A recommended reading: Building a DevOps Culture

2 September, 2014

I recently read an interesting book called “Building a DevOps Culture” by Mandi Walls. In it you’ll find a point of view on how software teams should be integrated and work together. More than a technical guide on providing DevOps to our code it is a book about mind culture for our teams and companies. Quoting Mandi Walls: “DevOps is as much about culture as it is about tools, and culture is all about people.”.

I describe DevOps as any resource between the Development and Operations teams. As they share the same target, they must work together in harmony to accomplish a common objective.

These are a few indications to consider when working with different software teams integrated like developers, sysadmins, QA, …

The working environment must provide: Respect, communication, trust and responsibility.
As they share a common target, they must know and understand what is that target.
Executive management must sponsor the project and teams.
Goals should be shared for general involvement.
Everyone should apply testing procedures; Developers, QA, Operations, ….
Team leadership is a must.
Metrics should be displayed and accessible to everyone.

This last indication allows error reporting to its responsible in order to process a fixing procedure. Remember that team members need to feel fair treatment and that their are heard. This is why we sometimes find that problem solving is shared among members.

DevOps management team must provide:

Tools, behaviours and workflows. They create a structure for DevOps project culture.
Teaching, answer questions, facilitate communication, be patient, ensure productivity and efficiency.
Congratulate teams for each milestone and party hard when final objectives are accomplished.

I hope you enjoy the reading as I did.