What is continuous integration in agile development? Explained with examples

continuous integration in agile development


One of the very common practices followed in Agile is continuous integration(CI) which is basically a development practice where developers integrate their work into a shared repository frequently, preferably several times a day. Each integration can then be verified by an automated build and automated test to detect integration errors as quickly as possible.

A friendly example of continuous integration 

Let's think of continuous integration in terms of a group project, where every member regularly updates their part of the project, and then works with the team to ensure that everything still works together. Since project managers come from every industry, I'm going to use a non-technical example.

Imagine a team tasked with creating an annual report for a company. This report includes various sections like market analysis, financial performance, HR updates, and future projections. Each section will be handled by a different team member.

Instead of working in isolation and combining all the sections at the end, the team members agree to upload their sections into a shared document management system every afternoon. This allows everyone to see the evolving document daily.

To ensure consistency across the report, the team decides on a common set of formatting rules. All text must be in Arial 12-point for body text and 14-point for headings. The company's brand colors are to be used consistently: blue for headings, gray for subheadings, and black for body text. A PowerPoint template is chosen with predefined slide layouts to ensure visual coherence throughout the presentation.

While automated checks are common in software development, the team adopts a manual but still systematic approach. Each team member reviews the newly integrated sections for compliance with the formatting standards. A designated editor reviews the document every evening to ensure that all the new content adheres to the predefined style guide and that there are no discrepancies or overlap in content.


Any deviations from the style guide or overlaps in content are flagged immediately in the document comments for the responsible team member to correct the next day. Short daily meetings allow the team to discuss any issues found during the reviews and plan corrective actions immediately.

Through this process of continuous integration, the report remains organized, visually coherent, and aligned with the company's branding guidelines. Regular updates and checks ensure that the final product is polished and cohesive, requiring minimal revisions at the deadline.

Now, we'll explore a scenario where the team identifies and must resolve an integration issue. James is the financial analyst. He's responsible for the financial performance section of the report. Rosa is the market analyst. She handles the market analysis section.

James and Rosa are collaborating on the annual report, integrating their sections into the shared document. During one of their regular check-ins to review the combined sections, Rosa notices that the financial growth rates James included don't match the market growth rates she analyzed. The mismatch could confuse stakeholders about the company's performance relative to market trends.


Rosa flags the discrepancy during their shared review session and discusses it with James directly. James and Rosa compare notes and realize that James used an outdated base year for his calculations.


They decide to update the financial data to match the market analysis base year for consistency. James quickly updates his section with the corrected base year and reuploads it to the shared document. Rosa reviews the updated financial data to ensure it aligns with her market analysis.


Together they go through the combined sections once more to confirm that all information is now consistent and clearly presented. They finalize the content for clarity and coherence. By catching the error early during their regular integration checks, James and Rosa avoided more significant revisions later.

They saved time and reduced stress. Notice that we didn't focus on blame or who made a mistake. The issue was caught so early that rework was minimal. If anything, this type of event would have led to more learning and a positive team interaction.

Fixing issues quickly

A rollback is a process in which changes made to a system, software application, or document are undone, reverting the system to a previous state that is known to be stable or correct. This is typically done to recover from errors or issues introduced by a recent update or change that negatively affected the system's performance, stability, or functionality. A rollback might also be called revert, undo, or back out.


Suppose that after integrating their sections into the main document, an error is detected in the financial data that James provided. Maybe the data doesn't align properly with Rosa's market analysis. But in this scenario, the error is only noticed after the combined report is shared with the team or even presented in a draft form to stakeholders. During the review or feedback session, it becomes clear that the financial statistics have been calculated using an outdated set of assumptions that clash with the updated market trends.

The team decides that the error is significant enough to potentially mislead stakeholders. They opt to revert the document to the last stable version before the erroneous update was added. The team accesses the document management system where all versions of the report are saved.

They identify the last version of the document before the recent changes. The previous version of the report is restored and set as the current working document. This version does not contain the flawed financial data.

Now, the financial data is revised according to the correct assumptions and guidelines. The correct financial data is reintegrated or added back into the report, and it undergoes a quick review by the team to confirm that all information now aligns properly.

The process and reason for the rollback are documented for future reference. This documentation helps to identify the causes of such discrepancies and helps to prevent similar issues in future reports.

Conclusion:

Now we understand that why continuous integration is so useful in Agile development as it helps in catching errors so quickly that saves time & stress for us and it also encourages teamwork that further makes project smoother. Just like our above example of annual report team, software companies and their teams use continuous integration to keep projects organized and detect issues faster and deliver smoother and polished final project to the client.

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