milestones](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/milestones/).\n\nUpdate as of June 26 2020: Removed the \"Coming Soon\" label on Milestones since it has been released as of 11.2",[723,2419,9],"production",{"slug":2421,"featured":6,"template":680},"4-ways-to-use-gitlab-issue-boards","content:en-us:blog:4-ways-to-use-gitlab-issue-boards.yml","4 Ways To Use Gitlab Issue Boards","en-us/blog/4-ways-to-use-gitlab-issue-boards.yml","en-us/blog/4-ways-to-use-gitlab-issue-boards",10,[659,685,708,730,750,769,791,810,829],1751572747053]