Never Skip a Leg Day in DevOps - Part 2
How do you reach the state of "get better at getting better"?
August 31, 2016

Mark Heistek
Devopsense

DevOps means a mindset of getting better at getting better. You need to get better to fulfill customer needs, and therefore you need to get interested in what your customer wants and make sure the feedback loop will be as short as possible. How do you reach the state of "get better at getting better"?

Start with Never Skip a Leg Day in DevOps - Part 1

A DevOps/Agile Organization

Let's say an Agile company is like a super fit body and mind. You are able to deal with all kinds of circumstances, able to make mistakes, solve them, learn from them and move on. You are able to improve yourself towards the expectations of the outside world, which helps you to stay ahead of competition

An Agile organization is totally DevOps. Everyone is working for the same cause, the product delivered to the customer, based on customer needs and feedback. You are able to respond quickly enough to feedback or changing circumstances. You are able to deliver high quality products and fast.

How Do You Get There?

First you need to have a clear vision and mission statement. For this I'd like to refer to the golden circle of Simon Sinek.


■ WHY does my company exist? What drives the company?

■ HOW do I do this? How do we distinguish ourselves? What makes us unique?

■ WHAT do I need to do to get to this vision? What products do we deliver in what way?

Most companies start with WHAT. They begin to copy "way of working" of other companies and, for example, they implement Scrum in order to become Agile or do micro services, because Netflix did that. They hire bad consultants who are not capable to understand or get to the real drivers (why) of the company. Mostly these consultants want to stay in the company as a long as possible. The mindset of co-creation, transferring knowledge, leave a learning organization behind and do the heavy lifting is not always there. Just like my "Power or Cardio" trainer.

Most companies do not start from inside. What is the core to make it a success? Your company is not equal to other companies. You are unique. You have a different goal or purpose in life than other companies.

Copy Paste

To stay unique, it is important to see how the journey of other companies towards an Agile organization. Take away what you like and implement it your way. A copy is never as good as the original,

By copying, you only copy the practices and not the mindset. Using Scrum does not make you an Agile organization. Also copying buzzwords (tools) and try to implement these will not make you a DevOps organization. Like saying "We will become the Netflix of our country", while you are not offering streaming services. Companies try to steal the golden egg, but not the goose that laid it.

A pitfall of copying DevOps practices is that these practices will be managed by processes and procedures. Companies try to paperize DevOps/Agile by using frameworks and all kinds of procedures.

Procedures and processes are important ... no! They are sacrosanct. Processes help you to uniform your product delivery and therefore adding value to delivery BUT! They are always supportive to delivery. It's mostly not the process what needs to be changed, but the mindset of the company and people. Towards a DevOps mindset.

Read Part 3, outlining the pillars or "muscles groups" of a DevOps transition.

Mark Heistek is Head of Delivery and Founder of Devopsense.

Share this

Industry News

March 28, 2024

Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. announced a collaboration with Microsoft that utilizes the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to enhance Check Point Infinity AI Copilot, marking a significant advancement in cyber security AI applications.

March 28, 2024

ArmorCode announced ArmorCode Risk Prioritization, providing a 3D scoring approach for managing application security risks.

March 28, 2024

AppViewX and Fortanix announced a partnership to offer cloud-delivered secure digital identity management and code signing.

March 27, 2024

WaveMaker has updated its platform in response to customer demand for more sophisticated API and code management tools.

March 27, 2024

Vercara announced the launch of UltraAPI™, a product suite that protects APIs and web applications from malicious bots and fraudulent activity while ensuring regulatory compliance.

March 27, 2024

Legit Security announced the launch of its standalone enterprise secrets scanning product, which can detect, remediate, and prevent secrets exposure across the software development pipeline.

March 26, 2024

Progress announced a strategic partnership with Veeam® Software, the #1 leader by market share in Data Protection and Ransomware Recovery, to provide customers with an enterprise-ready cyber defense solution that strengthens the security of their business-critical data.

March 26, 2024

GitGuardian released its Software Composition Analysis (SCA) module.

March 26, 2024

DataStax announced a milestone in its journey to simplify enterprise retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) for developers by integrating with Microsoft Semantic Kernel.

March 25, 2024

Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. is collaborating with NVIDIA to enhance the security of AI cloud infrastructure. Integrating NVIDIA BlueField DPUs, which feature a broad range of purpose-built, innovative security capabilities, the new Check Point AI Cloud Protect solution will help prevent threats at both the network and host levels.

March 25, 2024

Sentry announced the release of Autofix, an AI-powered feature to debug and fix code in minutes, saving important time and resources.

March 25, 2024

Apiiro announced a product integration and partnership with Secure Code Warrior, the agile developer security training platform, to extend its ASPM technology and processes to the people layer.

March 21, 2024

Progress announced that Progress® Semaphore™, its metadata management and semantic AI platform, was named a Champion in SoftwareReviews’ 2024 Metadata Management Emotional Footprint Awards.

March 21, 2024

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®) has partnered with Udemy, an online skills marketplace and learning platform.

March 21, 2024

GitLab has acquired Oxeye, the provider of a cloud-native application security and risk management solution.