Here you are, on your mark, ready to implement the DevOps approach in your organization. You are all set! But, are you deploying your DevOps strategy the way you should?
Sure, the DevOps culture is going to help the Development team and the Operations team work together, but, if you are not planning to aim for an overall success, your dream of winning at DevOps might not become a reality.
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According to research, many companies that adopt DevOps give up early as they do not follow the best DevOps practices. And what came out of that research were the practices that were buried deep down that needed to see the light of the day.
On that note, the top six ways to follow in order to be a DevOps champion are:
1. Rope in the top management
When there is something as influential as DevOps, there is no way you leave behind the C-suite. DevOps comprises of multiple processes, functions, processes, and people. Even though the development team and the operations team begin to work together, seeking support from the top is crucial to implement DevOps effectively.
Start by building the case, preparing your pitch, and then approaching the C-suite members in order to implement DevOps to your organization.
2. Assemble the perfect DevOps team
Shifting to DevOps is not a piece of cake. It is imperative to select the members for your DevOps team carefully. It is advisable to pick members from each and every business function affected by the great shift. That includes early adopters as well as the DevOps experts. An impactful DevOps team should house effective communicators, enthusiasts, and knowledge-hungry people. You can even hire a DevOps consulting company.
3. Implement tools across systems
The next thing you need to do is to back up the systems and process with new tools that work across all the business units that will implement DevOps. When you plan to build or buy DevOps tools, ensure that each unit is involved in the tool roll-out. It is common for organizations to leave out crucial functions mistakenly during the launch of DevOps.
4. Make things as simple as possible
As DevOps involves various processes and people, it can become an incredibly complicated task. It becomes a challenge to keep the entire DevOps process simple and effective at the same time. Though, there are some processes within DevOps that can be simplified severely.
Let us take a few instances. By providing feedback in a continuous manner, the process can be cut short by a good amount of time. Similarly, by using automation carefully, deployment can be simplified exponentially. Simplification is the exact thing you should pursue in order to give your team the opportunity for success.
5. Empower your employees
A perfect plan seems like a far-fetched dream when it comes to implementing something as complex as DevOps. Empowering employees by allowing them to take ownership of processes and try new things makes the process of DevOps a lot better. When you encourage employees to take up ownership and experiment more, receiving negative results is bound to happen. But that doesn’t mean that the results won’t provide any valuable information. Try incorporating this approach and you will notice improvement across the organization.
6. Measure Your Progress
You must figure out a way to track and measure your progress along when convincing the C-Suite that their decision to shift to DevOps was right. The results that you derive will also help you gain the confidence of those employees who resisted DevOps in the first place.
Related post: Why DevOps for your organization? What leads to its failure?
Does that make you a DevOps champion?
DevOps holds more power than you think. DevOps can transform your processes by itself, but it is something that can’t be done single-handedly. You need the ‘3 Ts’ – Teams, Tools, and Technologies, all together to make the perfect concoction. If DevOps is not your cup of tea, it might be your glass of wine 😉
Source: InformationWeek
Ajeet Singh
