Hypothesis/Data Driven Development using Feature Toggles

Hypothesis and data driven development ties together current thinking about requirements, Continuous Delivery, DevOps, modern architecture, and engineering techniques to help rethink building software.

Agile development claims to abhor “Big Design Up Front”…yet what is that giant backlog building session but BDUF in other clothing? Back in the olden days of software development, we were forced to speculate on what users want, then build it. We were basically running a buffet. But what if we could switch to à la carte? With modern engineering practices like Continuous Delivery, we can shift our perspective and start building by hypothesis rather than speculation. This talk shows the full spectrum of software development, from ideation through execution and deployment, through the lens of modern software engineering practices. I discuss building a platform using feature toggles, canary releases, A/B testing, and other modern DevOps tools to allow you to run experiments to see what your users really want. By building a platform for experimentation, product development shifts from up-front guessing to market driven. This talk unifies the practices of modern architecture, DevOps, and Continuous Delivery to provide a new approach to feature development. This talk also demonstrates how to undertake major architectural restructuring with zero regression failures by relying on data and the scientific method.