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8.5.2 DevOps at the Business Level
The next stage of conversion to a DevOps environment is getting your management to buy
into the DevOps philosophy. A true DevOps environment often involves changes to the or-
ganizational chart that break down the barriers between development and operations. The
organizational structure needs to foster a close relationship between development and op-
erations. Ideally, get development and operations under one management team, the same
vice president, or something similar. Also try to colocate the groups so that they are near
each other, or at least in the same building or time zone. This kind of change can open up
a whole new level of functionality. Getting buy-in is fairly difficult. Management needs to
have the value explained in business terms.
DevOps doesn't stop with collaboration between developers and operations staff. It can
be useful up and down the entire organizational chain. Recently one of the authors wit-
nessedaninternalprojectwheredevelopers,operationsstaff,productmanagement,andthe
legaldepartmentworkedsidebysidetocreateasolutionthatwouldproperlyhandleatight
set of constraints. The staff from the legal department were amazed at the level of collab-
oration and commitment that could be focused on the problem. Buying an expensive third-
party system that would have needed configuration and outside management was avoided.
DevOps: Not Just for the Web
A Practical Approach to Large-Scale Agile Development: How HP Transformed
scribes applying DevOps to the creation of HP LaserJet software. The result was
that developers spent less time doing manual testing, which gave them more time
to develop new features. Their success story is summarized in Episode 33 of the
DevOps Cafe Podcast (
Willis, Edwards & Humble 2012
)
.
8.6 Agile and Continuous Delivery
DevOps is a natural outgrowth of the software development methodology known as
“Agile” and the practices called “continuous delivery.” While this topic is not about either
of those topics, a brief look at both Agile and continuous delivery is helpful to show the
origins of many DevOps practices. The principles involved are directly transferable to
DevOps practices and serve as a strong foundation for a DevOps mindset.
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