Mapping Your Existing Process to the four CDP Stages

Blog Author

Siddharth

Published

18 Jun, 2025

Mapping Your Existing Process to the four CDP Stages

Organizations aiming to deliver high-quality software more frequently often look to the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) for guidance. One of the core elements of SAFe is the Continuous Delivery Pipeline (CDP), which breaks software delivery into four distinct stages: Continuous Exploration (CE), Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment (CD), and Release on Demand. Mapping your existing process to these four stages is a critical step in understanding where you are, identifying bottlenecks, and setting a path toward greater agility.

This guide walks you through a practical approach to mapping your current delivery process to the CDP stages, helping your teams find improvement opportunities and align better with SAFe principles.

Why Map Your Existing Process?

Before diving into mapping, let’s clarify why this step matters. Many organizations have partially automated pipelines, manual approvals, and legacy practices woven into their development lifecycle. Without a clear map, teams often struggle to see the big picture. Mapping brings transparency, makes bottlenecks visible, and enables more targeted, incremental improvements. It also aligns everyone—from business leaders to engineers—around a shared understanding of how value flows from idea to customer.

Understanding the Four Stages of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline

Each stage of the CDP has a unique role. Here’s a brief refresher before we begin mapping:

Continuous Exploration (CE): Identifying customer needs, defining features, and preparing work for the pipeline.
Continuous Integration (CI): Taking features from definition through development, integration, and validation.
Continuous Deployment (CD): Deploying validated features into a staging or production environment automatically.
Release on Demand: Releasing features to users based on business needs, not just technical readiness.

You can read more about these stages on the official Scaled Agile Framework site.

Step-by-Step Guide: Mapping Your Existing Process to CDP Stages

Step 1: Assemble the Right People

Bring together a cross-functional team: product owners, scrum masters, release train engineers, architects, and representatives from business and QA. This team should have end-to-end visibility of your value stream.

Tip: Including people with knowledge of your current deployment and release practices is essential. If you’re looking to upskill your team, consider the Leading SAFe Agilist Certification Training to build foundational SAFe knowledge.

Step 2: Visualize Your Current Process

Start by mapping your “as-is” process on a whiteboard or digital collaboration tool. Walk through an example feature or user story, noting every step from initial idea to customer delivery. Capture both manual and automated steps. Don’t sanitize or idealize—map it as it happens today.

Questions to Ask:

Where does work start (customer request, roadmap planning, etc.)?
What steps occur before code is written?
How does work move from development to testing, staging, and production?
Where are approvals, handoffs, or queues?
Who is involved at each stage?

Step 3: Identify the Four CDP Stages in Your Process

Using a different color or sticky notes, label parts of your process according to the four CDP stages:

Continuous Exploration (CE)

Idea intake, product management discussions, backlog refinement, architectural exploration, and customer feedback loops all fit here.
Product Owners and Product Managers, especially those certified through SAFe POPM Certification, play a central role in this stage.

Continuous Integration (CI)

This includes feature development, code commits, automated unit testing, integration with other modules, and system validation.
Development teams often use Agile ceremonies guided by experienced SAFe Scrum Masters and may leverage DevOps pipelines for integration.

Continuous Deployment (CD)

Automated deployments to staging or production-like environments, infrastructure as code, automated acceptance tests, and smoke testing all belong here.
Teams with advanced knowledge from SAFe Advanced Scrum Master Certification Training often lead improvements in this area.

Release on Demand

Feature toggles, dark launches, canary releases, and the business decision to release features to customers define this stage.
Release Train Engineers, who may have completed SAFe Release Train Engineer Certification Training, coordinate the release activities.

Step 4: Look for Gaps and Bottlenecks

With your process mapped and stages labeled, gaps become visible. Look for:

Handoffs: Are there unnecessary steps between stages, like excessive manual approvals?
Wait States: Where does work sit idle? Long waits between code complete and testing, or between deployment and release?
Manual Processes: Are there steps that could be automated, such as testing or deployment?
Feedback Loops: Is feedback from customers and operations making it back to the right stage?

A visual map helps teams identify where delays, confusion, or rework happen. For instance, if you see long delays after deployment but before release, your Release on Demand stage may need attention.

Step 5: Align Roles and Responsibilities

Clarify who owns each stage. In SAFe, this is more than just a technical question. It involves roles like:

Product Owners/Product Managers (guide exploration and backlog prep)
Scrum Masters (facilitate flow and remove impediments in CI/CD)
Release Train Engineers (coordinate deployment and release activities)
Architects, QA, Operations, and Business Owners (involved at various points)

If you find that roles are unclear or siloed, this is an opportunity to realign and possibly upskill the team. SAFe Scrum Master Certification can help team leaders build the right facilitation skills.

Step 6: Compare with SAFe Best Practices

With your mapped process in hand, review the Scaled Agile CDP guidelines and compare your approach to SAFe recommendations:

Are you using automation in CI and CD wherever possible?
Is work flowing smoothly from exploration to deployment?
Are business and technical teams collaborating, or working in silos?
Do you release features based on market needs, or just when they’re technically ready?

Benchmarking your process helps you set realistic improvement targets.

Step 7: Prioritize Improvements

Use your map to create a backlog of improvement items. Start small—choose one bottleneck or gap per quarter. For example, if deployments are manual, automate deployment scripts. If feature validation waits for a single QA resource, introduce automated tests.

Encourage your teams to use metrics such as cycle time, deployment frequency, and defect rates to measure progress. The SAFe Advanced Scrum Master Certification Training covers advanced metrics and coaching techniques for continuous improvement.

Step 8: Make Your Pipeline Visible

Finally, make your value stream map and improvement backlog visible to all stakeholders. Transparency creates accountability and helps maintain momentum. Regularly review your map and celebrate improvements.

Practical Example: Mapping a Typical Agile Team

Let’s walk through an example of how a typical Agile team might map their process to the four CDP stages.

Scenario:
A team takes customer requirements from sales calls, refines them in sprint planning, develops features, runs manual regression tests, and then deploys releases monthly.

Mapping:

Continuous Exploration:
- Customer requirements gathered by Product Manager
- Backlog refinement every two weeks
- Sprint planning
Continuous Integration:
- Developers code and commit changes daily
- Manual code review and branch merging
- Integration testing at the end of sprint
Continuous Deployment:
- Manual regression testing
- Monthly deployment window with production downtime
Release on Demand:
- All features released at once after approval from leadership

Gaps Identified:

Manual handoffs and testing slow down CI and CD
Deployment frequency is low
No real Release on Demand capability—release timing is fixed

Improvements:
Introduce automated regression tests, shift to continuous deployment with blue-green deployments, and enable business-driven feature toggles to release features when the market is ready.

Conclusion: Mapping as a Foundation for Agility

Mapping your process to the four stages of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline isn’t just a one-time exercise. It’s an ongoing practice that surfaces bottlenecks, aligns teams, and creates a shared language for improvement. As your organization matures, you’ll revisit this map and make incremental changes that bring you closer to true business agility.

Building skills in this area, whether through hands-on experience or structured learning like the Leading SAFe Agilist Certification Training, SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager (POPM) Certification, SAFe Scrum Master Certification, SAFe Advanced Scrum Master Certification Training, or SAFe Release Train Engineer Certification Training, empowers teams to take ownership of their pipelines and deliver value faster.

For more guidance on value stream mapping and pipeline optimization, see this detailed article from Atlassian and the SAFe community’s latest best practices.

By taking the time to map your existing process to the four CDP stages, you’re setting your teams up for a smoother, more predictable, and business-driven delivery flow. Start small, stay transparent, and celebrate every improvement along the way.

Ready to map your process or train your team?
Visit AgileSeekers for training options and resources to help you drive real change.

Also read - Breaking Down the CDP: CE, CI, CD, and Release on Demand

Also see - DevOps’s Role in Streamlining Continuous Delivery