An organization’s digital transformation journey usually starts with adopting Agile or Lean development practices and then adding or implementing DevOps. You ask: Why DevOps? What is DevOps?
One definition describes “DevOps as a mashup of ‘development’ and ‘operations.’" But DevOps is more than that. It represents a set of ideas and practices much larger than those two terms alone or together. DevOps includes security, collaborative ways of working, data analytics and many other things.
“DevOps describes approaches to speeding up the processes by which an idea (like a new software feature, a request for enhancement or a bug fix) goes from development to deployment in a production environment where it can provide value to the user. These approaches require that development teams and operations teams communicate frequently and approach their work with empathy for their teammates.”
Just like Agile, DevOps is not a single product, tool or process: It is an approach or philosophy that encompasses all the components and practices that impact the people, process and tools.
So, when an organization adopts DevOps, it is not introducing a new software tool or process. Rather, like Agile, DevOps is fundamentally a transformation philosophy.
As part of an organization’s digital journey, the business wants to become more competitive, introducing more products and features that help to differentiate it in the marketplace. The business driver for new and better features is usually to address a gap in the competitive landscape for the organization. For example, automating software deployment or infrastructure build-out provides the improved efficiencies and productivity that can be a game changer for the large financial services firm, start-up or non-profit organization.
Improved efficiency can mean different things to different organizations. For a large financial service firm, efficiency may result from improving infrastructure stability and reducing system downtime while deploying changes and updates. For a start-up, releasing new features faster and more efficiently may improve their competitive advantage or marketshare. For the non-profit, it could mean having to use fewer resources and doing more with less.
Regardless of the catalyst for adopting DevOps, the ability to deliver faster, operate in a more stable environment, improve communication and collaboration or the ability to shift more focus on innovation versus maintain and sustain all are motivators for companies big or small, mature or evolving, to adopt DevOps in some capacity within Tech & Ops.
After all, it could be the difference between losing market share or gaining a competitive advantage.
Related: