Building a DevOps Culture: Continuous Improvement as Organization Norm

Last Friday (8 September 2023), I was invited by Associate Professional Technicians and Technologists (APTT), Sarawak, as a guest Speaker for the Webinar. Here is my summary from the webinar and my personal experience and opinion on Continuous Improvement in DevOps.

Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement in DevOps is similar to embarking on a fitness journey. You don't get fit overnight or maintain fitness by going to the gym or working out once. You require regular exercise, a balanced diet, monitoring, and continuous improvement in your lifestyle to meet new challenges and set higher goals. Here are the summary and takeaways from yesterday's (8 September 2023)

Title:?Building a DevOps Culture: Continuous Improvement as Organization Norm

What is DevOps Culture?

1.?Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): This is a set of practices that involve automatically building, testing, and deploying the software so new features, fixes, and updates can be released to users more quickly and reliably.

2.?Automation: Routine tasks like server setups, code deployments, and even some aspects of testing are automated, freeing organisation time to focus on more complex problems.

3.?Feedback Loops: Information flows freely and quickly between developers, operations, and sometimes customers. It helps in faster problem-solving and product improvement.

4.?Collaboration: Rather than working in isolation, teams are encouraged to collaborate across roles and functions.

5.?Learning from Failure: A DevOps culture usually sees it as an opportunity for learning and improvement rather than penalising failure.

6.?Measurement and Monitoring: Collecting data on performance and other key metrics to continually refine and improve processes.

I love to use phrases, so when someone asks you what is DevOps Culture? You can remember below, and it can help you remember above:

--> Cats???Always??Find???Cool???Little???Mice???<--

What are practical strategies for implementing Continuous Improvement?

1.?Automate Testing: Use tools that check your code automatically. It saves time and finds mistakes early.

2.?Get Feedback: Set up simple alerts or dashboards that tell you how well your system performs. You can use this info to make things better.

3.?Small Updates: Make small changes more often instead of significant changes all at once. It's easier to fix problems this way.

4.?Quick Meetings: Quick daily meetings to know what everyone is working on and their problems.

5.?Learn from Mistakes: Frequently do a retrospective meeting; if there's room for improvement after something goes wrong or a project finishes, discuss what you can do better next time.

Blocker & Solution

Problem 1: Resistance to Change

Solution:

-?Leadership Buy-In: Having the support of top leadership can drive change more effectively.

-?Change Champions: Identify and empower individuals within teams who can act as advocates for DevOps.

-?Incremental?Steps: Introduce changes in smaller, manageable chunks to make the transition easier.

--> Lion???Can???Interact???<--

Problem 2: Siloed Teams

Solution:

-?Cross-Functional Teams: Create teams that include members from development, operations, QA, and other relevant departments.

-?Regular Communication: Scheduled stand-ups and cross-team meetings to update on progress and blockers.

-?Unified?Tools: Implement tools that are accessible and usable across different departments.

--> Cat???Run???Upstairs???<--

Problem 3: Lack of Monitoring and Feedback

Solution:

-?Real-Time Monitoring Tools: Use tools that offer real-time analytics and insights.

-?Alerts: Set up automated alerts for anomalies or threshold breaches.

-?Post-Mortems/Retro: Conduct retrospective analyses after incidents to understand what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future.

--> Rabbit???Are???Playful???<--

Why is this important?

Someone asked me, "Najib, why are you so stressed about #Culture? We want ROI and more products/features to go to market/uses?" I can be your implementer or robot, creating your CI/CD pipeline and eliminating all your manual and repetitive tasks. You can have all the money in the world, but can you sustain or survive your DevOps approaches/culture after 1 project, 3 months or 1 year?

I worked with many companies, from start-ups to big companies, especially new DevOps adopters. They always tend to be excited about only the "Technology" and "Tools" parts, and they will stay away when I talk about the initial factor of why they cannot sustain or their DevOps journey drifts from the original plan or roadmap after one project or several months implemented CI/CD pipeline.

What was worst was when they said they had already implemented the CI/CD pipeline, but when I asked whether it improved from the previous state? Most of them only convert from manual(human) work to automated processes, but they dont measure and monitor their performance.

If your CI/CD pipeline takes more than 15 minutes to finish, it's not a DevOps CI/CD pipeline approach, but you only change it from human work to automation work. Nothing was improved then; worst, some added more time when they did CI/CD pipeline compared to human/manual ways.

I've created the DevOps4Me Global logo with ?(Hourglass) because it represents Time?? and Patience??. When you do DevOps transformation/adoption, you must balance the technology, culture, time, and patience; otherwise, you cannot have Continuous Improvement in the DevOps journey.

For more details about Everyday Challenges in DevOps Transformation and How to solve them, you may click below:

Part 1: https://medium.com/devops-dudes/8-everyday-challenges-in-devops-adoption-and-how-to-solve-them-part-1-e40fc3cf238c

Part 2: https://medium.com/devops-dudes/8-everyday-challenges-in-devops-adoption-and-how-to-solve-them-part-2-7a2d826a9661

For DevOps training and workshop inquiry, you can click below:

https://forms.office.com/r/FXLutzZQxT

#continuousimprovement #continuouslearning #devopsjourney #devopsbro