Why DevOps is still underrated, what should be the takeaway for any organization?

DevOps is an emerging philosophy gaining a slow and steady momentum into the tech eco-system. The essence of DevOps lies in a perfect synergy of combining Agile and Lean approaches to the operations. The operations and development engineers collaborate in the complete service lifecycle, from design, development, execution, to production.

Several factors are involved in the DevOps implementation process that gives possible benefits such as faster software delivery and simplified workflows. However, to implement DevOps is to observe a fundamental change of the process. In the process, there are chances of getting two results. One is either the whole organization embraces the change or rejects and undermines its value, leading to a failure. 

“To successfully implement continuous delivery, you need to change the culture of how an entire organization views software development efforts.”

—Tommy Tynjä
 

Recently, Gartner reports that 90% of DevOps initiatives fail at the implementation stage not due to technical reasons, but because of the reserved leadership approach. So, what are some real hurdles that impede the progress and success of DevOps? 

Let us have a quick look at it.
 

Why some leading businesses underrate DevOps?

• Inability to create a DevOps Culture

Businesses fail to pick up with DevOps because they take it as a set of tools that can be combined to get quick solutions. Overall, somewhere the entire team fails to understand that it is not about faster releases and finishing strict deadlines. Such an approach can only widen the gap between development and operations.

• Practicing Agile over DevOps

Most of the organizations miss out on the collateral combination of DevOps and Agile in the development process. As a result, there is a striking discord in the team and limited communication between them in the entire project. On realistic grounds, DevOps comes from a thought process to incorporate security, systems, and operations to achieve the final goal of software delivery to the client.

• No DevOps Vision

It becomes inevitable for businesses to define DevOps in tune with business objectives. At a very initial stage, one needs to identify the quantum possibilities and benefits that DevOps can give to the organization. Lack of vision, not determining the loopholes, and not addressing the pain points, will lead to a complete DevOps implementation failure.

• Embracing Automation – Improper balance of people and tools

In several situations, organizations have misinterpreted the concept of automation. DevOps does the software development process automation with the help of various tools for testing, maintenance, and storage. But the chances of getting accurate results diminishes without human intervention. Hence, the power of the machine-man combination cannot be denied to get a successful DevOps project implementation. 

• Excessive intervention – Micromanagement

DevOps practitioners prefer to work in an open and autonomous environment. Monitoring their coding work daily and minutely may hamper their freedom to work with creativity. If the management presses upon using standard tools for designing software, they may tend to lose interest in the project. 

So, the question is how do we fix these problems? How would any organization realize that choosing DevOps is the way to empowerment and pure success? Check out these solutions that will surely work to give success in the software delivery.

Key takeaways for any organization to understand the real benefits of DevOps

• Tools should not be the solution to resolve a cultural problem

Every business must look into the situation before taking the DevOps initiative. Thorough identification must be done on the behavior of the software team and the valid reasons behind it. They must be trained and well-oriented not only with the tools but with an understanding that DevOps is a philosophy that needs to be embraced with deep understanding. Several ways and practices can lead to successful DevOps implementation. The cultural shift must be taken care of with a great priority.

• Organizations need to set the right DevOps culture. 

The top management and the leaders must initiate in developing the right habits. This will lead to a standard behavior that shall be naturally followed by the team. Sharing the final goal of creating quality, secure, and high performing software with the team empowers them and makes them responsible to deliver quality output.

• Identify the DevOps Vision to the core

Reasons to implement DevOps must be well-defined to make it a success. Various broader perspectives must be identified such as creating a DevOps roadmap, training the team on the upcoming change, setting short-term goals, and expectations of the organization after implementing DevOps.

• Decode the machine-man combination for achieving greater accuracy

During the ongoing phase of using the DevOps toolchain, human intervention becomes inevitable to measure progress and fix constraints at consistent intervals. Therefore, making a machine-man collaboration is a necessary practice that must be adopted at the earliest. 

• Team involvement is necessary – From top to bottom level management

Tools alone cannot bring DevOps success. DevOps need complete team involvement from top to bottom level individuals. Leaders should take notice of the change and empower the team with motivation and show them the right direction towards the change. The entire perspective needs to be shifted towards the people as they are the foundational drivers of DevOps. 

• Adopting DevOps needs a lot of time and effort

Every business needs sufficient time to catch up with the rhythm of change. Changes do not occur overnight. The results of DevOps can be obtained only after investing a lot of time and effort in the resources and analyzing transformation for gaining better results in the future.

Conclusion

DevOps should not be implemented unless a business has a well-crafted design on how to implement it and the reasons behind the implementation. DevOps must not be an impulsive decision for an organization just to gain quick success. 

At Cubet, we give reliable solutions through DevOps that can provide performing software instead of a test environment. Our team of experts helps business to undergo a smooth transition while during and after the phase of DevOps implementation.