CI/CD re-platform delivered 50% faster, without disruption

Client: Tier‑1 Australian Grocery Retailer (Anonymised) · Scope: GoCD + Bitbucket replaced with Azure DevOps Pipelines + Git · Engagement: 15 weeks end‑to‑end (6-week POC, 9-week delivery)

The risk: re-platforming release automation at scale

The client’s legacy CI/CD stack—GoCD for orchestration and Bitbucket for source control—was no longer fit for scale. Pipelines had diverged, lacked audit trails, and required increasingly manual intervention. A mandated shift to Azure DevOps brought opportunity for control and consistency, but also risk: hundreds of pipelines powering critical systems, tight release cadences, and zero appetite for disruption.

What we did differently to reduce risk early

Proved patterns first: We began by generating and validating pipeline templates (build → scan → test → package → deploy) across three representative services. This gave delivery leads confidence that Azure DevOps could meet their release needs—before touching production pipelines.
Built a catalogue of governed patterns: YAML templates were printed with embedded quality gates, rollback hooks, approvals and audit checks. Every team started from a proven baseline—not a blank page.
Enforced repo governance from day one: Branch protection, PR policies, required checks and work-item linkage were enforced as policy-as-code. Evidence of control was built in, not retrofitted.

Delivery flow (15 weeks)

Assess (Week 1–2): We conducted a dependency scan of GoCD pipelines and Bitbucket repos, flagging brittle tasks and mapping out environment risks and secrets dependencies.
Prototype (Week 3–6): YAML pipelines were code-printed and tested for deployment, quality gate enforcement and secret injection. Telemetry confirmed stability and repeatability.
Migrate (Week 7–15): Pipelines were moved in controlled waves. Each wave included a dry run, parity checks, and a rollback option back to GoCD. No cutover exceeded the agreed error threshold.

Enterprise controls baked into delivery

Golden agent images: Used to prevent environmental drift and reduce root cause ambiguity across teams.
Secrets & variables: Managed securely using Azure variable groups with role-based access.
Release observability: Pipelines included audit-ready tagging, artifact provenance, and real-time telemetry dashboards.

Outcomes

50% faster delivery than manual YAML authoring—based on stakeholder timing estimates.
No rollback events or production impact during cutovers.
100% of teams onboarded to governed pipelines with consistent audit coverage.

Why it mattered

This wasn’t a lift-and-shift. It was a controlled transformation of how delivery teams build and release software. The result: faster onboarding, reduced release variance, and a pipeline estate that now passes audit without retrofitting evidence. By the time we handed over, every team was shipping through the same governed pathways—without slowing down.

Re-platformed CI/CD pipelines without disruption