DevOps is like Fight Club with a less cool name. The progenitors of DevOps tried mightily to protect it from profiteers. Where there’s a profit motive, there’s a way to productize and oversimplify.
This blog is about overthrowing DevOps. DevOps is dead. Long live DevOps. Long live the revolution!
Methodologies have holes. Blindspots. Biases. DevOps sought to establish Systems Thinking. The DevOps Systems thinking tended to limit itself to the technology production system. Local optima is the default human behavior. We are tribal by nature. Us vs. Them emerges on the same team. Us vs. Them is inherent between two different teams. We build solutions thinking of ourselves.
This is seen in meeting after meeting, project after project. A group builds a solution to help them manage or solve a problem. Another group, in another silo, manages or solves similar problems. The solution the first group builds is intended help coordinate with the other group. When an outsider asked, “Have you spoken with the other group about this solution you’re building?” The answer is too often, “No.”
Here’s another example of local optimization. The IT Operations VP celebrates a one-time savings of $1,000,000 through new efficiencies in hardware utilization. The CIO recognizes and reward the outcome. The CIO and VP don’t see the lagging consequence. Software Delivery and Support annual recurring costs increased by $250,000 for 8 software products. A net loss over 5 years of $9MM. In some companies, the Software Develop VP will be punished for either running over budget by $250,000 year, producing a low-quality product resulting from staff shortage, or missed delivery related to a staff shortage.
The goal of DevOps Revolution is to connect dots. DevOps has evolved to be highly focused on esoteric technology practices (Infrastructure as Code, Continuous Delivery). Organizations create DevOps Teams to solve for the esoteric technology practices. This increased myopia associated with local optimization.
DevOps as a movement has performed weakly in helping to connect dots between people who are Business Customers and Planners with those who do Development, Operations, Testing, and Security.
We aim to speak to the whole system from the Marketing person with an idea they want to see implemented in the next 4 weeks to the end-user of the Marketer’s product. From the planner figuring out the financing to the developer building the product to the operator answering the alert when there’s an issue.
Systems Thinking can occur when we:
- Start at the first point of the system
- End at the first point of the system (having gone through the whole system)
- Reflecting feedback throughout the system
- At each step
- Across multiple steps
- Across the whole system
DevOps represents a concept change. Human beings are challenged at making a concept change. We rely on our intuition. We are better off relying on evidence.
We cannot ignore history. We cannot ignore what has built the careers of the leaders who are responsible for executing. We cannot ignore those who are affected when initiating seismic shifts.
The DevOps movement has failed to meet the Business Customer, Planners and the frightened people whose work will change where they are. The DevOps movement has failed to build the thought-experiment constructs needed to foment concept change in the minds and hearts of these people.
DevOps Revolution is about crafting the message that meets people where they are, leads them across the bridge to where they might need to go, and helps them to adapt to where they’ll be once they cross the bridge.
DevOps CONNECT DOTS. The Value creators and the protectors of the kingdom.
CONNECT:
- Customer-driven
- Opportunity-oriented
- Needs-based
- Narrative-natured
- Empirical evidence-creating
- Consumer (Enduser) -obsessed
- Time (to market, to feedback, from concept to reality)
DOTS
- Develop
- Operate
- Test
- Secure
