About
Welcome to Agile Web Operations – a blog to help web developers and operations bridge the deployment gap.
Nowadays, successful web development requires both solid coding and in-depth operational know-how. Writing a web application doesn’t have too much in common with keeping it running, and having knowledge in both of these areas is crucial growing your online business. Whether you’ve split these responsibilities amongst the team, or have folks with both skillsets, you’ll often get opposing viewpoints on how to solve website problems.
We want to share with you both our successes and difficulties in choosing the right advice, and help you bridge the gap between development and web operations:
- What’s needed for deploying and operating your web application?
- How can you keep a laser-like focus on the most relevant aspects of your web project to ensure a successful launch?
- What will help you remain lean and agile enough to adapt to continually changing requirements without burning out?
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Dan Ackerson (co-editor)
Having worked as both a developer and an operations manager, I’ve gotten all too familiar with the ever widening gap between what developers and customers consider “done”. In order to help narrow this, I’d like to share some of my ideas and experiences concerning the software development processes with a vision towards actually releasing what customers need. 
Dan Ackerson I started my professional career in the U.S. Army, and moved on to one of the largest banks in the world before becoming disillusioned with all the red tape and bureaucracy of “big business”. So, I jumped at the opportunity to join a small-sized company. There, I found you could really make a difference and get things done. Over the years, I’ve had many chances to work with developers from all over the world. Whether locally or offshore based, I’ve found that small, international teams create a highly compelling and intensely motivating work dynamic. My current role as CTO of Netdoktor is no exception to this rule. With your help, I’m looking forward to bridging the gap! |
Matthias Marschall (co-editor)
Having started with Intranet applications in the nineties, I moved on to developing B2B web applications at the turn of the millenium. Today, I’m building and running a community driven web site: autoplenum.de. My journey has gradually brought me closer to embracing more operational responsibilities in addition to development and team leading. Seeing and designing all kinds of different development processes, I’ve found it important to not only focus on building and refactoring your code but to constantly strive for improving your processes, your operations environment and your personal skills, too. Long term success can only be achieved by addressing each one of these areas. 
Matthias Marschall To realize this, I have come to believe in lean principles and seen their promises come true: Getting things done faster with higher quality and at a lower cost. This radical shift from the conventional wisdom of “haste makes waste” or “higher quality comes at a higher price” has strongly influenced my thinking. I want to share with you my experiences made in a variety of challenges including: Shifting a whole development organization from “big bang” type of software development and operations towards a much more agile way, taking over clumsy and fragile web applications and making them maintainable, and building slimmed down processes focused on helping teams instead of hindering them. Environments I’ve worked in span from tiny, local teams to multiple, geographically separated teams and from working on business critical web applications to more social networking sites like my current job as CTO of autoplenum. Together, let’s make developing, maintaining, and operating web applications fun again. |
