a·gen·tic a·gil·i·ty

The Hidden Costs of Supporting Multiple Versions in Production

TL;DR; Supporting multiple versions in production drains engineering resources through increased context-switching, merge conflicts, and bug risks. Back-porting fixes and maintaining separate branches for each customer make things worse, leading to instability and technical debt. To avoid these problems, teams should simplify and standardise their branching strategy.

Published on
1 minute read
Image
https://nkdagility.com/resources/un1ZqM8aYng
Subscribe

Supporting multiple versions in production is a hidden tax on engineering teams.

Every version adds:

Reverse integration—back-porting fixes to older versions—is even worse. It creates instability, increases the risk of unintended regressions, and wastes engineering time.

And then there’s branch by customer—the absolute worst-case scenario. Maintaining separate branches for each client is a scaling disaster, guaranteeing technical debt and a painful development experience.

If a team is struggling to keep track of where changes are applied, it’s already a sign that the branching strategy is broken. Standardise, simplify, and move forward—not backward.

Also published on: LinkedIn
Smart Classifications

Each classification [Concepts, Categories, & Tags] was assigned using AI-powered semantic analysis and scored across relevance, depth, and alignment. Final decisions? Still human. Always traceable. Hover to see how it applies.

Subscribe

Connect with Martin Hinshelwood

If you've made it this far, it's worth connecting with our principal consultant and coach, Martin Hinshelwood, for a 30-minute 'ask me anything' call.

Our Happy Clients​

We partner with businesses across diverse industries, including finance, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, technology, engineering, transportation, hospitality, entertainment, legal, government, and military sectors.​

NIT A/S

Capita Secure Information Solutions Ltd Logo

Capita Secure Information Solutions Ltd

Philips Logo

Philips

MacDonald Humfrey (Automation) Ltd. Logo

MacDonald Humfrey (Automation) Ltd.

ALS Life Sciences Logo

ALS Life Sciences

Flowmaster (a Mentor Graphics Company) Logo

Flowmaster (a Mentor Graphics Company)

Alignment Healthcare Logo

Alignment Healthcare

Slaughter and May Logo

Slaughter and May

Boxit Document Solutions

Cognizant Microsoft Business Group (MBG) Logo

Cognizant Microsoft Business Group (MBG)

Teleplan Logo

Teleplan

Big Data for Humans Logo

Big Data for Humans

Epic Games Logo

Epic Games

Illumina Logo

Illumina

Milliman Logo

Milliman

Freadom Logo

Freadom

YearUp.org Logo

YearUp.org

Genus Breeding Ltd Logo

Genus Breeding Ltd

Washington Department of Enterprise Services Logo

Washington Department of Enterprise Services

Nottingham County Council Logo

Nottingham County Council

Washington Department of Transport Logo

Washington Department of Transport

Royal Air Force Logo

Royal Air Force

Ghana Police Service Logo

Ghana Police Service

New Hampshire Supreme Court Logo

New Hampshire Supreme Court

Higher Education Statistics Agency Logo

Higher Education Statistics Agency

Flowmaster (a Mentor Graphics Company) Logo

Flowmaster (a Mentor Graphics Company)

Microsoft Logo

Microsoft

ALS Life Sciences Logo

ALS Life Sciences

Boeing Logo

Boeing

YearUp.org Logo

YearUp.org