Lean Value Stream Mapping for DevOps
Value Stream Mapping is a crucial step in assessing an organization’s DevOps capability. We create a value stream map of the software development lifecycle early in any DevOps engagement, because it helps us to- Provide context for our architects and technical experts who are, in parallel, examining tools and technology. Establish a performance baseline, against […]
Surprise! Broad Agreement on the Definition of DevOps
For the past few years, the conventional wisdom has been that DevOps has no agreed upon definition. Instead, everyone has their own interpretation. However, the conventional wisdom is wrong. While everyone supplies slightly different words, the same working understanding of DevOps is nearly universal. Our understanding of DevOps goes back to a handful of common touch-points. There is the “CAMS” […]
Webinar: Show Me Success Before I’ll Invest in DevOps – A HM Health Solutions Case Study
Whatever your conviction, the reluctance by senior management to justify new investments and sponsor major change in existing software delivery practices and technologies, while theoretically understandable, often leaves application development executives and managers lobbying for additional budget and resources putting them and their teams between a rock and a hard place. So the question is […]
Webinar: Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation breaks down IT silos and speeds up mainframe development
DevOps encourages adoption of lean and agile development practices irrespective of platforms. However in most organizations mainframe and mobile/web development teams are functioning in siloes, resulting in a plethora of technology platforms and tools, fragmented or manual processes, skills shortage causing unnecessary delays, rework and friction among teams, impacting organizations ability to respond to the […]
Is DevOps a Competitive Advantage? A Debate
The idea of DevOps being a competitive advantage is not a new one. Service providers, software sellers, and internal IT frequently use this argument to justify all kinds of investments. But is there any real merit to this argument? Is DevOps truly a source of sustainable competitive advantage? Or is it simply just hype and […]
DevOps and the Case for ROI to Executives
DevOps is hot and likely top of mind for your executives. Every IT analyst firm now has a point of view (POV) on DevOps. International Data Corp. (IDC) for example believes that DevOps will be adopted (in either practice or discipline) by 80% of Global 1000 organizations by 2019 (read: IDC MaturityScape Benchmark Assesses DevOps […]
Why do DevOps? Winning hearts and minds with a Lean boxscore
Change is difficult. It can be painful, disruptive, and costly. Making a case for change requires us to win over hearts and minds. In my experience, we need to win the hearts of the ‘do-ers’, the people whose daily work is going to be disrupted. And the minds of the executives, whose financial support and […]
Think you’ve established Kanban? Why you might only be halfway there
As a Lean Coach working in IT I often hear development teams refer proudly to their scrumboards as an example of Kanban. To which I say, ‘that’s a great start… but it’s really only just the start’. Let’s start with what a scrumboard is, and does. A scrumboard is a visual display of work, showing […]
Webinar: How Nationwide Insurance is Adopting DevOps for Variable Speed IT Systems
To drive towards faster innovation, and also ensure the stability of the core business, the need arises for what is being termed as “two-speed or variable speed IT.” While innovative Systems of Engagement demand speed, agility and experimentation, legacy Systems of Record need governance and predictability. Two-speed IT enables adoption of DevOps capabilities by adapting […]
IBM’s Watson sits at the crossroads between DevOps and Big Data
While attending IBM InterConnect in late February I had an opportunity to sit in on a press conference. The focus of the press conference was primarily around IBM’s efforts related to hybrid cloud solutions, but the thing that caught my attention was a little tidbit mentioned almost in passing about an innovative way students at […]
DevOps Golden Rule: Writing More Code for Test Than For Production
Continuous improvement can help completely turnaround a staid IT organization into an innovation machine. But without effective test automation, that transformation is a non-starter. So says Gary Gruver, who has led DevOps journeys both at HP and Macy’s and now works as a consultant guiding other organizations through his firm, Practical Large Scale Agile. Last […]
Shift Left: Can you be left out?
One of the most popular terms bandied about in DevOps is “shift left”. I was at a workshop last month at IBM InterConnect conducted by Sanjeev Sharma and Mustafa Kapadia. They put on a great workshop which was a preview of an exercise they perform in the field for clients. A central theme of their […]
IBM’s DevOps Journey
Companies that want to better address market demand and more efficiently deliver value through speed, quality, and agility are embracing DevOps. This includes retailers, insurers, defense contractors, and most certainly software makers. Consider the DevOps journey within the IBM Software Group, which is unarguably larger than most enterprise software groups: currently 519 major software product […]
7 Great Thoughts on Real-world DevOps Transformations
Last week, IBM InterConnect brought together quite the gathering of IT pros engaged in DevOps, continuous delivery and digital transformations of their core businesses. Throughout the week, speakers from the Fortune 500 brought forth stories of real world experimentation, success and lessons learned from their DevOps journeys. Here are some of the best chestnuts to […]
Q and A with Carmen DeArdo: DevOps at Nationwide
Just before the IBM Interconnect show in Las Vegas last week, we had a chance to speak with Nationwide’s Carmen DeArdo and talk about some of the challenges he has faced at Nationwide as DeArdo and his team work to bring DevOps and Agile principles to their delivery value stream. DeArdo is no stranger here […]
IBM InterConnect: Disruption and the stakes of DevOps
It’s only a day into the main sessions at IBM InterConnect and it’s already clear that the most persistent theme that’ll be impressed upon the 21,000-strong crowd this year is one of business disruption. Woven throughout programming about cloud, mobile, analytics and DevOps innovation, the case studies already presented yesterday offer a testament to the […]
Dibbe Edwards, VP Rational Software Development at IBM, On Standardizing Tools, Process, and Technology to Build DevOps Success
We had the pleasure, for IBM InterConnect 2015, to speak with Dibbe Edwards, vice president, Rational Software Development about the success IBM has had in implementing DevOps processes within their organization. In her current role, Edwards is responsible for leading Rational’s development business that includes application lifecycle management and reporting, quality and requirements management, systems […]
IBM InterConnects DevOps & Systems of Record/Systems of Engagement
There are many planes and points-of-view from which to examine how DevOps changes development. One way to look at it is to cut an application down the (more or less) middle, dividing it between its system of engagement and its system of record. Briefly, the system of engagement interfaces with the customer while the system […]
Enterprises using mobile dev to dive into DevOps
As increasingly more enterprises investigate how to begin their DevOps transformations, many of them are finding mobile development (mobile dev) a perfect test bed for instituting continuous delivery practices. While speed-of-delivery has become top-of-mind for most IT applications today, it is paramount for success in the world of mobile apps. “The rapid pace of how […]
Inside the mind of a true DevOps evangelist
IBM InterConnect is imminent. Next week more than 20,000 people will descend on Las Vegas and take over the north end of the strip for IBM’s massive event. One of the primary topics attendees will be focusing on is DevOps. IBM’s Rosalind Radcliffe—a respected evangelist for DevOps—will be there to share her passion and knowledge […]
Comparing DevOps to traditional IT: Eight key differences
You can make the argument that in the Software Delivery Life Cycle (SDLC) value is created in two places. First, when the software is created (development) and second, when the software is delivered to the customer and feedback received. The rest is transportation. The faster one can move code from the hands of the developer […]
Mapping out your DevOps journey
I am writing this on a flight from Washington, DC to Austin, TX. How long does it take me to get to Austin, you may ask? The flight is 3 hours and 3 minutes long. The time it takes me, however, is much longer as I do not live at the airport (although it surely […]