In digital development processes, new features need to be delivered efficiently. The same can be said about error fixes or code replacement. The question is, however, do development teams actually need a sophisticated feature management platform? What are the benefits of implementing such tools? In this article, we will shed some light on this subject.
Feature flags in the development process
As we can learn from feature flag management experts (https://www.getunleash.io/feature-management), the process allows engineering teams to focus on building, testing, and releasing better software. This seems to be true because in the modern-day app industry, the apps themselves are quite complicated. Furthermore, they require a lot of maintenance and updates. Especially if they are successful and many clients use them on a daily basis. That means a technique called feature flags (or feature toggles a.k.a. switches) is simply essential for testing purposes, deployment of feature updates and so on. The more complicated the app, the more feature switches are applied these days. So yes, the proper and smart feature management is essential for building better digital products.
Benefits of using pro feature management tools
Using feature flags often turns out to be stressful. You see, the number of changes required can become big all of a sudden. Deployment of new features and bug fixes shouldn’t be performed all at once because that doesn’t look good on the client’s side. The update takes more time, and vital parts of the app can become faulty due to additional code errors. Sometimes users simply won’t like new proposals, and if too many mistakes are released simultaneously… the whole thing can go south, as they say.
Therefore, a bunch of good practices or features flag management tools can actually reduce the tension. Because of smart management solutions, the process of feature deployment is smoothened. Particular toggles can be placed on a timetable more precisely so that they won’t result in too many changes at the same time.
A gradual rollout also provides an opportunity for better testing. With a professional management solution, engineers can turn features on and off as they need to. Therefore, only 1% of users can be targeted as a test group, which can be gradually expanded in time. If something’s wrong with a particular element, only that group will be affected. The rest of the end-users won’t even know about it. That is the safest way of new feature deployment so far. It minimizes the risk of massive failure that has killed many promising projects in the past. Today, such fate can be avoided. All it takes is just a comprehensive set of procedures and tools to manage them properly.
How much does a feature management solution cost?
Now that we know how useful a feature management software solution really is, it seems clear that every development team should at least consider it. But good things are never for free, mind you. Unless it is an open-source type of solution. In that case, it can be for free indeed, however it will still be something basic. On the other hand, an $80 fee is not a big deal. For that price, 5 different software developers can work on 3 available projects with custom activation strategy, for example. A technical support team will respond in just 1 business day if required. Sounds interesting? Read more about it, then. All the necessary information is available right here: https://www.getunleash.io/feature-management.