DevOps has swept the industry over the past several years with various definitions and implementations from various authors, ranging from academic and theoretical definitions to practical definitions through being in the trenches.
It has become a buzz word, and organizations are eating it up, as they should! If implemented well, it can not only increase productivity, but hasten time to market (which as we all know, is the holy grail). However, if implemented without fully understanding the motivation behind the DevOps movement, are you getting the most out of it aside from labeling some part of your organization “DevOps”?
As was mentioned in our previous posts, we were those soldiers in the trenches, seeing both sides: organizations fully embracing and being successful in adopting a DevOps culture, and organizations simply slapping a “DevOps” label on what they previously called “Configuration Management”, without embracing the culture shift and motivation behind DevOps.
Through these experiences, we have learned that while there are many common elements (tools, planning, CI/CD, automated tests, feedback loop, etc.) to implementing an effective DevOps strategy, the real struggle is to understand DevOps goes beyond just these common elements. Yes, these elements are undoubtedly VERY important to your DevOps strategy, but should exist to support the DevOps culture of “Shared Responsibility”, which may look different in each organization.
In our experiences, a successful DevOps strategy MUST start with a willingness for an organization to embrace a culture of Shared Responsibility. This will ultimately breakdown traditional silos that historically made it acceptable for teams to be disinterested in challenges outside their own areas.
This is NOT to say that teams and people should not have their areas of focus, but rather to emphasize the need to foster a culture of open and transparent collaboration. Shared responsibility is a cornerstone mindset where we employ techniques, based on the needs of the organization, to break down these silos, in order to foster collaboration and clear communication between disciplines and teams, allowing teams to iterate effectively, addressing needs across all stages of the development life-cycles.
Once this culture shift is in motion, and you implement the common elements mentioned above in support of this culture, your DevOps strategy and journey is on its way to success!
If you want to learn more about how to implement your DevOps Strategy, please download our e-book here, and contact us if you have any questions!
Process
- 65% reduction of total cycle time through process re-engineering and new tools implementation/integration.
- Increased efficiency in financial disbursements process area.
- Up-to-date processes and technology allowed outreach expansion into new areas locally and internationally, increasing the number of partnering churches and other organizations from 100 to 300 in under 6 months.