These days, a company’s software ecosystem is a strategic business decision, not just a choice around tools and technologies.
By Nic Evans, head of business agility at iOCO Digital
Many organisations have found that off-the-shelf tools often don’t match their workflows or goals, and have therefore opted to develop their own solutions.
Unfortunately, custom software takes time – especially if you’re starting from scratch – and requires investment in dev talent, infrastructure and project management. Businesses of all sizes have found that the reality of custom software development is mired in slow release cycles; manual, error-prone deployments; testing delays, and security issues.
Those that have managed to overcome these challenges are still faced with a disconnect between development teams and operations teams. Hard deadlines, integration challenges, and the pressure of bug fixes have historically led to shortcuts being taken on both sides, leaving companies with barely operational software that leaves a lot to be desired as far as quality and maintainability are concerned.
Enter DevOps
Integrating and automating the work of software development and IT operations, DevOps helps organisations test sooner, release quickly, fix issues faster, and deliver better experiences to users. A recent McKinsey survey found that 73% of large enterprises see DevOps as crucial for their digital transformation efforts, while companies using DevOps are 24% more likely to be high-performing.
This confirms what many business leaders already know: DevOps isn’t just a tech buzzword anymore. It’s a strategic business enabler that helps organisations move faster, deliver better, and stay competitive.
A successful DevOps practice will not only improve software quality and reduce downtime, it will also enable the organisation to innovate, helping to create new workflows, business models, or customer experiences that will guarantee a competitive edge.
DevOps doesn’t exist on its own. It naturally links with other business improvement initiatives. Shorter feedback loops, simpler inter-team communications, and more reliable deployments all enable companies to innovate faster, improving the experience for developers, customers, and executives alike.
When done right, DevOps adds speed and confidence to a company’s ability to react to changes in business and technology. Without the right approach, however, companies find that they are not getting the results they expect, or even worse, that their projects are resulting in large amounts of wasted time, money, and effort.
Leaving legacy thinking behind
DevOps may be growing in popularity, but many companies are still struggling to deliver truly game-changing innovation for the business. This is primarily because organisations tend to focus exclusively on technology, when DevOps is more than just a set of tools or practices.
DevOps is a cultural shift that emphasises communication, collaboration, and automation to deliver real business results.
In addition to the belief that DevOps is solely a technology practice, there is an assumption that it only impacts IT departments. In reality, it actually touches on every area of the business.
Adopting DevOps isn’t a simple, single step; it requires new partnerships and processes backed by the full commitment of all stakeholders. If everyone isn’t on board for this significant paradigm shift, it can easily fail. This is such a prevalent problem that Gartner estimates that a staggering 90% of DevOps initiatives fail to meet expectations.
Perhaps the biggest challenge companies face in achieving their DevOps goals is overcoming legacy ways of thinking and compliance procedures. While best practices like the ITIL framework have an important role to play in the technology ecosystem, they can also prove to be a hindrance to the type of dynamic, agile software development that modern businesses need.
The standoff between demands for agility and the need to mitigate risk can be solved by incorporating governance processes throughout the software development lifecycle. DevOps is not a “one size fits all” solution, and every company must evaluate their needs in the context of the capabilities available within the organisation along with their governance and risk requirements. If governance and risk is ignored, or tacked on as an afterthought, any development project is looking at long-term failure.
Big wins across the board
DevOps can’t exist without a truly collaborative environment, which breaks down silos across the whole organisation. At its core, a DevOps shift is cultural and requires a change in philosophy before details like tools, speed, and applications are addressed.
Only when each component works together to create an efficient system that is greater than the sum of its parts can DevOps meet the demands of a rapidly evolving market, technological advancements, and more sophisticated security concerns.
At its core, DevOps is a philosophy and a mindset, not a technical practice. It’s about creating a change in ways of working, underpinned with technology. It’s about delivering real business results – fast.
Guaranteeing 30% to 50% faster release cycles, 20% to 40% reduction in system downtime, and 25% to 50% increase in deployment frequency, DevOps streamlines development, testing, and deployment, breaking down traditional silos between development and operations to ensure improved software quality. This ultimately results in accelerated innovation and improved customer experience, helping to future-proof the business