Kanban, Kubernetes, and 10-day cycle time

Novadex builds marketing portals for large enterprises. The software worked, but development velocity was declining. Features took longer and longer. Hosting was outdated, scaling only vertical. The entire development process relied on Subversion, manual builds, and a Scrum process that generated more overhead than outcomes.

100 DAYS started with a structured assessment: developer and stakeholder interviews, code reviews, analysis of existing documentation and processes. The diagnosis was clear: the team was not the problem. The infrastructure and methods around them were.

The transformation had three pillars. First: containerize the application with Docker and migrate to Kubernetes. We created Helm Charts for reproducible deployments and enabled horizontal scaling for the first time. Second: migrate from Subversion to GitLab, from Jenkins to GitLab CI. Feature branches and pull requests replaced the old workflow. Third: replace Scrum with Kanban. Fewer ceremonies, more focus on flow. We also introduced continuous architecture improvement as a permanent part of the development process.

The result comes down to one number: 10-day average cycle time, from idea to deployment. On top of that: flexible scaling under load, better forecasting through Kanban metrics, and a service-oriented architecture that grows with demand.