DevOps to win — Management for Engineers Series
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DevOps is a burning topic 🔥 in the (software) engineering world. For me, it will see great adoption in ALL areas of engineering, no doubt.
Here is a FAQ and Tips about DevOps, so you can stay on top things.
What is DevOps?
Elevator pitch: It is a mindset shift that makes you a lot 💰.
So, is it only applicable to software products?
No. ❌
Because #1: Even software is not only software. The turning point in software DevOps was actually automating the hardware, aka. Infrastructure as Code.
Because #2: All new products and services are now designed with (CAD), manufactured using (CAM), operated or supported (IoT) via a significant amount of software.
Is DevOps any good?
Very good. 👌
✅ Benefit #1: DevOps is a recent mindset that is introduced to increase quality AND speed of product delivery.
✅ Benefit #2: Talents are creative and motivated. As DevOps mindset is an automation mindset, any repeating task is automated: from sending emails, testing products, optimizing designs. In a 🌎 where machine compute cost is commodity, you save your talents “compute” for the right things.
Why DevOps = 💵 ?
“Overall, organizations with full DevOps potential and successful agile practices report a 60 percent growth in revenues and profits.”
Source: https://www.veritis.com/blog/derive-roi-from-devops-an-overview-of-performance-and-metrics/ [1]
Team perspective
Accountability: We are all accountable in the team for the product that we deliver. There is no more “others” to blame. This increases involvement and intrinsic motivation. Thus, reduced churn = 💰
Confidence: Automation brings confidence. Fr-agility is now agility. Risk-taking becomes possible and can lead to innovation. Innovation = 💰
Diversity: By design, a DevOps team has no problems with marketing, sales and engineering members being in the same team. A diverse is team is known to be more empathetic. A customer-focused team emerges. Thus, a satisfied customer = 💰
Business perspective
“DevOps organizations are 2.4 times more likely to witness business growth at the rate of 20% compared to their mainstream competitors.” [1]
Competitiveness: Instead of competing between each other in the team or departments, the teams are competing with their own product quality & delivery speed + the market via their product in continuous development and operations. Less internal politics = 💶
Alignment: In DevOps, experimentation is supported by testing, in turn supported by lessons of operations, driven by and measured against the business objectives of the product. Aligned KPIs/OKRs = 💶
Growth: The entire organization is running on automation. Anything can now be measured thus improved. Continuous improvement = 💶
How can I apply DevOps in my department or team?
At any scale, any manager/team can integrate a DevOps mindset. For traditional businesses, DevOps is easier to integrate than agile, because it can start only with the automation leg. AND who doesn’t like automation? 🤔
🗺 My Roadmap to DevOps Management
Establish: ANY successful engineering team (no matter if it builds airplanes, boats, buildings) needs digital Tools and Processes support. Find/Hire IT specialists to be part of your airplane ✈️ design team that sets and operates the rules of automation for design, integration, operations.
Govern: Build awareness and governance bodies around “how to automate?” and “why to automate?” e.g. version control ALL changes, establish quick wins of automation (start e.g. with change notifications), and define how to measure automation progress.
Encourage: Incentivize “breaking” & “fixing” & “preventing”. If your team can break, they can fix and later prevent things to break. 😎
Code-Test-Deliver: CTD. CODE: everyone codes at their own level (be it an excel spreadsheet macros, HTML, ML with python…). TEST: everyone tests. Let marketing and sales put in place tests that matters to them. Everyone DELIVERS: the whole team is accountable of the success and supports the operation the product.
Continue: Take it as a loop ♾ . “Bad and slow are ok for today, be better tomorrow.” This is a key principle that you can aspire for. It is tolerant but still ambitious.
You can read more about DevOps here:
http://www.cmswire.com/information-management/how-devops-is-automating-the-workplace/
Or watch it here (software perspective but very holistic one ☝️):
