“I recently attended my second DevOpsDays, and even one year later I noticed that the audience had changed a lot” – says Travis Cunningham a Software Engineer at SmartFile during an interview about their development environment. What Travis is speaking to is the fact that DevOps has matured dramatically in a short amount of time. Around two years ago the community was a members only club. It consisted of the innovators, and smaller organizations who could adopt DevOps in one fell swoop. But now the benefits of DevOps are shared objectives for most organizations.
As the definition of DevOps continues to evolve clear market education is key to making all that talk actionable. So more and more events are surfacing to help accomplish this. On Oct 19th in San Francisco the DevOps Enterprise Summit (#DOES15) will join the list of tools to make DevOps principles actionable.
I’m thrilled to say I passed the test. Abstract approved, mug shot posted, and I was one of the lucky ones given the opportunity to speak at DOES15. I will be delivering a joint session on Yahoo!’s construction of a robust test automation system. Their setup helped them improve software delivery, quality, and process efficiency. The reason this talk is so important to me is because it centers on one of the battle grounds in any development organization, quality. While no one will argue the importance of quality, the unfortunate reality is many organizations do not give QA/QE teams the proper support. My session, like all the others, will do something that is uncommon at most trade shows, focus on results
Are you tired of reading blog posts on “culture” that say nothing about the steps you can take to engage the broader team? The DevOps principles and practice are not overly complex, but implementation has been. People understand release automation, they understand the impact of people (culture), and they understand that with all this automation holistic oversight and good metrics are mandatory. However in practice many organizations still struggle to piece it all together. Which means we need to transform the conversion from pure principles to practice and results.
The best way to move to DevOps execution is to learn from those who are already taking it on. I personally cannot get enough case studies. And while there is no one size fits all implementation, a case study does two things. It gives organizations the confidence that it can be done, and it bridges the gap between what is talked about to how it has been used successfully in practice.
Hearing from companies like Target, Nationwide, and my favorite LEGO, illustrates that even for large organizations, DevOps is not impossible. They have successfully rallied the troops and had major wins. But even the leaders are still learning, most presentations include conversations around how these organizations are planning to evolve and have remaining challenges to address. DevOps is an ongoing journey.
DevOps is not a thing that you accomplish, it is an ongoing process driven by results. It can only begin by doing something, anything. Learning from those who have taken the plunge and completed something amazing is the best way to take next steps. Events like DOES15 are a great place to build confidence and learn so you can do the same.
