WHERE TO START AND FINISH WITH DEVOPS HOW TO PLAN FOR ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 506 2nd Avenue, Suite 1400, Seattle, WA 98104 1 (425) 502 6883 info@bluemeric.com http://bluemeric.com
WHAT IS DEVOPS You ve probably heard it, you might even practice it to a degree but the term that has every IT department buzzing these days is DevOps. It s not hard to guess what DevOps is shorthand for (Development and Operations) but what it does is decrease costs, and increase quality while accelerating the time to market for applications. Those benefits are attained by reorganizing development and operations departments to eliminate silos which impede collaboration and lead to inefficiencies in getting your applications to customers.
WHERE TO START You might say where do I sign up (and we d say with Bluemeric) but to institute those organizational changes, you need to assess your current situation to understand where you need to be once DevOps is in place. By using a maturity model like the one provided by Bluemeric, essentially you ll have a map from point A to point B with point A summarizing business as usual and point B assessing your organization needs and budget to drive DevOps home. Once you have that map in hand, it s advisable to start with a proof of concept at a small scale. If done properly, this approach will demonstrate to all department stakeholders how feasible and necessary it is to institute change. An additional benefit of starting small is that those who participate in the proof of concept will become your SME s (Subject Matter Experts) that can help coach and guide the rest of your organization as the process of change is underway. In actuality, the benefits are magnified due to the fact outside consulting becomes less critical (lowers overhead) and those SME s multiply as change spreads, thereby getting you closer to the end of your DevOps transformation.
HOW TO CHOOSE A POC The POC will likely be the critical part of your decision to institute DevOps so doing it right can't be underestimated. As a consequence, it s important to set yourself up for success by basing your POC off requirements such as: VALUE RISK THE STACK While DevOps will benefit every organization, it won t necessarily benefit every application. It s best to try it out on applications with dynamic release requirements and frequent release cycles that can grow and truly benefit from Microservices. The purpose of a POC is to demonstrate value so don t start with something that s mission critical or designed to be integrated with other applications in the case of it going sideways. DevOps will benefit applications regardless of intent but because not every application is built the same way, it s important to find a happy medium between the ease in implementing DevOps to an application and the ease benefits it would bring. venture 29
INCENTIVES HUMAN CAPITAL THE STRUCTURE Traditionally, Dev and Ops teams came to loggerheads because of their different missions. Dev s are focused on feature while Ops are focused on reliability of maintaining the application. Instituting a successful POC should result in both teams having the same ultimate mission and goals due to their incentives being aligned. As they say, life happens. When problems occur in a DevOps environment, it should be all hands on deck to get back to business as normal. The cornerstone of DevOps is collaboration so when the bad happens, everyone should be able to assist with any role of the team. Consequentially, you ll know success by the amount of teaching you have to repeat to those participating in the POC. Don t think for a second that DevOps means organizational governance is no longer needed. In fact, this becomes even more important for DevOps because it s the only way to prevent different teams from going in their own direction and into the deep end of the pool. You ll know the POC is successful when collaboration with autonomy between teams can be achieved.
HOW TO GET WHAT YOU WANT Nobody will dispute DevOps is a major reorganization that presents major risk if done improperly. Remember that your business leaders got to their position by creating more value for the shareholders so your argument can t solely be about the success of the POC(s) that made your life easier. You must quantify the savings with DevOps and it must outweigh the potential risk to the organization, especially if your CFO controls the purse strings and doesn t understand technology While quantifying that data might be easier said than done, try to incorporate soft costs such as wasted time, damage to your brand, the customer experience, etc. at the same time you talk about the hard costs.
WHERE TO FINISH We bring simplicity to an overtly complex process. When you engage with Bluemeric, we hold your hand from start to finish to implement the least amount of change to promote the maximum value. We recognize that every organization is different and every organization has different objectives which is why we promise to institute a sustainable, scalable and repeatable DevOps environment that will enable you to concentrate on your most strategic initiatives. With Bluemeric, you don't get a vendor, you get a partner for the long haul that is cognizant of both cost and quality to ensure your ROI is maximized.