Weekly Top 10: Bimodal IT and Agile Adoption in the Enterprise

Since Gartner’s latest research around bimodal IT was published, the buzzword has been catching some serious heat. This week, the fires quell as we learn best practices to balance bimodal IT for success. Another buzzword picking up traction this week is Agile. Whether it’s in development, testing or leadership, every corner of the enterprise is adopting Agile to not only accelerate delivery times and improve product quality, but to ensure effective management as well. Continue reading for the latest trends in Bimodal IT, Agile, tech leadership and IoT.

As always, stay tuned to all the news coming from @ElectricCloud on DevOps andContinuous Delivery throughout the week and retweet/like to get your top news items featured in our weekly recap!

1) Steering Two Ships: Best Practices for Balancing Bimodal IT

By Joe LeCompte | Published on @4enterprisers
https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2016/4/steering-two-ships-best-practices-balancing-bimodal-it-0

While certainly a buzzword at the height of its popularity — in light of recent Gartner attention — the concept of bimodal isn’t new. IT has historically straddled two modes, tackling both projects that require methodology (mode 1), and those that are considered more exploratory (mode 2). The trouble is, within most organizations, IT has had a laser focus on keeping the lights on — achieving stability and security in mode 1 — and hasn’t adopted the fail fast mentality required for mode 2. However, things are changing and quickly.

2) HP does ChatOps, CenturyLink does DevOps for Legacy Apps, Intel & Quicken Loans do ARA – What About You?

By David Gordon | Published on @Electriccloud
http://electric-cloud.com/blog/2016/04/electric-cloud-customers-come-speak-does16/

At last year’s DevOps Enterprise Summit, we got to hear from some of our customers about how they do DevOps and Continuous Delivery in the enterprise. Among other customer stories, we learned how:

• LEGO has transitioned their software delivery process and have gone from one deployment twice a month to multiple deployments every day
• HP ties DevOps automation, monitoring and ChatOps to eliminate manual, error-prone work and keep critical services running.
• The drivers for DevOps Adoption and some of the industry stats shared by Forrester’s research analyst Amy DeMartine are being echoed in the transformative benefits large enterprises such as Intel, QuickenLoans and Bluware see from implementing DevOps, alongside some of the risks and hurdles that they share in an interactive panel session.

3) 4 Tech Nightmares Keeping IT Leaders Up At Night

By @byJenAMiller | Published on @CIOonline
http://www.cio.com/article/3060837/security/4-tech-nightmares-keeping-it-leaders-up-at-night.html

Being a CIO isn’t an easy job, not when hackers are coming at you from all sides trying to get their hands on that sweet, sweet data. It’s especially never-racking because one breach can turn a company from a respectable business to one that looks like it protects its information with a layer of Swiss cheese. Here are four things keeping CIOs up at night – and ways to help them fall back asleep again – or at least into a light doze instead of staring at the ceiling waiting for a hacker to break through.

4) Getting IoT Software Delivery Right

By Andreas Dharmawan | Published on @iotagenda
http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/blog/IoT-Agenda/Getting-IoT-software-delivery-right

Cars are now some of the largest and most expensive mobile computers on the planet, each being manufactured with several hundred millions of lines of code integrated into their systems. The code within these machines can do everything from connecting to our smartphones’ infotainment systems to analyzing the proximity of other cars on the road. Yet while IoT software simplifies our lives — from recording our steps and heart rate on the cloud to remotely changing our thermostat’s temperatures — developing IoT software is a lot more complex than traditional software development.

5) How A CIO Becomes An Agile Leader

By @rawn | Published on @ForbesTech
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rawnshah/2016/04/24/how-a-cio-becomes-an-agile-leader/

The evolving role of a CIO requires a perspective beyond technology alone. A modern CIO’s role centers on how to better enable decision-making, with the skillful use of technology, information, and knowledge. They need to know the line between what needs to be standardized and planned, and what needs to be flexible and agile. More than that, to become an agile leader they need to understand how to focus their personal brand as being collaborative and inclusive.

6) Additional Considerations About IoT

By @ctsmithiii | Published on @dzone
https://dzone.com/articles/additional-considerations-about-iot

The vast majority of IT support people say they don’t have enough of a connection with the development side, save the post-release cycle. In many cases, they’re simply not ready to handle the volume of new releases, fixes or features that are sent out by their development teams. This may be a ripe area for DevOps.

7) 4 Insider Tips for Choosing Application Security Testing Tools

By @kevinbeaver | Published on @TechBeaconCom
http://techbeacon.com/4-insider-tips-choosing-application-security-testing-tools

Having been involved in application security testing for the past 17 years, I’m certain about one thing: I could not possibly do the work I do without good tools. As with home inspectors, auto mechanics, surgeons, and the like, I’ve found that you’re only as good as the tools you have at your disposal. Sure, experience counts, and it’s often the differentiator between a good application security assessment and a great one.

8) Continuous Discussions (#c9d9) Podcast: Episode 40: CI and CD for Legacy Applications – 3rd May, 2016

By @SkeltonThatcher | Published on @SkeltonThatcher
https://skeltonthatcher.com/blog/event/continuous-discussions-c9d9-podcast-episode-40-ci-cd-legacy-applications-3rd-may-2016/

If you a fan of podcasts (like we are), the Continuous Discussions Podcast should be on your subscriptions list. It is a bi-weekly series for the DevOps and Continuous Delivery enthusiasts, covering wide variety of subjects, starting from application release automation (ARA), security and compliance to Docker, containers and IoT. We are really excited about the upcoming episode (6 PM, Tuesday 3rd May, 2016) as one of the featured panelist is Manuel Pais, consultant and people-first technologist here at Skelton Thatcher Consulting.

9) How to Get Your Enterprise Digitally Ready and Agile

By @whartonknows | Published on @whartonknows
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-to-get-your-enterprise-digitally-ready-and-agile/

Survival for most businesses today requires that they go digital. Competitive landscapes are being redrawn by 24/7 access via mobile and other connected devices as well as customers’ ever-higher expectations for a better user experience. For companies at the starting gate, it is critical to articulate your digital needs, learn how to target your investments for maximum effect and create a culture in which lessons learned are fruitfully ploughed back into the firm — all with the goal of being digitally ready and agile.

10) Infrastructure as Code: The Agile Approach to Testing

By @kief | Published on @ITProPortal
http://www.itproportal.com/2016/04/24/infrastructure-as-code-the-agile-approach-to-testing/

The purpose of testing is to help us to get our work done quickly, however, in many organisations, testing is seen as something that slows work down. There is a common misconception that quality and delivery speed are opposing forces that must be traded off against each other, with this mind-set leading to the idea that automation can speed up the delivery process by making the act of testing a system go faster. These misconceptions can easily lead to expensive, failed test automation initiatives.