Transforming Your Pull Request Protocols and How It Can Supercharge Your Development

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The dirty truth about software development is that it’s often the internal team dynamics that can make or break a project.  When you’re trying to execute a specific piece of work on time and on budget, you have to be able to collaborate efficiently and have your eye on the ball at all times, otherwise things can very easily slip through the cracks.  Every time that there is unnecessary friction in the process, it costs you and your clients money.

We decided to tackle this during a recent hackathon and focused specifically on pull requests – as they represent core functionality that sits at the heart of any development process.  We asked ourselves the question:

“What would it look like if we automated some of the good habits and project management protocols that are considered best practice for software development projects?”

We realized that so much of the inefficiency comes from chinks in the armour of the process, rather than the actual development. 

Based on this, we set the following goals for our solution:

•   Speed up the pull request process by making sure that idle time is minimized.

•   Automate best practice task management principles so everyone always knows the status of each piece of the project.

•   Clarify team roles for pull requests to eliminate miscommunication and create accountability.

•   Implement a procedure and checklist that would ensure that the pull request was complete and comprehensive every single time.

Excitingly, what we created exceeded all of our expectations.  The bones of the application were created over those 24 hours at the hackathon and after a lot of fine-tuning we can now bring it to our community of developers.  Pull Request Checklist Buddy has not only transformed the way that we work, but it’s radically improved how we deploy and manage our resources.

This application can drastically reduce the amount of time that you spend going back and forth on pull requests, while also codifying the development principles that you’re striving to instil in your teams at scale.  As a lead domino, the productivity gains are immense across the value chain, while also reinforcing the processes and principles that make for a robust and risk-aware development team.  Simply put, it is a highly functional tool that helps to empower your development process so that it can be as efficient and effective as possible.

Pull Request Checklist Buddy is currently available for Bitbucket and GitHub, and we really hope you’ll give it a try.  We have a free trial option so you can test it out right away. Once you’ve done so, we’re confident that you’ll see just how transformative this tool can be.

Pull requests don’t have to be a source of pain.  With the right tools and the right methodology, they can serve their desired purpose – providing the structure, change management, and alignment that you so desperately need.  It’s time to change the paradigm.

[Sebastian Brudziński]

Are you planning on having your app available for Cloud too?

[Ulrich Kuhnhardt _Izymes_]

Fantastic idea! Thanks for sharing. 

[Monica Rüegg _Mibex Software_]

@Sebastian Brudziński 

Thanks for asking. It is available for GitHub Cloud. For Bitbucket Cloud, we currently don't have any plans as there are no custom merge checks available to enforce the default tasks in the check list.

[Michael Rüegg _Mibex Software_]

I'm happy to announce that we now also offer a Bitbucket Cloud edition of the app. Let us know if you have any questions or feature requests. Thanks!