This guide outlines what DevOps is, and how it can benefit when incorporated into business processes.
If you are a developer, the term DevOps is not new to you, and the same is true for other development professionals. Even with an awareness of DevOps and its benefits, not everyone in the software development industry has incorporated it in their processes.
Many organizations are yet to adopt DevOps because of confusion on where to start or lack of the necessary information.
If you are planning to incorporate DevOps in your processes but are unsure where to start, this article is for you. We’ll go over everything you need to know about DevOps, from its definition to ensuring success with the approach.
What is DevOps?
DevOps is an approach in software development that helps increase speed, accuracy, and efficiency by allowing collaboration between developers and operations managers. It is more of a cultural change of operation involving tools and philosophies that increase a team’s productivity.
A good DevOps strategy must outline all the resources and the methods available to reach the desired goal. This outline is called an enterprise DevOps roadmap that acts as a blueprint when implementing your organization’s DevOps strategy.
Tips for Achieving Success with DevOps
From its definition, DevOps sounds pretty straightforward. But that’s only on paper. A wrong approach to DevOps can result in frustrations due to a DevOps inefficiency. But worry not, as here are some tried and tested tips you could implement to succeed with your DevOps strategy.
Be Ready for Resistance
It’s not unusual for your team to resist change when you are trying to incorporate DevOps in your processes. The good news is that you can deal with this by adopting a diplomatic approach to introducing change to get your team on board.
While you have the lead role and are the decision-maker, it is important to understand that as long as your team isn’t on board with your idea, the strategy will not yield the expected results.
Even when they encounter challenges with the new system, allowing your team to be part of decision-making communicates a sense of empowerment that can help encourage the adoption of new ideas.
Get Some Allies
For every idea proposed, there will be members of the team willing to embrace change even when most may not.
As a team leader, it is your job to identify and recruit the team members for the idea as your allies, have them trained, and use them as your ambassadors to win over the rest of the group.
Most team members would be more inclined to adopt an idea when it is championed by one of their own than when it’s championed by someone they deem as an authority.
Show the Effectiveness of the System; Don’t Tell.
Being the decision-maker, it is your responsibility to inform your team of your organization’s changes. However, telling them to change from a system they know works (even with some challenges) to a system they don’t know about won’t work.
Instead, show them how you or someone else has used the new system and how it impacted the quality of your or their outcomes.
The best option would be to have someone with experience with the system demonstrate how it can help make their development processes better. The more practical information the team members can have, the better their chances of embracing the change.
Allow Open Communication
A DevOps approach differs from traditional approaches in that it focuses on a collaboration between developers, operations managers, and other parties involved in the development process. This calls for an intentional effort to build a culture of communication on an organizational level.
Allowing open communication ensures that every person involved can contribute to realizing the expected end product. The best way to enhance communication is by adopting a communication tool from the list of DevOps tools in the market.
Prepare To Change The Culture
Some companies use an administration that divides teams between teams, but all are part of the same organization. This type of vision limited and created some feuds between departments that persist to this day.
As shown earlier, to this day there is often a battle between the development and operations teams. To start your DevOps implementation successfully, you must move past this type of vision split.
To make understanding simpler, two points below will be presented that are seen as the objective of this type of vision. Before checking it out, remember that this type of thing can be more or less, so check it out below:
- Integration – This is a great benefit, because when ending the feud it is likely that there is an attitude wanting to make an integration. It is this point that should be considered, because it will bring advantages to this company.
- Unification – Right after you have had access to an integration, it is time to perform a unification. Teams will come to understand that they are part of the same team, that is, there will be greater union between all.
Integration and unification are inherent in the process of starting your DevOps career and the courses are to assist you in this. It only remains to take advantage of this chance, as it will be important and will bring everyone important advantages to the parties.
How does this culture change happen?
To be able to learn how culture change happens in the company you need to be aware of issues that are important. Before proceeding, it is appropriate to show that this may change a little according to the company.
Being able to start your DevOps implementation is the goal and for this three crucial issues will be mentioned. To facilitate understanding, you need to succeed and the next topics will help you in this, see:
- Take it easy – There’s no point in companies being in a hurry, because this type of attitude will be dangerous. The main tip is to start slowly and gradually consolidate the DevOps culture among teams.
- Start with small projects – Teams need to gain confidence on top of the operation and the best way is to take small projects, then start growing utilization.
- Analyze your team’s feedback – Employees will be the agents of change, that is, you need to analyze everyone’s feedback. Managers should have this sensitivity, because it will be of great help.
To start your DevOps implementation, you need to know the culture, but you need to know how this culture change will happen in the company. These three points mentioned above show how everything should be done.
