Facilitate Collaboration by Implementing DevOps
We have all heard of the epic battles that often occur between the Development (Dev) teams and the Operations (Ops) teams within organizations. The development teams have to create new systems to meet the needs of the ever-changing business world and are always trying to deliver faster, smaller and cheaper products. The operations teams, on the other hand, are concerned with the availability of services and their motto is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
The tension that results from this is compounded by who the release management reports to. If they report to Dev, they must release the product more quickly to meet time-to-market constraints. If they report to Ops, they have to slow the rate of change. The pressures created on either side can create tension and adversity between the two teams.
However, it is crucial that these two teams work together peacefully, so that products can get released on time and in working order. This is where DevOps collaboration comes in to play.
DevOps, a combination of the Development and Operations, is a software development method that stresses communication, collaboration and integration between software development teams and information operations teams. The main goal of DevOps is to help organizations rapidly produce software, without having any formal authority over the teams involved. In this way, the pressure is taken off of the separate teams, and more productive work can take place.
One way that DevOps helps Dev and Ops get on the same page is to get them to understand each other’s needs and trust each other. DevOps creates systems or tools to help the teams collaborate effectively. One of these tools is an online release calendar. This calendar helps both teams see, in real time, what is planned to release when. The calendar, which can be automatically updated as development activities occur, is useful for informing the Operations teams early-on about proposed and in-motion releases.
Because of this collaborative approach, Ops can communicate with Dev about load balancing the release schedule months ahead of the release window, instead of the morning before the release. Dev can see the open release holes and manage their project to fit those dates. And when the inevitable date change occurs, both Dev and Ops stakeholders can be alerted and can react and even sign off to say that they have absorbed the impact—or not.
By implementing DevOps, Development and Operations teams are encouraged to work together, because there is transparency about what each of the teams is doing. In this way, DevOps helps to foster mutual trust, respect, and understanding between the teams, and minimizes the authority that one team has over the project, thus minimizing stress and tension.
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