When ‘Working in Dev’ Isn’t Good Enough: Closing the Staging Gap Without More Environments
Article summary
It worked in dev.” That phrase lost us hours. The environment gap wasn’t theoretical-it was painful. A feature would pass QA in our development or integration environment, but fail spectacularly once it hit production. Not because the code changed. But because everything else had: Environment config drift Missing third-party test credentials Latency that only existed under real user load Feature flags set differently than expected We didn’t want to spin up a new staging cluster per service. We didn’t have the budget or the team size. Instead, we took a more surgical approach: we closed the staging gap through better alignment, targeted simulation, and environmental discipline. This is how we did it. 1.
Read Full Article on MediumPractical takeaway
The main idea behind When ‘Working in Dev’ Isn’t Good Enough: Closing the Staging Gap Without More Environments is to help teams move from broad theory to clear, repeatable decision making. When teams apply this thinking, they reduce ambiguity and focus on improvements that deliver measurable momentum.
Example scenario
Imagine a team facing competing priorities. By applying the ideas in When ‘Working in Dev’ Isn’t Good Enough: Closing the Staging Gap Without More Environments, they can map dependencies, identify risks and choose the next move that produces progress without destabilizing their system.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Trying to redesign everything instead of taking small steps.
- Ignoring real constraints like incentives, ownership or legacy systems.
- Creating documents that do not lead to any change in code or decisions.
How to apply this in real work
Start by identifying where When ‘Working in Dev’ Isn’t Good Enough: Closing the Staging Gap Without More Environments already shows up in your architecture or delivery flow. Then pick one area where clarity would reduce friction. Apply the idea, measure its effect and share the learning.
Signs you are doing it correctly
- Teams make decisions faster and with fewer disagreements.
- Architectural conversations become clearer and less abstract.
- Changes land safely with fewer surprises or rework cycles.