Why your DevOps strategy will fail.

We love DevOps. We want you to love it too. What we hate are DevOps strategies that are flailing, failing or failed. Gartner predict that 75% of all DevOps initiatives will fail to meet expectations by 2022. Why does that happen? We’re DevOps experts so we’ve a few ideas as to why DevOps strategies fail.

Strategy is strategy! A DevOps strategy is no different to any strategy; you need to be clear what the vision is, how you plan to get there and how you will know success. So, what do you want to achieve? Have you got the resources you need? An infrastructure team stretched to breaking point will not be able to implement your vision. Be realistic about investing in your plan.  And as you implement the plan, how will you measure your achievements?

Don’t silo DevOps. By its very nature, DevOps is about reducing silos. The reason some organisations fail is by building a DevOps team who stand alone from ‘the others’ – applications, networks, infrastructure, security. It’s best to embrace DevOps throughout the organization; it’s about a cultural shift. The strategy and plan needs to align with a DevOps culture. Yes – you do need champions. Yes – you do need leadership. But a standalone group who will try to foist their ideology on ‘the others’? No – you don’t need that.  A last word about champions; they need to deliver buy in from both the top and the bottom. The ideology needs to be throughout so that everyone can live with the desired transformation.

Big bang won’t work. You won’t transform overnight; that doesn’t happen. Do spend time training staff and educating all stakeholders about DevOps and what the company vision is. Break down how you will achieve core DevOps practices such as automated testing, integrated configuration management and continuous integration across your application and infrastructure estate. Start small and build.

These aren’t the only causes of failure but they’re common ones. Be aware of the pitfalls and you’re off to a good start.