- Debunking the Top Myths About DevOps
- Myth 1: DevOps Is Only for Hipsters
- Reality: The Problem Isn’t the People—It’s the Organizational Structure
- Untapped Skills
- Myth 2: One Movement to Rule Them All
- Reality: Processes to Ensure Resilience and Stability Are Critical
- Myth 3: DevOps Is a Technology Movement
- Reality: Business Outcomes Drive DevOps, Not the Technology
- Use Technology as a Driver to Accelerate DevOps Goals
- Myth 4: My Business Is Immune
- Reality: ALL Companies Are in the Software Business
- When Thinking About DevOps, Look at Your Business First and IT Second
- Myth 5: DevOps Will Change the World
- Reality: Little Improvement in Success Rate of Development Projects
- Get the Facts
Debunking the Top Myths About DevOps
by Darryl K. Taft
Myth 1: DevOps Is Only for Hipsters
To hear some tell it, DevOps can only be understood by a new breed of blended IT professional: a “silo-busting” individual using the latest tools.
Reality: The Problem Isn’t the People—It’s the Organizational Structure
A rigid culture and a “one skill in one box” organizational structure restrict people’s rounded set of skills from being fully utilized.
Untapped Skills
Review the untapped skills of your current employees. Before scouring for DevOps talent, look for ops professionals who think like coders, and coders who understand the need for resilience.
Myth 2: One Movement to Rule Them All
Often, those championing DevOps claim that ITIL, COBIT and a balanced scorecard no longer have a place and should be discarded.
Reality: Processes to Ensure Resilience and Stability Are Critical
Any set of best practices or methodologies will accelerate and improve your IT services. Don’t obsess about where the methodologies compete, but think instead how they can complement each other.
Myth 3: DevOps Is a Technology Movement
There’s a lot of really good technical material written on DevOps, with many new terms to consider—like infrastructure-as-code and anti-fragile—all supported by a new range of products and techniques.
Reality: Business Outcomes Drive DevOps, Not the Technology
Meeting customer expectations is the No. 1 priority. Use customer feedback to test assumptions. Be prepared to change methods for project planning, product management, funding and implementation.
Use Technology as a Driver to Accelerate DevOps Goals
Remove physical constraints and bottlenecks that interrupt the flow of value to customers. Automate frequent release cycles. More releases mean more business, not more technical headaches.
Myth 4: My Business Is Immune
Many organizations argue that the principles of DevOps don’t apply because they’ve outsourced operations or don’t have an app dev function. After all, what value could continuous change bring to an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” world?
Reality: ALL Companies Are in the Software Business
Many sneaker companies, for example, are expanding beyond simply selling sneakers—they now sell a fitness experience (wearable devices) that depends on software.
When Thinking About DevOps, Look at Your Business First and IT Second
It’s really about being a business practitioner and embracing techniques such as experimentation, iterative and incremental design, and above all else—learning from failure.
Myth 5: DevOps Will Change the World
With so much hype, it’s easy to start drinking the DevOps Kool-Aid.
Reality: Little Improvement in Success Rate of Development Projects
The reality is that the success rate for development projects hasn’t improved much in 20 years. If your operations team gets rewarded for stopping application releases, then no amount of agile development will help. Likewise, it won’t help if your developers won’t leave the office to meet customers. DevOps is about five things: people, people, people, people and people.
Get the Facts
If you are ready to move from myth to reality with DevOps, download the ebooklet Dysfunction Junction – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Started with DevOps at www.ca.com/devops-ebook.