DevOps has been garnering a lot of interest for some time. Discussions and debates on forums like DevOps.com are improving our collective understanding of the right approach and now we are seeing concrete proof points of fast-movers applying DevOps practices to disrupt entire industries with rapid-fire, digital-innovation based on Cloud, Big Data and Mobile technologies. I have personally been part of this transformation at IBM for several years and would like to reflect on what we have learned, and also share with you results of a recent study from Forrester Research.
DevOps helps organizations address a critical business challenge – that of continuously capturing and responding to feedback (both internal and external) so we can rapidly and repeatedly turn innovative ideas into highly relevant, and desirable, products and services.  This involves not only development and operations, but all aspects of the organization, as it entails the collaboration across the entire organization including business and supply chain. Compared to single-direction,  traditional models, DevOps is bi-directional and is based on not just pushing something out to the customer but also on getting their feedback to make improvements.
In a recent webcast, I discussed eight DevOps practices that speed up software delivery with Kurt Bittner, Principal Analyst at Forrester and a leading expert on agile and iterative software development. This webcast highlighted a recent Forrester survey on DevOps practices, cycle times and where enterprises are in terms of the maturity of DevOps practices adoption.Â
You can watch the webcast replay here to know more – ibm.biz/Forrester-talk
Their survey of 600 IT professionals with application development responsibilities found that about a third of teams consistently deliver at cadences of one to three weeks and that the fastest teams generated higher business satisfaction than slower teams, an indication they don’t sacrifice quality to deliver fast. The study reveals how these teams did it: by adopting the following eight DevOps practices:
- Minimum Viable Product – Deliver the smallest viable product or application and then improve it in subsequent rapid releases, based on feedback, and delivering value incrementally.
- Dedicated Teams – Form dedicated, cross-functional teams, avoid over-specialization and ensure they are not interrupted by side projects.
- Loosely Coupled Architecture – Use loose architectural coupling within and between applications to reduce complexity and enable delivery in small increments.
- Minimize Hand-offs, Maximize Flow – Eliminate unnecessary steps, delays and friction between steps to increase the flow of work.
- Deliver in Small Batches – Deliver in smaller batches helps to expose the most uncertain issues first and enables feedback on the most valuable usage models earlier.
- Transparency – Transparency into progress helps everybody to see where you are at any point in time and also visibility into risk without decreasing productivity.
- Eliminate Overhead –Eliminate the overhead of periodic and manual status reports and status meetings which absorbs valuable time and distracts focus from delivering value.
- Automate Testing using APIs – Shift away from heavy manual testing to improve delivery speed, quality, and testing accuracy, and dramatically reduce cost.
The study refutes the myth that releasing fast requires you to sacrifice quality and accept higher risk. Adopting these eight DevOps practices, especially automated testing and delivering in small batches, does exactly the opposite: Â small incremental releases are more thoroughly tested, more stable and lower risk.
The best part about DevOps adoption is the flexibility to choose which practices to adopt first, based on each organization’s priorities, and then to incrementally adopt the rest of the practices as needed to optimize the software delivery lifecycle and accelerate innovation.
To learn more about the survey and the eight DevOps practices, download the Forrester study along with the approach that you can follow to adopt these as per your organization’s current state of delivery cycles.
About the Author
Ashok Reddy is responsible for Product Management & Strategy, product Design/user experience and Business Development for Rational Software Division of IBM Software Group and for the IBM DevOps portfolio. He is based in Raleigh, NC, USA. Ashok’s role involves all aspects of global product delivery including setting product strategy and for product line management, establishing product roadmaps and partnerships for IBM DevOps portfolio.
