Strengthening harmonization of Development (Dev) and Operations (Ops) silos in IT environment through systems approach

Abstract

This paper presents a model based on cybernetics and systems thinking principles to overcome the challenges of strengthening the harmonization of Development and Operations functions in an enterprise. This was as a result of the challenges faced in applying industry standard tools/frameworks to complex problem. DevOps is an acronym for Development (Dev) and Operations (Ops) of information technology (IT) systems and applications. DevOps paradigm emerged as a response to the growing knowledge that there exists a gap of 4Cs (communications, co-operation, culture and collaboration) between what is usually considered IT development function and what is generally considered IT operations function of an organization. This gap often widens and manifests itself in many forms such as adverse competition, team conflict, inordinate delays and inefficiency of business applications/IT systems. There is a "Wall of Confusion" between IT development and operations as stated by Andrew Shafer and Lee Thompson. This "Wall" is caused by a combination of conflicting motivations among people, processes, and technology/tooling. Hence there is a pressing need for strengthening the harmonization of Development and Operations functions of an IT organization.IT Development (including testing and assurance services) professionals often tend to come with an outlook where change is the thing that they are mandated to accomplish. The business folks depend on them to respond to fast changing business and/or technology needs. Because of this intimate relationship, Dev are often expected to bring in as much change as possible.IT Operations folks tend to come with an outlook where change is the enemy. The business folks depend on them to keep the lights on and deliver the services that make the business money today. Operations folks tend to resist change as it undermines stability and reliability of IT systems/applications. Many times we heard that lion's share of all downtime is due to those self-inflicted injuries known as changes?To make matters worse and things more political and complex, development and operations teams generally position into different parts of a company's organizational structure (often with different General Managers and competing corporate politics) and often work at different geographic locations.According to a Gartner report[1], "Through 2010, Gartner expects that most IT organizations will continue to focus on the basic IT processes of application development, project management and service management. They will fail to extend this process focus to all activities, and will fail to change organizational values and behaviors.". There was a pressing need to dive deep in to this complex problem with a systems thinking approach. "The model leveraged here is called SNAC™. This stands for Stakeholders, Needs, Alterables and Constraints. This model is used to increase variety in the system in focus. Stakeholders are identified in categories like internal and external to the program. This involves identifying all stakeholders i...

Towards a benefits dependency network for DevOps based on a systematic literature review

“…The larger number of challenges, eg, C01, C02, C03, C04, C05, C06, C08, C09, C13, C14, C17, C18, C19, C22, C24, C25, C27, C28, C29, C30, C31, C32, C33, C34, C35, C36, C38, and 41 are about DevOps adoption. ()…”

“…Lack of consistent definition (C18), KPIs (C08), standards (C09), maturity model for DevOps (C19), and lack of training and skill to implement DevOps (C31) have also stressed a shortage of infrastructure to adopt DevOps.…”

“…Also, it is claimed that adopting DevOps reduces the time to market, as it helps to achieve improved deployment frequency. () (CB04) Scalability. Virmani claims that the use of IaaC (infrastructure as a code) in DevOps ensures that the entire automation is scalable. (CB05) Portability.…”

“…Some relations have been extracted directly from the selected studies() and some other (dash colored orange in Figure ) assumed by the authors during this study and using 2 studies. ()…”

“…This enables quick responses to changing requirements of customers and thus may be a critical competitive advantage.” Eventually, we could identify the links between 12 DevOps practices (P01, P02, P03, P04, P05, P07, P10, P11, P12, P16, P18, and P24) and 13 DevOps benefits (12 CBs CB03, CB06, CB08, CB12, CB15, CB16, CB18, CB27, CB28, CB30, CB32, CB40, and 1 DB DB09). () As shown, only 7 peer‐reviewed studies have discussed the link between practices and benefits. Table presents the links identified between the practices and benefits.…”