This is part two of a three-part blog series based on Your Strategic Playbook for DevOps Victory.
DevOps has become the backbone of modern software development, critical for delivering high-quality software products and keeping customers happy. It was created to break down traditional functional barriers between software developers and operations, helping the two groups share responsibility and work better together. It allows both sides to get the tools and resources they need to create well-developed software faster and more efficiently.
However, the journey to DevOps success is often full of challenges that slow companies down and impede progress, resulting in many organizations sticking with their legacy systems. Although this may avoid hurdles in the short term, it can be detrimental to the viability of the company’s software in the long term.
To help your organization successfully shift to a DevOps mindset, it’s important to get executives on board, understand how to manage and tackle technical debt, and prepare to navigate the culture shifts that come with DevOps adoption.
Here’s what I recommend.
Getting Executive Buy-in
One of the biggest challenges of DevOps adoption is securing leadership buy-in, largely because it requires rethinking organizational structures and adopting new processes that may delay work completion. However, this isn’t a step software team leads and decision makers can ignore.
Having executive leadership buy-in with the company’s proposed DevOps adoption helps address any underlying concerns from the team and paves the way for a smooth transition.
Here are four practical steps to help your executives adopt a DevOps mindset.
- Create a business case: Present a business use case connecting DevOps to broader business goals. Wherever possible, show the ROI and justify the necessary resources.
- Educate leadership: Help leadership understand how DevOps practices drive desired results. Be the translator between DevOps practices and business impact by showing your leadership team how continuous delivery leads to faster, less risky software releases; automation improves team efficiency and morale; and collaboration gets everyone thinking like a business leader. Conducting an assessment of your current teams and systems to include in this educational exercise can be a great aid.
- Start small: Begin with a bite-sized pilot or proof-of-concept that demonstrates the potential transition to leadership. For best results, focus on a quick accomplishment that adds immediate benefit.
- Invite expert testimony: If you don’t know where to start, contact us. Our experts can offer additional insights into the benefits of DevOps adoption and boost your credibility with an unbiased perspective.
Getting executive buy-in will take time, but having support from the top-down will yield deep, lasting results for your organization.
Managing Technical Debt
One area where DevOps makes the most impact is managing technical debt, which is the cost required to maintain or fix outdated or suboptimal software.
Although some technical debt is the result of prioritizing a speedy release over long-term quality, the majority occurs when an organization starts its software development process at too small a scale. In these instances, the team attempts to scale up their operations to keep pace with company growth only to discover 50 percent of their time is spent addressing past challenges, rather than preparing for future ones. It’s essential to have a strategy in place for managing technical debt long-term to ensure your team doesn’t fall back into old practices. This should include the four steps to managing technical debt.
- Diagnose and quantify technical debt.
- Prevent additional technical debt.
- Prioritize and repay technical debt.
- Measure, repeat, and evolve your approach.
Managing technical debt is a continuous, evolving process essential for transitioning to and maintaining DevOps practices. Without DevOps principles, technical debt can spiral out of control, becoming a self-imposed barrier to efficiency and modernization. With DevOps principles, organizations can transform their development practices, shifting from maintenance-heavy workloads to a more dynamic, evolutionary model.
Foster a Culture of Collaboration
Shifting to DevOps isn’t just about adopting new tools and processes. It’s about empowering teams to take full ownership of the product life cycle. However, most organizations lack cross-team collaboration, siloing their different teams.
To achieve a successful DevOps transformation, organizations need a sense of shared responsibility and transparency across every team and department. To do this, they need to break down traditional silos between development, testing, and operations teams, allowing information to flow freely between each.
For many, this results in a large culture shift. I recommend implementing the following strategies to guide your organization through the process:
- Involve everyone in the journey.
- Engage and educate your teams.
- Promote open communication.
- Celebrate successes, both big and small.
By fostering a culture of collaboration, your team will be prepared to navigate the shift to DevOps together.
Navigating a Successful DevOps Shift
Successfully shifting to a DevOps mindset can be challenging, but there are ways to help your organization reap the rewards. To start, work to secure executive buy-in, prepare to manage technical debt, and be open to a culture of shared responsibility and transparency.
Learn what a successful shift to DevOps looks like with our KPIs for success.
