#7 - Continuous Delivery and Secrets of Consulting - Sriram Narayanan

“Continuous Integration is when you are integrating with the other developers on the code base as soon as possible. Continuous Delivery is when your code is in a deployable state and functionally correct."

In this episode, I had a long deep conversation with Sriram Narayanan (Ram for short), a Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks Singapore. Ram is one of my mentors and someone that I always enjoy listening to for all his wisdom and vast amount of experience in the industry. Ram has an illustrious versatile career, successfully transforming his role repeatedly, from being a developer, build & release engineer, system administrator, Agile consultant, and recently Continuous Delivery consultant. We discussed in depth about what Continuous Delivery is, including several important concepts in the DevOps world, such as Testing Pyramid, Value Stream Map, and Segregation of Duty. Ram also gave his valuable tips on how to become a successful consultant and how to manage client stakeholders well. We also touched on a few fun discussions on how one should keep up with the rapid changes in technology and deal with a plethora of industry buzzwords. Do not miss the insightful archery analogy anecdote in our conversation!

Listen out for:

• Ram’s career journey and how he progressed in ThoughtWorks - [00:05:14]
• What Continuous Delivery is - [00:20:50]
• What Testing Pyramid is - [00:38:34]
• Ram’s view on “buzzword driven development” - [00:48:07]
• Why and how one should keep up with technologies - [00:53:27]
• Importance of Value Stream Map and Segregation of Duty - [01:02:41]
• How to be a successful consultant and deal with imposter syndrome - [01:17:55]
• Tips on managing stakeholders - [01:24:40]
• Ram’s 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [01:31:15]

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Sriram Narayanan’s Bio
Sriram “Ram” Narayanan has worked for 24 odd years in the IT and non-IT in various roles and capacities. He has run his own businesses, and has helped others succeed in theirs. He is a self-taught programmer and enjoys learning all the time. In his professional capacity, he currently helps customers on their journey to Continuous Delivery. In his personal time, he is working on a book on Continuous Delivery, and is a student of approaches to reverse climate change.

Follow Sriram:

• Website – https://www.sriramnarayanan.com
• LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sriramnrn
• GitHub – https://github.com/sriramnrn

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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/7.