DevOps: A Way to Becoming a High-Performing Business

There are lots of speculations about what DevOps is in terms of being a cultural change or an IT transformation. Considering different scenarios and suggestions, we can conclude that DevOps is neither a process nor a technique. It is a change that management needs to implement to be a high-performing company.

DevOps can be seen as a team-building approach in which application developers, operational teams, and delivery teams are placed together for a project. DevOps is a termed defined through Development and Operations, which means that both the processes go hand-in-hand to ensure continuous development and delivery. DevOps is the direction in which software development companies are going.

Given the pressure of producing a high-quality code faster with less time available for QA, DevOps attempts to streamline the process and speaks about how much it is important to have team-playing skills along with technical skills. Considering this, one can easily say DevOps is a cultural change. It is — but not completely. It still requires the tools to support this change. Combining Agile with QA and delivery is an uphill task but gives you good results.

Many companies that have adopted DevOps have communicated benefits like the following:

• Ship code 30x faster.
• Have 200x shorter lead time.
• Have 60x fewer failures.
• Restore services 168x faster.

This must be enough to learn the importance of adopting DevOps. I have seen many cases where DevOps adoption has failed, but the technique is not to blame. It is mostly because of these mistakes that companies fail to adopt DevOps:

• Value of DevOps not understood by the stakeholders.
• Considering it as IT and not cultural transformation.
• Lack of efficient communication between teams.
• Incompatible tools selected to implement DevOps process.

A company can be made efficient by following simples steps to DevOps adoption. Here is a cheat sheet to help you:

• Evaluate the need to implement DevOps practice by aligning IT goals with business goals.
• Break the organizational silos and encourage collaboration between development, operations, and other functions.
• Put customer and end-user satisfaction at the center considering their expectations regarding time, functionality, and performance.
• Don’t jump start. Moving the IT culture away from silos requires trust and acceptance in the new philosophy.
• Automate wherever possible to enable faster execution throughout the SDLC, keeping up with the speed of DevOps.
• Define performance reviews for team and an individual to ensure real-time visibility into the project.
• Integrate and deliver continuously to ensure every new or revised requirement is rapidly and safely deployed to production with quality.

It can be observed from the above points that a lot depends on leadership. DevOps requires leading by example and being efficient in whatever you do when a project comes your way. DevOps adoption is not difficult; it is a bright ray of light that you need to allow you to see through the barriers. This infographic on DevOps can help clarify this for you.