For the second course in the UW-Stout Instructional Design Graduate Certificate Program, I decided to continue my work with the project I started in the previous class. Below is the Executive Summary for the project I worked on.

Project Title: The Jenkins Journey: Troubleshooting Common Failure Modes in JourneyQube Continuous Integration

Sponsoring Organization: ABC Company is a Fortune 500 technology solutions provider offering a wide variety of products and services. One of the products, a software package called JourneyQube, is built using a Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CICD) pipeline built around the open source Jenkins tool. JourneyQube’s development team consists of approximately 50 software engineers on three continents.

Project Description: The JourneyQube development team suffers from a high rate of turnover, as it is considered a “legacy” product. JourneyQube is scheduled to be replaced with TripOrb in Q3 2023. Because of this, the CICD automation, which comprises approximately 300,000 lines of custom code developed in 2009-2011, fails frequently due to an inability to handle unexpected inputs from new developers who are not fully up to speed on the caveats with certain parts of their code. It is estimated that it would take a team of five engineers approximately one calendar year to fully refactor/rewrite the CICD pipeline. Since development efforts are focused on TripOrb, this is not viable. Instead, the request is to ensure minimal disruptions to service availability on the support side.

Aim: The aim of this training is to identify common failure modes in the JourneyQube CICD pipleline and prepare documentation for new help desk employees so they can efficiently address the problem.

Target Audience: One or more Site Reliability Engineers in ABC Company’s DevOps team.

General Learner Characteristics

  • Population of learners is 5 people – 4 men, and 1 woman ranging in age from 24 to 62
  • Three people have four-year degrees and two have two year degrees
  • Work experience ranges from 3 months to 40 years, in and out of the IT field
  • 60% of people identify as white, 20% Asian, and 20% Hispanic/Latin American
  • All learners are fluent in English

Entry Characteristics

  • All learners have a high level of general technology knowledge
  • If another team member is added to the project, there will be separate training for the new team member so that the new hire/transfer employee will have at least a developing understanding of the CICD framework and will be able to fully participate in this training.
  • All learners will have a familiarity with company standards and practices
  • All learners are open to the training, knowing that it will make them more efficient

Delivery Options: This training will be conducted completely online with an optional in person review session.