DevOps is a transformational change.
What do you mean?
Doing DevOps well is a big transformational change that deserves its own space, time and focus.
If we come back to the 3 gates of software development, then DevOps covers both the second and third gates. From that one statement it’s easy to say that changing this is a big deal, it’s not something to just get bolted on.
Another challenge is “where to start” in DevOps, it’s such a big subject and its tendrils reach all over the organisation so what’s the first thing that should be addressed? The operations aspects of monitoring and alerting? Supporting an Agile development process? Automating the testing and route to live?
It’s tempting to do everything at once, because that way you get all the benefits, but if you chance it all, the chance is you’ll fail at it all.
However, the benefits are huge, so organisations are motivated to get DevOps in, and to get it working. A properly executing DevOps function will significantly speed the transition from gate 2 to gate 3, and in some cases can completely automate gate 3. In turn this enables business agility and the overall time from idea to delivery will reduce.
How long does it really need to take?
It takes a little time to get DevOps right. Even with experienced DevOps engineers every organisation is different and so the minutiae needed to get a smoothly flowing DevOps function will take time to both surface and then addressed. The risk is that, with a functional transformation project under pressure to deliver, this delivery will take precedence and a compromised process will result.
That’s not to say that doing DevOps using a functional transformation is a bad thing, it’s not. What it does mean is that when planning the project, explicit time and bandwidth needs to be allowed for; if the DevOps team says they’ll need 4 weeks to get a robust end-to-end process then that’s 4 weeks, not 2 weeks and “you can debug it after the release”.
One final point, do it now. Having automation through the development and deployment processes is already an important differentiator for Developers. This differentiator is rapidly changing into a red flag; if you don't do DevOps then you won't have Devs.
If you'd like to talk some more about how DevOps might help deliver business value, and reduce the risk of IT deployments, then please get in touch using the Contact page.
Photo credit: "Autopiano" by halfrain is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
