The DevOps model allows organizations to adopt and fully leverage
modern innovations and collaborative practices across the historically
siloed IT landscape. It provides IT Operations with better support
strategies that leverage coding languages, development tools and
automated deployment practices; and provide IT Development teams with
better visibility, feedback-loops and collaborative "quick-fix” tools
into operational environments.
This new IT model is adaptive enough to:
A) Address an organization’s legacy design obligations with new innovative environments
B) Show clear business value for the adoption of technologies, tools, and integrations
C) Provide measurable IT cost and efficiency benefits of IT practices
D) Dramatically increase global collaboration, knowledge-sharing, problem-solving and staff networking
E) Enable and protect the creation of unique and differentiating IP for your organization
Heading into 2013 I wanted to propose a practical top-10 list for
CIO’s to consider for their IT organizations. This is a list of things
IT to promote businesses-growth and decrease IT costs in light of a
DevOps conversation. DevOps provides a new working IT-model, that can
assess the IT effort-to-business value and help align IT activities with
corporate strategies.
Why did I create the list? CIO’s and IT executives often sitting in
the "IT forest” surrounded by urgent issues (the trees in front of
them), rarely get the opportunity to step-back and look at the IT forest
they live in. The list provides some practical ideas to help IT
transition from a cost-center into a business partner.
The Practical CIO’s list for optimizing IT…
1) Treat IT like a single organization – Many
IT organizations have silos to address the "historic” IT complexities
and manage the resources for the hand-offs and support of major
projects. Adopting (smaller) Agile practices and leverage (blended)
DevOps models will increase IT efficiencies and get cross-discipline
teams to work together, to simplify environments and better coordinate
processes.
2) Expand the definition and role of IT assets –
IT asset management has played a strategic best-practice role in the
past for IT operations. As IT blends efforts, consolidates it’s
resources, and leverages global standardization, it creates an
opportunity to be more pro-active in managing the deployment of the
faster-pace of (Agile) micro-Apps, with more automation controls
(Deployment as "version-controlled” Code), better visibility to target
environments (Infrastructure as Code), and deep visibility into
"real-user performance” data, and can help influence of future developer
code-reuse decisions.
3) Avoid the use of Insiders, Super-heroes, Good-old-boy clubs and "Git-er-done specialist”
– As IT organizations invest in "improved systems, processes,
data-sharing and standards” you will find it easier to resist the use of
IT magicians and power-groups that Band-Aid issues with little
documentation, collaboration or regard for long-term business impacts.
4) Reward Team Collaboration – Historically, IT
organizations did not reward cross-discipline knowledge-sharing and
collaborative IT efforts. IT organizations need to nurture a culture
that embraces centralized "feedback-loops” across the organization,
down-play the need for silos, and limit the high-impact IT decisions
made in isolation. Reward "IT team success” for "global sharing” and
leveraging scalable processes, activity transparency and open
decision-making....
(first 3 of 10)...
IT leaders need to be clear about the vision and initiatives that drive
IT budgets, IT projects and the activities of their IT teams. Today’s
IT organizations have the opportunity to embraces low-risk,
faster-moving, smaller-projects, with more standards, better
policy-driven controls, and optimized automation that can reduce
complexity and costs from older generations of IT. But IT leaders need
to encourage teams to collaborate and reward them for embracing these
innovative changes.
For the complete article see my blog at... http://bit.ly/VRYufo
