Creating a new DevOps position in your technology team might prove insufficient to that end. To see real performance, we encourage you to rethink your company’s mindset, and to create a full-fledged DevOps culture across your organization.
To better understand what is involved, let’s have a look at a couple of definitions we can find for DevOps:
1. Definition of DevOps on Wikipedia:
DevOps is a clipped compound of “development” and “operations” to define a software development methodology that combines software development (Dev) with information technology operations (Ops). The goal of DevOps is to shorten the systems development life cycle while also delivering features, fixes, and updates frequently in close alignment with business objectives. The DevOps approach is to include automation and event monitoring at all steps of the software build.
2. Definition of DevOps on Amazon Web Services:
DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity: evolving and improving products at a faster pace than organizations using traditional software development and infrastructure management processes. This speed enables organizations to better serve their customers and compete more effectively in the market.
Although both definitions are correct and highlight the technical benefits of DevOps, we would like to focus on how the Amazon Web Services definition goes beyond the technicality of the function.
When asked about the importance of implementing a DevOps culture for their clients, Iqbal Khan, Managing Partner at FAHM Technology Partners, said “DevOps helps remove barriers to deliver code more effectively and efficiently. It enables us to move an awful lot quicker, helping us adapt to the new age when it comes to development and deployment.”
The truth is, the end goal for any technology delivery is speed, scalability, reliability, and security. Greater collaboration between functions of your technology team, namely Development and IT Operations, achieves those goals. Now, consider introducing DevOps as a transformational culture shift within your company. Embrace DevOps as a new way of approaching how your teams and products answer your clients’ needs through a collaborative design and planning process.
Imagine how much smarter your technology solutions could be if you applied the DevOps thinking to your entire company. This would prompt more collaboration between marketing, sales, and customer service functions. Consider how integrating the feedback from those functions, who have direct contact with clients, could help you better answer the needs of your users from solution design to solution maintenance.