Progressive Delivery: Build the Right Thing for the Right People at the Right Time

Progressive Delivery knocks down the wall separating software users from software makers.

Technology leaders face a fundamental challenge: How do you know you’re delivering the right thing to the right person at the right time? Progressive Delivery offers a fresh perspective on this question, bridging the gap between software delivery and business value.

Drawing from extensive interviews with industry leaders at GitHub, Adobe, AWS, Disney, and Nike, the authors demonstrate how four key elements—abundance, autonomy, alignment, and automation—create a framework for sustainable product development. This isn’t just another technical manual or transformation playbook. Instead, it provides a lens for measuring your existing products against future standards and expectations.

Through detailed case studies, you’ll discover:

• How to leverage cloud abundance for meaningful experimentation.
• Ways to enable team autonomy while maintaining coherent direction.
• Strategies for aligning technical capabilities with business goals.
• Methods to automate intelligently while preserving control.

The authors bring over 60 years of combined experience advising companies on technology adoption, engineering practices, and product strategy. Their insights show how organizations can move beyond traditional development cycles to create personalized experiences that truly serve their users.

If you’re responsible for product strategy, engineering, or digital experiences, this book will help you focus your team’s energy efficiently and deliver value that matters to all stakeholders, both within and outside your organization.

Winner of the 2025 DevOps Dozen Best DevOps Book of the Year!

James Governor is the cofounder of RedMonk and is credited as having coined the term “progressive delivery.” He lives in London. Kimberly Harrison is a sociologist focused on the development and adoption of new technology within the software industry. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area. Heidi Waterhouse coauthored Docs for Developers: An Engineer’s Field Guide to Technical Writing. She is passionate about storytelling; finding business value; and the ROI of laptop stickers. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Adam Zimman is a start-up and venture capital advisor providing guidance on leadership; platform architecture; product marketing; and GTM strategy. He has over 20 years of experience working in a variety of roles from software engineering to technical sales. He lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay area.