This is the second blog of the three-part series that examines the importance of people, processes, and technology in any enterprise DevOps strategy.
With the worldwide DevOps software market expected to reach $8 billion by 2022, the DevOps adoption rate is at an all-time high, and rightly so. Through frequent deployment, better collaboration, and automation, DevOps greatly reduces risks in the software development process, while improving product quality. But despite the benefits of DevOps, many efforts nose-dive because of a failure to stick to a prescribed software development process.
The Importance of DevOps Processes
In contrast to traditional software development where teams primarily worked in silos, DevOps focuses on collaboration, iteration, and automation of processes to drive continuous development and accomplish deployment goals faster. By focusing on fast, continuous iterations, it helps in optimizing software quality while ensuring faster delivery. In addition, DevOps helps in eliminating waste, reducing wait times and delays, and streamlines the process of risk management.
Your processes should be such that you can iterate them quickly without issues, so the deployment can be continuous. By continuously implementing feedback with smaller but more frequent deployments, DevOps successfully bridges the gap between users, programmers, and IT operations. It is these iterative processes that make way for continuous feedback, so the development process can be accelerated, and product quality can be improved. It is through the continuous deployment of new features that you can deliver your products on schedule and meet customer expectations.
Tips and Best Practices to Get the Most Out of your DevOps Investment
Given how integral processes are to the DevOps strategy, it is important you carefully define yours, so your teams can move software products from environment to environment with the right automation, development, and testing environments. That said, here’s what you need to keep in mind when designing your DevOps processes:
Define processes upfront
Defining your release management and continuous deployment processes from the beginning helps in reducing the risk of miscommunication and misalignment with goals. Clear definition of processes and communication with the concerned stakeholders is important to increase efficiency, and ultimately produce higher quality products.
Clearly outline roles and responsibilities
For your DevOps efforts to really bear fruit, the project team needs to be assigned roles, so they know what part they play in the overall process. Clearly outline roles and responsibilities, so team members have a better understanding of the processes they have to follow, and the contribution of their efforts to the attainment of shared goals.
Embrace all things continuous
To incorporate changes quickly and reduce repetitive work, you need to get regular feedback from customers, integrate changes to your working product, continuously test it and continuously deliver. By creating a feedback process, and enabling continuous integrating, testing, and delivery, you can create an environment where building and testing of software occurs simultaneously. Through regular meetings, and shared metrics, you can get insight into changes that are required, and get the product to market sooner.
Understand how to use tools with the process
No DevOps process is complete without the right set of tools. Make it a point to use the right continuous development, integration, and deployment tools to identify bugs sooner, improve upon processes, and shorten the development cycle. Carry out proper reviews with the right signoffs for testing each environment.
Automate mundane, everyday tasks
Another key aspect of DevOps is the need to automate mundane, error-prone tasks. Whether you resort to automated coding or test automation, define processes that allow you to automate the different stages of your delivery pipeline and reach development goals faster.
Keep track of the right quality metrics
Quality is an integral aspect of any DevOps strategy. Therefore, it is important you establish a simple and connected process of keeping track of the right quality metrics, and drive continuous monitoring and validation of operational quality.
Create more transparent workflows
Visibility into the development lifecycle is critical to get the most out of your DevOps strategy. Hence, make sure you create more transparent workflows that provide teams the required visibility into projects, so they can prioritize efforts, work better together, and focus on driving value faster.
Embrace lean practices
While on the DevOps journey, it is also important to constantly eliminate tasks or activities that do not bring any value. Lean practices allow you to reduce feedback cycle time, respond to changing business needs, and efficiently eliminate software development wastes.
Continuously Drive Value with the Right DevOps Processes
For organizations looking to improve software development efficiency, the DevOps lifecycle is all about collaboration and automation. Since each phase in the DevOps process focuses on bridging the gap between development and operations teams through continuous integration, delivery, deployment, and feedback, it creates a far more seamless development process.
If you’re looking to align your DevOps strategy and objectives for faster and more efficient delivery, it’s time to embrace the right DevOps processes and continuously drive value.