Theory of Devops’ablity

DevOps is culmination of people, process and technology and the idea behind DevOps is to deliver value to customer faster and most importantly earning their trust without compromising on quality and security.

I took a stab at coining “Theory of Devops’ablity” to discuss it at very high level on what it means from end-user's perspective basing it on "Take care of people and they will take care of process and technology"

This article highlights key lesson learned based on our hands-on experience working with our customers on their DevOps journey here at Citizant Inc.

DevOps –

Let us discuss the origin of DevOps at a high level. It was born out of a particular moment in the history of computing and IT. That moment, which started in the mid-2000s, was marked by several key features that helped give rise to DevOps, including:

The widespread adoption of cloud computing and explosive popularity of mobile computing starting with the launch of the iPhone in 2007 and the mobile revolution meant organizations increasingly had to deliver software for multiple target environments (PCs, Android phones and iOS, for example) at the same time, necessitating branched delivery pipelines. In 2010, with the success of the open source software movement in making open source the go-to licensing strategy for many popular software projects and in making collaboration around code easier and the rise of micro services and containers, which made applications much more complex to design, deploy and manage. The demand for ever-increasing speed in software delivery as a way to gain an edge in software markets which, by the late 2000s, had grown more competitive than ever. When you put these changes together, you end up with a need to manage much more complex, fast-moving software delivery pipelines. And around 2010, Powered by cloud infrastructure and micro services architectures, the software market required more responsive, better coordinated management by IT teams. DevOps provided an answer by increasing efficiency, decreasing response times and making software delivery faster.

Mindset –

Organization is made of individuals and every individual brings their ‘fixed’ or ‘growth’ mindset along with varied personality types. Remember, no one joins an organization to fail and a common misconception is that people resist change which is completely not true. People do not resist change instead they resist unknowns with the change. Hence it is a responsibility of the leaders to make sure the communication around change is transparent and as Elon Musk says, the communication flow from top to bottom and across the organization should always take the shortest path.

Commitment –

In today’s hyper competitive market and well informed customers, organization not committing to their vision, mission and goals will soon find themselves working for someone else. An organization commitment is a promise made to the customer to serve them with utmost trust respect and deliver working product which meets or exceed their expectations. Leaders should make sure they are married to DevOps and provide their support in the thick-n-thin of its journey. It is very important for leaders to understand that DevOps is not an afterthought and can be parachuted in, instead it needs to be baked in with their business and IT partnership from the beginning and it starts with open and candid conversations on what is important to earn the trust of their customers.

End-user Trust –

In today’s world of transparency and instant judgments, organizations cannot afford to lose the trust of their customers. Trust should be an integral part of organizations’ value.

For example at Citizant Inc., our core values bind our employees together and keep us focused on behaviors that earn trust from our customers and the citizens we all serve. More than just words, our values below form the operational foundation for every decision we make and every action we take.

1.      Responsibility: We pull our own weight, teach others how to pull theirs, and show up whenever a member of our tribe needs support. Responsibility is about maintaining a sense of ownership, delivering on our commitments, and being mindful of our wake.

2.      Reputation: We create balanced outcomes, communicate our intentions with honesty and clarity, and honor our commitments. Reputation is about building and maintaining trust.

3.      Drive: We lean in to the hard work of empowering a vibrant and sustainable culture, creating jobs, developing leaders, communicating clearly, making a difference, and contributing to a greater outcome. Drive is about courage, faith, and tenacity to deliver on commitments.

4.      Delivery Excellence: We focus on quality over quantity and value the journey of continuous process improvement and organizational maturity. Delivery Excellence is about pride in our work and fulfillment as a result.

5.      Better Future: A Better Future is the reward given and received for living an authentic life of service – to each other, our customers, our loved ones, and our communities. Better Future is about giving more than we take.

Hopefully, with the understanding of the above mentioned terms, we can explain theory of Devops’ablity as:

E = MC2

Where:

M = Organization Mindset

C = Organization Commitment

E = End-user Trust

Organization Mindset should be quantified by figuring out the organization Quotient, further details are discussed here. Organization Commitment should be quantified by evaluating organization initiatives, risks, priorities and funding commitments.

Simply put, as an organization approaches the speed of “growth” mindset, the end-user trust becomes infinite and it is unable to go any faster than the commitment which the organization makes or in simple terms the end-user trust is interchangeable with the organization mindset at the speed of organization commitment.

Please do share your own DevOps journey, your challenges, successes and failures.