How do you sell continuous integration to clients?

Question

I know that using continuous integration improves the quality of my code base, and speeds up releases, but what is the best way to convince clients that they want it on their next project?

Answer 1

Say exactly what you've said in the question:

• Speeding up releases = earlier market penetration = more money
• Improving code quality = less time fixing bugs = less cost

So long as you can help them set it up reasonably quickly and cheaply, I can't see why it would be a problem.

Answer 2

You have made some assertions. If you want to sell the idea to you clients you are going to have to answer the questions:

• How does it improve your code quality?

  Compilation/build issues are identified on a regular basis. And if used in conjunction with automated integration and unit tests you will be able to identify bugs on a regular basis.

• How does it speed up you releases?

  If you automate the build and deployment process you eliminate the downtime required from the development team to ship a new build for testing.

  You have a history of successful builds to fall back on if you run out of time and are prepared to ship with incomplete features,

Answer 3

In addition to making the standard arguments I quote the data from this paper:

Alan MacCormack, Chris Kemerer, Michael Cusumano, and Bill Crandall, “Trade-offs between Productivity and Quality in Selecting Software Development Practices”, IEEE Software, September-October 2003

Namely:

• Integration/regression testing at each code check-in = 36% reduction in defect rate
• Daily builds = 93% rise in LOC output/programmer

So CI gives you higher productivity and better quality. Who doesn't want that?

Answer 4

I am not sure how interested Clients are in continuous integration. I think selling the idea t the development team is more worth while exercise in many cases.

That said Clients will always like to hear.

• Your project will always be in a working state.

• All code is tested as we write it

Answer 5

Sorry, but I didn't understand the question.

Why you should sell CI to the clients?(of course, if your aren't a CI software seller)

I think that CI is more like investment for the development team, not for the client. It is a more like development environment's tool, part of process.

If project isn't trivial, I won't ask for customer's permission for CI using. It is a way for me to provide a quality software.