The fundamental tenet of DevOps is to accelerate the velocity of IT value delivery using various methods, processes and tools. Besides having a comprehensive strategy, adoption of DevOps across the enterprise is critical to realize the benefits of DevOps. While DevOps has key principles that all implementations should follow, however due to company specific situation and maturity no two implementations alike. Irrespective of the implementation situation, we have discovered some common themes that had significant impact on the success of the implementation.
Invati experience and success factors
Based on our experience in implementing DevOps across industries including that have tough regulatory environment (Financial Services and Healthcare), we have documented the key success factors that every company that is planning or is implementing DevOps could benefit. These are not listed in any order of importance.
1. Approach DevOps as journey
DevOps is not a one-time activity that is established at a project level for certain duration. Given the importance of integrating two different organizations that have varied mode of operation it is imperative that implementation is done right. For which embracing DevOps as a journey with key milestones is important. Making it a journey promotes adoption over time rather than pushing the implementation at one shot.
2. Develop Roadmap with Incremental Maturity
To supplement the DevOps journey, the approach should include incremental improvement across different capabilities. It should be planned where every iteration or milestone corresponds to incremental improvement in each of the capability. Care must be taken in forcing some capabilities to mature at a faster pace than the other causing mis-match in velocity leading to frustration and dissatisfaction amongst business and implementation teams. Think of a car where one tire rotates at a faster pace than the other three.
3. Plan and Minimize Impact of Barriers to Adoption
For any change that spans entire organization much attention should be paid to factors that impact the implementation of change. For DevOps, the plan should incorporate addressing critical barriers that directly impact adoption. These are grounded in promoting culture of collaboration and need for shared goals. Common technologies that are familiar with the teams is also critical so is business readiness in working differently than what was done in the past.
4. Agile adoption is key
DevOps by its own can deliver significant improvements to the velocity of software delivery with increased operational efficiency. Like Yin and Yang, DevOps when coupled with Agile deliver exponential benefits. In fact, Agile methodology requires rapid turnaround times for deploying changes prioritized by the product owners and DevOps delivers that seamlessly.
5. Integrate Agile and DevOps
There are many handoffs that occur within Agile methodology which relies on DevOps for deploying changes, however when the integration elements are not thought out correctly, process frictions and in efficient handoffs could lead to higher lead times for deploying changes.
6. Implement Right Toolchain
Automation is critical element of a successful DevOps implementation. The selection of tools is an important element as any mis-match in tool sets could hinder efficiency and sometimes lead to failed implementations. A successful tool chain would either establish an all commercial or all open source strategy, however an hybrid strategy is also recommended provided integration and license issues are addressed properly. Developing process on how the code flows through the entire toolchain is a must.
7. Organizational Change Management is a Must
Implementing change at the enterprise level is a monumental challenge, especially when the way working is changed. Everyone must learn the new ways and also adjust to increased collaboration and performance driven environment. A thoughtful Change management plan supported by executive buy in and constant communication sets the right context for success. Organizations that miss change management have experienced poor to no adoption and sometimes contribute to discord among the developers leading to increased attrition.
8. Establish and Track Metrics
Primary objective of DevOps is to increase the throughput of software delivery which is considered as key differentiator in the Digital economy. In addition Quality and Performance needs to be balanced along with velocity of delivery. Tracking metrics that measure against these broad categories is essential. If not, team members and the management is not sure if the new process is working. Example of such metrics are – deployment frequency, deployment time, error rate, deployment size or change volume etc.
9. Celebrate Success to Gain Adoption
DevOps journey can be tough if the existing practices are entrenched within the enterprise. Weaning off from these practices requires lot of patience and perseverance. Given that DevOps is a journey and waiting to celebrate at the end wears the team off without much recognition in between. Celebrating small success in the beginning and then celebrating major milestones sets an environment that not only promotes engagement but also increases adoption over time.
10. Establish Joint Accountability for Outcomes
DevOps implementation is not a responsibility of the technology organization alone. To support the new way of working with increased collaboration both Business and IT should have joint accountability in order to promote the change. Having just one organization own the accountability leads to mis-match in adoption which leads to sub-optimal implementation.
More About Invati
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- Open source products in Azure DevOps marketplace
- Our Technology Offering
