In my previous blog post on “From DevOps: Big Things Grow” I talked about how starting small with DevOps can be best. From here, the many benefits of DevOps can be experienced by everyone across the organisation - increased productivity, more engaged teams, continuous integration, respect from senior management - to name a few.
But what is a key ingredient for the early stages of planting and raising DevOps?
DevOps and digital transformation require change across the value chain which in turn requires cooperation across multiple parts of the business.
Failing to get support at the appropriate level is a sure way to derail your DevOps or digital transformation.
DevOps ingredient: value chain & management support
One of the first activities when implementing a DevOps transformation should be a mapping of the value chain. That mapping will likely reveal a path winding through several parts of the business, headed by management with sufficient authority to block your efforts.
I’d recommend at this point tracing up through the ranks to find the person that manages all.
Look to educate and gain that person’s authority over your DevOps effort. Educate is the important keyword here. The road to DevOps can be a rough ride and authority not backed by understanding has a habit of evaporating. And of course keep them informed along the journey to further shore up that support… or perhaps gain forewarning of potential headwinds!
All my past successes in DevOps can be traced down to engagements where the effort was supported by someone who had authority across the value chain.
Plan B: when you can’t get buy-in
If you can’t get buy in across the whole chain, reduce your scope to a level where you can. Now work out whether you can get sufficient success at this level to seed further buy-in and authoritative backing. Each iteration can then move further up/down the value chain using this technique until you’ve reached your end to end DevOps nirvana.
Many share the Interfuze approach to DevOps transformation of starting small and growing from there. Using this approach the temptation is to jump straight in and ignore the bigger issues such as executive buy in. Please don’t. You’ll likely waste significant time before hitting impassable roadblocks that could have been avoided.
If you, your team and organisation are looking for Perth DevOps support, I invite you to check out Interfuze’s new Azure DevOps service and fixed price Kickstart Program - designed to help you take those first steps.
Check out our service page to read more or book a free one hour consultation so we can talk more about your Perth DevOps needs and challenges together.
