DevOps: All Pain with no Gain?
DevOps is more than just technology; it involves people. Frequently, a DevOps project will run into an obstacle that is far more difficult to wrestle with than an IT issue: a company’s culture.
Larger projects will typically require that bridges are built between the development team and operations personnel, those who will be tasked with bringing new technology to the wider business.
There is plenty of pain to be experienced with a DevOps project, but there are also benefits to be realized that can make it all worthwhile. According to the State of DevOps report, published by InteropITX, these projects can mean that organizations achieve a much higher level of collaboration and faster software development processes than previously. Less time is wasted on application maintenance, coupled with improved application quality and performance.
One of the big challenges facing organizations is the sheer complexity of their IT setup. Larger companies will have internal IT teams that are structured around traditional “waterfall” development practices. Roles within the IT team will have been created to facilitate a development process that divides development and operations into distinct siloes. This can pose serious cultural obstacles to DevOps.
Lack of inspirational leadership is also a major blocker of successful DevOps. Successful projects are typically distinguished by transformational leaders, but leadership alone cannot achieve the desired outcome. Rather, companies need to adopt appropriate architecture, lean management principles – and a culture of excellent technical practices.
A report published by Puppet and DORA finds that DevOps projects can be derailed by excessive interference from management teams that ultimately wish to micromanage technical projects. This can stretch to the DevOps team requiring approval for multiple detailed stages of the project from individuals outside the team. This means that the ability of the DevOps team to try out new ideas and update specifications is quickly curtailed, leading to a far less satisfactory outcome for the company or organization.
Ultimately, lack of blue-sky thinking is always going to slow a program as revolutionary as a DevOps project.
Many established companies are sitting on years, if not decades, of legacy systems, supervised by senior IT personnel who can fear the sort of change engendered within the most far-reaching DevOps projects. Surpassing these obstructions requires a clearly-defined agenda that will demonstrate the advantages to the organization of a major revision.
Bridging the gap between development and operations at an early stage can also be an asset. It helps to gather operational feedback at an early stage, as this surfaces useful insights for the DevOps team while also ensuring Operations has a stake in the project and its successful conclusion.
Too many times, operations teams are brought into the light of the DevOps campfire at a stage where many decisions have already been made, sometimes to the detriment of the final project implementation.
