How to Avoid Sinking a DevOps Initiative
Every year there’s a constant stream of tech predictions and crystal ball-gazing. For analysts, pundits and business soothsayers alike, it’s the opportunity to lay out what might yet come to pass - only in an ‘all care and no responsibility’ kind of fashion.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for tech navel gazing, but I’d argue that some should be taken more with a grain of salt than others.
On such opinion doing the rounds this year is that Enterprise-adoption of DevOps becomes a reality. The year when big businesses finally wake-up, smell the roses, take DevOps seriously - go all-in.
Sounds like a plan, right? Especially with research outlining all the wondrous benefits of fast and frequent software deployment.
But then I got to wondering that if 2018 is the year to get warm and fuzzy about DevOps, what have all the many high-performance businesses been doing for the last decade or so? Have they been patiently waiting for DevOps to be dissected, analysed and debated before giving it the green light? Of course not, they’ve been successfully applying the principles – long before DevOps as a word first appeared in our biz-tech lexicon.
I’m an “Enterprise” – get me out of Here!
Of course it’s easy to argue that new digital startups have the latitude needed to embrace DevOps-style practices. After all, they don’t have legacy tech baggage and a litany of strict but necessary governance and compliance mandates.
But consider this before using the Unicorns –v- Enterprise type excuses. PayPal, Netflix and Google have been around for about 20 years. That’s more than enough time to acquire many legacies and compliance mandates of their own.
So if that doesn’t explain why so many businesses have been slow to adopt DevOps, what does? Well, I think it comes down to how many tech organisations view their operations in context of that tired old word ‘Enterprise’. Especially how in skews the focus to being inward looking and technology-driven. Not to where it should be – manically focused on customer experience and marshaling all the DevOps people, process and technology goodness towards that goal.
Digital Transformation for Dummies - Literally!
Quite rightly, DevOps is seen as essential oil for digital transformation. Collaborative culture, continuous software delivery, automation and so on. Sounds great, but the effectiveness of DevOps will be cast in stone by what a ‘transformation’ strategy actually means for the business.
For many drinking the digital cool-aid, transformation means conducting the same business only faster and cheaper. So if we’ve been in the widget selling business, we’ll sell the same widgets and be more efficient how we do it. We’ll eke out cost savings across of our supply chains, optimise inventory and wring out better margins using new technologies and DevOps.
Of course operational efficiency uplifts deliver tangible business benefits, but none of this is transformational in the true sense of the word. We’re just inwardly focused; using newness to play the same old game only better. Sadly in such environments the value of DevOps is severely diminished since it’s scrutinised under a cost lens, not where it should be – on its ability to markedly change the very form and nature of a business and the services delivered to customers - for the better.
DevOps needs the Right Digital Strategy – and Vice Versa
This all suggests a captain-obvious style gotcha for any DevOps initiative. If the strategic operating model compass is fixed in the wrong direction, then the massive and hard to turn good ship S.S. Enterprise IT will steam towards it. It’s a brutal analogy, but in a rapidly changing digital world, even DevOps itself can become an active constituent in driving business irrelevance – sudden and swift – iceberg style.
It’s essential therefore that before embarking on DevOps, leaderships frame its application in context of a true transformational agenda - where it really shines. This work should focus on analysing the businesses current operating model and how DevOps can be used to ‘transform at the core’. That is, conducting the same business but in new ways. Perhaps going from selling physical widgets to new digitised widget analytics software services. From pushing other people’s DVD’s through the mail to developing and streaming your own content. Ok, that’s been done before, but you get the idea.
With the transformational strategy in place, DevOps can now start firing. Rigid structures myopically focused only on cost, make way for fluid teams collectively measured, incentivised and encouraged to experiment and innovative. Efficiency skewed output measures are replaced with metrics that assess capabilities (people, process and technology) in context of outcomes achieved. The organisation isn’t using DevOps as the veneer for a status-quo operation, but as a means to drive change and quickly pivot towards new opportunities – even create them.
Keep Calm – Enterprise IT is Sinking
In every industry vertical, pesky startup wanabees are nipping at the ankles of the established players with a very brutal strategy. One that offers customers compelling choices in a new digital wrapping - faster, lower cost and with no hassle. They’re stealing an Enterprise’s lunch.
In such an environment it’s easy to present the latest tech and best practices as a panacea, including DevOps. But take heed. Delayed action, or worse, just using DevOps to do you’ve always done – only faster, better and cheaper will never guarantee success. It’ll just become the next practice in a long line of practices masquerading as game changer because those setting the transformational agenda are completely misguided.
