Cultivating the DevOps mindset: what is it, and why does it matter?

DevOps has become a buzzword in the last few years. Enterprises though have convoluted views on what it really is. Very often, businesses wrongly assume that DevOps is a technology that can be purchased and implemented. The truth is that DevOps is not a tool — it is an organisational mindset. It's not just about deploying some tools but developing the right culture and attitude. Having the right DevOps mindset is crucial for a successful shift to the DevOps paradigm.

In this post, we look at this emerging phenomenon and explain what the DevOps mindset is and why it matters.

What is DevOps, and why is it buzzworthy?

DevOps is a portmanteau of two words: Developers and Operations team — think about the team that manages the tools and infrastructure to run the code. As software development gets more and more complex, it has become challenging to track outcomes and to assign responsibilities.

It's common for teams to blame each other for flaws in the product, bottlenecks, and delayed delivery schedules. This is mainly a result of a fragmented workplace. The Dev team doesn't know the roadblocks faced by the Ops and QA teams and vice versa. They have limited insight into each other's operations. Sometimes, they may even have opposing goals. This disrupts the harmony of the organisation, leaving employees feeling unsatisfied and unhappy and the product suffering.

This is where DevOps comes to the rescue. DevOps helps to fix the pain points in the software development cycle. It helps in amplifying business value by getting developers and operations to work synchronously instead of in isolation. When implemented the right way, DevOps offers the following benefits:

• Faster time to market
• Shorter time between fixes
• Improved deployment frequency
• Fewer failures and quality issues
• Improved efficiency

With the right DevOps culture, you can get your product to deliver faster and with better quality, increasing overall business revenues.

DevOps isn't just about the technology

The challenge in DevOps isn't technology. It's not something that you buy, install on all your workplace systems, and call it a day. It's more about the people and culture. It cannot be defined by a specific job title or set of technical skills. Instead, it's about cultivating the right mindset. You may have the world's best coders and engineers on your team — if they don't have the DevOps mindset, it becomes impossible to achieve the objectives via the DevOps framework.

So, what's a DevOps mindset, and why does it matter?

A DevOps mindset means there is no one person to blame and no one hero to save the day. It's all about collaboration, especially across teams.

The software that is coded by the developers is run on systems managed by the operations team. The customer who purchases the software reads documentation compiled by technical writers and receives support from the customer support team. As you can see, a piece of software requires the effort of several teams. Hence, cross-team collaboration is a must for the success of any product.

DevOps achieves this via a cross-collaboration mentality. It helps in creating more effective collaboration between developers, the operations team, and testing.

The success of DevOps lies in creating flexible workflows between these three departments. When it comes to the technical side of DevOps, it's easy to use the right tools to develop collaboration between them. But how do you get different teams to work with each other? The answer lies in the DevOps culture. To get it right, you need these principles:

Inculcate the shift-left principle

Take the timeline of a typical software development lifecycle. It starts with an idea and then progresses from left to right. The idea is converted into code by the developers, and it moves linearly. Other tasks like testing do not come in until the later stages.

In the DevOps philosophy, everyone is involved right from the beginning, instead of waiting for later. For example, testing is done along with development. This way, it becomes easier to fix any problems that arise then and there, instead of waiting until later. Fixing errors as soon as they happen is easier than waiting until everything is done.

The shift-left principle focuses on prevention rather than detection. When you shift left, you reduce the probability of errors before they reach the client.

Failures are opportunities to learn and grow

In the DevOps mindset, teams and individuals are not afraid to fail. Taking risks, continual experimentation, and learning from experience is how significant breakthroughs happen.

The DevOps mindset encourages failing fast so that teams and individuals can learn quickly. Early failures push teams to improve in real time. It promotes resiliency, as there is no way out but through. The DevOps mindset helps teams embrace setbacks. It provides a supportive environment for learning so that teams are not afraid to push the boundaries.

No more finger pointing: build feedback loops

In DevOps, teams share information cohesively. With sharing comes trust and collaboration. If something fails, then it's no one specific team or individual's responsibility. It's about shared responsibility.

Feedback loops in DevOps are achieved with continuous integration, shared monitoring, and alerting. Opening access to critical metrics to all teams creates a culture of sharing and enables constant feedback, promoting learning across teams. Developers, operations, and testing — everyone has access to customer feedback.

Automation

One of the cornerstones of DevOps is the focus on automation, with testing being the prime candidate. A lot of companies start by automating their testing processes.

Finally, it's all about evolving

Evolution is nothing but continuous improvement over time. The main objective of any enterprise is to optimise the value stream and boost productivity to achieve its goals and progress to the next level. It's a continuous journey. In DevOps, the search for innovative techniques and areas of improvement never stops.

To apply this principle of continuous improvement, KPIs play a crucial role. They align with the specific goals of your business and help in constant evaluation of the organisation, making changes and improvements as and when needed.

The DevOps path with Teczens

As you can see, DevOps is more about the mindset than the tools. All the stakeholders have to inculcate the right mindset from day one. The primary objective is synchronising the tasks of development, operations, and quality assurance, implementing the best practices and technologies every step of the way. It helps teams function cohesively, delivering products faster and more efficiently while not compromising quality and performance.

You can think of DevOps as the binding glue that holds together the entire SDLC, allowing teams to function independently but in tandem with each other. This seamless workflow is the new standard. Delivering quick releases and updates and responding to problems as and when they arise has become a standard requirement in software engineering and for almost all cloud deployments.

Introducing DevOps into your organisation is a significant commitment and well worth the effort. It requires an organisational shift, and you need the right partner to assist you. Teczens can help your team migrate to the DevOps mindset, with experienced engineers who implement the methodologies and tools that deliver the results you're looking for.