The best definition I’ve seen for DevOps is from Donovan Brown. He said, “DevOps is the union of People, Processes, and Products to continuously deliver value to our end users”. Donovan breaks down his word choice and what it means to him. To me, DevOps is a mindset that should be adopted company wide. We should work with the People and understand the Processes before we dive into Products or Tools. We are delivering Value to our end users (not story points), not a sprint, not to QA. Delivering value to our end users means focusing on aspects that they care about and use running in Production
How do we DevOps?
DevOps adoption can be challenging. A company wants to deliver better, faster, stronger software. The company will search out for providers to help them. Some providers might focus on only a single tool or technology that claims to solve all that company’s problems. While having a DevOps tool that will enable collaboration is important, you should start by thinking about people and process, as that will be what enables your success. Are there pain points in your process or capabilities that could drive productivity?
The DevOps Journey
An important part of the DevOps Journey is simply starting; part of starting is knowing where you are and where you want to go. A DevOps Assessment has been the foundation for many successful DevOps journeys with which we have helped clients. There are checklists on the internet, lists of “things” a company should be doing in terms of DevOps. Checklists can be a resource for identifying trends in the industry but, by themselves, a few pieces are missing. With a good partner, you can lay out a roadmap for growth based on your team, your technology, and your business, something far beyond a simple checklist.
In addition to knowing from where you are starting, you need to take the first step. Jumping in and resolving a pain point that has been holding you back can help you realize benefits from the beginning. By starting with small, quick wins, you reinforce the value of DevOps and help others see the shared vision of the journey.
We have refined and developed the DevOps assessment into art. We meet you where you are. Leveraging our years of experience, we craft a plan that helps take your company where you want it to go. Our assessment touches on all aspects of software delivery from idea to production. We believe in that shared vision of end–user value and the feedback loops that amplify the value delivered. We provide insights into the company’s current state and a roadmap focused on removing pain points and enhancing capabilities.
DevOps Jumpstart
We have realized assessments and peports are important, but they lack action. How do you show the benefits of DevOps? The answer is by doing DevOps. As part of our approach, we follow up an Assessment with a Jumpstart. During your Jumpstart, we work closely with your teams, trying to solve a pain point or enable a capability. Do you want to go to the cloud and take advantage of scalability, reliability, and flexibility? Has your team been struggling with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) that will enable more robust deployments? Is the state of development hard to understand because your stories spread out and reside in multiple places? Have your development teams been struggling with quality and you want to see testing in a pipeline? Using the roadmap as guidance, we will pick a capability or pain point and enable your team with an minimum viable product (MVP) and deliver that to production.
DevOps Modernization and Enablement
This is the part I love the most. Because our customers that have had a DevOps Assessment and Jumpstart are on their journey, they see how DevOps capabilities affect the entire company and are enjoying the benefits daily. But like many journeys, it is not always about the destination, or the destination might change as you travel. This is where we focus on enabling your teams to climb any hill and cross any challenge in their path. As the journey progresses, new needs might arise, or we might have reached the end of the roadmap.
Where does your company want to go? New Signature can help you get there. Connect with us today.
About the Author
Chris Ayers is the DevOps Capability Lead for the U.S. Azure and DevOps practice. Chris focuses on both Azure and DevOps. His goal is delivering value to end users faster, develop features more quickly, with higher quality, and more confidence. Your DevOps journey isn’t complete without the Cloud, and your Cloud journey isn’t complete without DevOps.
Chris has been developing software of some kind since 2nd grade. He has worn a number of different hats over the years from Technical Support, DBA, System Administrator, Network Administrator, Network Engineer, Software Engineer, Architect, and Consultant. As a developer, Chris always tried to learn and share industry best practices around software development, software architecture, and agile practices. In his free time, Chris enjoys spending time with family, playing video games and board games, reading, mentoring others, blogging, and public speaking.
