Quantifying DevOps Capability - stick to ... C ... A...L...M...S ..

One of the most debatable talk in DevOps community right now is what exactly DevOps is and whether it even needs a definition. I agree with their assertion that DevOps needs a definition. It is hard to engage with a topic when you are bombarded with million comments around culture and collaboration. They are unavoidably important, but to get you started and to onboard new adopters, DevOps needs something more tangible, something that you can look at and see the beginnings of in your business. Otherwise we risk that you leave bewildered about what to do next.

I think this framework already exists in the community – it was introduced by.. Damon Edwards and then refined by Jez Humble into the acronym we now know as Culture, Automation, Lean, Metrics and Sharing : C A L M S.

·        Culture – Own the change to drive collaboration and communication

·        Automation – Take manual steps out of your value chain

·        Lean – Use lean principles to enable higher cycle frequency

·        Metrics – Measure everything and use data to refine cycles

·        Sharing – Share experiences, successful or not, to enable others to learn

These are the pillars of a successful DevOps implementation. Ignoring just one can compromise overall effectiveness. They also serve as an excellent benchmark to assess your current capability and highlight the areas you need to improve.

From here you can set plans and priorities for initiatives to move the elements forward. Breaking these down into smaller horizons allows you to focus on smaller projects and components and also means you have plenty of opportunity to assess progress and make course corrections. You should also prioritize the initiatives that will have the biggest impact to your customers – this is lean in action during transformation as well as product development.

Prepared for the definition of HIGH to keep moving. This is continuous improvement in action! The DevOps community will continue to innovate and the advanced practitioners will continue to push the envelope to unlock operational performance. The community continues to play a huge role in helping create context for what Low, Medium and High mean, and you can immediately play your part in that based on your experience and context.

DevOps is and will continue to enter common terminology in the IT industry at a rapid pace. The way that it attracts and engages new adopters will need to mature as it makes that transition from niche to mainstream. If you find the community difficult to penetrate and hard to map to your own business, consider CALMS as the yardstick by which your transformation will be measured. And when you pitch the DevOps transformation to your colleagues, remember its lineage; it’s the first step to making a sustainable cultural change.