With DevOps, you can create a high-functioning, purposeful and instinctive technology team that meets the need for speed.
It’s a competitive world out there, and to succeed companies not only have to be innovative but need to produce quality products within quick turnaround times.
Traditionally, IT’s ability to move at the speed of business has been a challenge. Often slow to deliver the tech solutions that businesses require, this lack of speed builds frustration and creates friction between IT and those pushing the company to respond to the market in a timely matter.
One of the keys to doing this is to implement DevOps. However, that means more than just tools. There must be buy-in from all of the people involved, including the business, software developers, testers and operations professionals.
This is where DevOps comes into play. Not only does DevOps unite the traditional internal IT silos to work and truly collaborate together, it also re-engages the business to take control of their IT investment. And it makes IT professionals instrumental in leveraging technology to grow the business.
Too Much Automation, Too Little Planning
Many companies believe that automation will speed things up, overlooking the fact that if you speed up a rough-running process, nothing is going to run more smoothly.
If you’ve ever tried driving on a rocky road, you know that speeding up doesn’t help. In fact, you’re far more likely to lose control and have an accident – or in the case of a business, face disastrous downstream impacts.
Automation’s purpose is to provide an efficiency multiplier to work flowing through an organization. It also doubles as a method to eliminate human error in a normally running process.
When it works well, it is a ballet of coordination and execution. However, in many cases, poorly planned and implemented automation actually adds to the time it takes to get a product to market.
In addition to taking a tremendous amount of effort to get a process automated for the first time, poor-running automation can create a huge maintenance effort that slows things down even more.
And if you implement automation that is not in alignment with the broader cultural collaboration you need, you may release a product faster, but it still may not benefit your business or your bottom line.
Key to Success: Collaboration and Communication
So how do you create technology solutions that move the needle from the business perspective in a timely matter – and how do you make sure that everyone’s bought into the process?
It starts with a mature agile team. Many organizations have realized that Agile has enabled the business to be more involved than traditional waterfall approaches. However, not all key team members are involved in agile development.
For example, operations teams are not involved in the development process, conversely, development is not involved in running applications. This creates expectation differences that are not aligned to the broader goal of delivering value.
The key to solving this unique problem is to implement a paradigm shift to a DevOps culture.
DevOps emphasizes collaboration, communication and rapid feedback between software developers, testers, operations professionals and the business, increasing a company’s ability to deliver value faster and beat the competition.
One of the hallmark features of DevOps is the use of well-running automated workflows that automate the process of software delivery to production by incorporating techniques such as lean Agile development, automated testing, continuous integration, and continuous delivery.
A DevOps capability assessment can help determine your organization’s maturity level by looking at your company’s leadership and culture; Lean and Agile processes; technology practices and automation; and architecture, infrastructure and security.
This information can then be used to tailor a development and operations strategy, improving deployment frequency, release quality, team productivity and architecture quality.
However, getting there requires you to know where your company stands today – and what changes it needs to make from a cultural and technological standpoint to better succeed tomorrow.
By applying DevOps, you can create a high-functioning, purposeful and instinctive technology delivery organization that meets the need for speed.
