Governance Operations

Introduction

Governance Operations (GovOps): makes DesignOps, DevOps, DevSecOps, SRE and DataOps visible (real-time assurance for product and platform feature delivery) that rapidly champions embedding all as a culture whilst saving you time and money.

In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, organisations are increasingly adopting DesignOps, DevOps, DevSecOps, SRE and DataOps principles to optimise their software development and delivery processes. To achieve success in this domain, it is vital to establish effective visibility and collaboration within cross-functional teams. In this article, we will explore how Azure Dashboards, combined with servant leadership principles, can empower teams to achieve better visibility, foster collaboration, and drive continuous improvement.

Working as a Scrum Master who understands governance and servant leadership, the role is to guide the each amazing team in creating Dashboards that make them visible (in a safe manner) enhancing their practices. Azure Dashboards provide customisable and configurable views to monitor progress, share information, and improve workflow processes within a team or project.

Note: These principals are also tool agnostic!

Understanding the Need for Visibility in a OneTeam approach

Each area emphasises the seamless integration of development and operations, enabling teams to deliver high-quality software at an accelerated pace. However, gaining visibility across teams and projects?can be challenging, especially when dealing with complex and distributed development environments. Lack of visibility often leads to misalignment, bottlenecks, and delays in the software delivery lifecycle.

Well formed Dashboards: Unleashing Team Visibility

Dashboards provide a powerful solution for enhancing visibility and tracking progress within each team. With Azure Dashboards, teams can create customised, real-time views that showcase key metrics, KPIs, and information relevant to their specific goals and processes. These dashboards act as information radiators, enabling teams to monitor status, track progress, and identify trends.

Harnessing Servant Leadership

Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy that emphasises the leader's commitment to serving the needs of their team members. By combining servant leadership with well thought through dashboards, Scrum Masters and team leaders can create a safe environment where visibility and collaboration thrive. Servant leaders empower their teams, foster trust, and actively listen to their needs, enabling them to take ownership and make data-driven decisions.

To achieve this objective, we can follow the following steps:

Identify the desired visibility:?Start by collaborating with the DevOps engineering team to determine the key metrics, KPIs, and information they need to track and visualise. Understand their specific requirements for visibility and the goals they want to achieve.?Work with the Head of Engineering / CTO / CPO to understand their desires and challenges.

Create a copy from one of the 4 process areas such as Basic, Agile, Scrum and CMMi.?Tailor the work items to how you as an organisation work, your DNA and culture.?This is an important first step that care and time should be used to lay down the foundations for the future.

Configure Delivery Plans:?Delivery Plans in Azure DevOps provide a tailored view across several teams and their development backlogs, allowing alignment and coordination. Configure Delivery Plans by selecting the teams and backlog levels of interest. This will enable the Scrum Master and the management team to gain visibility into the deliverables scheduled by multiple teams just as you would require in Portfolio / Programme Management.

Create Dashboards:?Utilise Azure Dashboards to monitor status, progress, and trends across several teams. Dashboards offer customisable widgets and charts that can be tailored to display relevant information. These widgets can include charts derived from work item queries, test results, and other data sources.

Collaborate with the DevOps PMO & VMO team: Involve the DevOps engineering team and PMO / VMO in the design and configuration of the dashboards. Seek their input and feedback to ensure the dashboards meet their specific needs and enable them to visualise their work effectively.

Configure dashboard permissions: Set the appropriate dashboard permissions to ensure that team members have access to the dashboards and can contribute to their configuration.?The PMO / VMO will have a great interest in their design and utility.?As a team or project administrator, you can manage individual dashboard permissions for team members. Ensure that all relevant team members are added to the Project Valid Users group and have the necessary access and permissions to view, edit, and manage the dashboards.

Continuously improve the dashboards via feedback loops such as retrospectives: Regularly review the dashboards with the team to assess their effectiveness and make iterative improvements. Encourage feedback from team members and stakeholders to identify any necessary adjustments or additional widgets that would enhance visibility and support their DevOps & PMO practices.

By following these steps, the Scrum Master, with an understanding of governance and servant leadership, can facilitate the creation of Azure Dashboards that make the DevOps engineering team visible, promote transparency, and support their collaboration and decision-making processes.

Conclusion

By combining the power of Azure Dashboards with servant leadership principles, organisations can create an environment where visibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement thrive. Azure Dashboards provide the necessary tools to monitor progress, track key metrics, and empower teams to make informed decisions. When guided by servant leaders who prioritise the needs of their teams, organisations can unlock the full potential of their DevOps practices and deliver exceptional software with efficiency and agility through making DevOps visible to all.?