5 Common DevOps Transition Mistakes to Avoid

When transitioning to a DevOps model, organizations must remember that people are essential to a successful switchover. It’s people who must learn new workflows, collaboration techniques, and tools during the move. This process will cause at least some disruption over a period as long as two years. Needless to say, they will need patience and ample support to get through such a substantial change.

Fortunately, organizations can help their people acclimate to the new way of doing things. They can start by identifying key stakeholders and pitching their plan for the transition. By listening to that feedback, enterprises can make sure everyone is on the same page and shape their plan accordingly to avoid common obstacles during the transition process.

Here are five problems in particular to avoid when changing over to DevOps.

1. Define Your Success Criteria

Organizations need a firm idea of why they’re implementing DevOps and what they hope it will mean for the company. In other words, they need a goal in mind against which they can measure the progress of and propose changes to the transition. Companies can achieve this end by asking development, operations and QA to fill out a questionnaire in which they’re given an opportunity to define DevOps, express what privileges they’re willing to lose and/or take on as well as propose boundaries that they feel should separate DevOps systems from the rest of the organization.

2. Neglecting to Emphasize the Cultural Shift

Important as they may be, tools only represent roughly %25 of the change to a complete DevOps model. The majority of the change comes down to a shift in company culture. What makes up the rest are changes to an enterprise’s culture. That is, companies must invest in the human side of things to help create channels of communication (Read more...)