10 Subtle Superpowers of DevOps

DevOps is definitely the way IT industry will evolve, but many companies are still unsure it is time for the transition yet. Today we list 10 ways DevOps can help your business succeed.

Being a practical implementation of the Agile software development paradigm, DevOps methodology of software delivery bolsters communication and collaboration between small, self-organized and cross-functional teams. Below is the list of benefits DevOps culture offers to the businesses of all sizes:

1. Superior service quality
2. Reliable service delivery schedule
3. Better responsiveness to change
4. Immutable infrastructure
5. Better customer satisfaction
6. Cost, time and effort savings
7. Cross-functionality means all-around capability
8. Building the employee loyalty and satisfaction
9. Improving the employee attitude and collaboration
10. Lifelong employee learning and self-improvement

Below we explain these benefits in more details.

Superior service quality

As software updates are iterative and repetitive, the feedback loops are quite short. This means perceived service quality is much higher, as the customers receive the desired improvements in weeks or months, not in semi-annual or annual update batches.

Reliable service delivery schedule

As DevOps utilizes the Agile doctrine, the product is always running and is iteratively improved. Short sprints lead to delivering even big projects in rather small chunks, and using microservices helps deliver the updates independently, thus removing bottlenecks and increasing the software release cycle predictability.

Better responsiveness to change

Rapidly changing market conditions lead to unstable customer audience preferences, and the features your customers were fretting about just 2 months ago might become absolutely obsolete in a matter of weeks. DevOps approach to software delivery allows adjusting the project specs on the move and not depending on in-depth specifications for a successful project completion.

Immutable infrastructure

Instead of keeping in mind the whole lot of recent actions and ongoing processes to oversee the state of the infrastructure, DevOps software delivery process operates with the immutable infrastructure. This means that the needed environments are provisioned fast and without any configuration drift, thus enabling self-healing and removing the possible security breaches.

Better customer satisfaction

As product updates are delivered in small and frequent chunks, customer feedback loops shorten significantly. Even more importantly, the A/B testing on different target groups and early feedback gathering allow rapidly evaluating the features to use the best possible combination and ensure better customer satisfaction.

Cost, time and effort savings

DevOps leverages the Agile approach to removing all the waste from the software delivery process. It concentrates on eliminating all pitfalls like unneeded waiting times or administrative/managerial overhead to ensure optimal resource and effort allocation and provide significant time, cost and effort savings.

Cross-functionality means all-around capability

There are no siloed tasks, skills or responsibilities and every member of the DevOps team is able to engage the most pressing task at hand. This means there will be no operational or development bottlenecks, as the cross-functional team of all-around capable specialists ensures uninterrupted software delivery pipeline and service availability.

Building the employee loyalty and satisfaction

Many businesses are obsessed with building customer loyalty, yet building employee loyalty is equally, if not more, important. When the team works on a common project and each team member is responsible for every aspect of the resulting product, there are no personal faults or achievements. The team gives their best to deliver the top-notch performance and is rewarded with satisfaction with their job, not merely a paycheck. This approach drastically reduces the turnover of employees, as they grow strong bonds with the team and the projects they work on.

Improving the employee attitude and collaboration

This is the logical outcome of the previous paragraph. When there are no personal achievements or failures and the project success depends on the team performance as a whole, the team members are inclined to collaborate, help each other and build healthy attitude towards their colleagues. Needless to say, keeping such a positive attitude is essential to the business overall success.

Lifelong employee learning and self-improvement

Obviously, to remain relevant and competitive (be it a friendly in-team competition, or the task to overcome the rest of the market players), the DevOps engineers have to remain on the pinnacle of progress and constantly improve their skills, increase their toolkit and learn the latest tricks in the field. The only efficient learning is the one coming from one’s own heart, and DevOps culture invigorates continuous self-improvement and lifelong learning of your personnel, enabling them to deliver substantially better results, products and services.

Conclusions

Aside from obvious benefits of putting the Agile principles to a good use, these are 10 subtle superpowers of DevOps culture that greatly enhance the whole business workflow, strengthening your team and adding more value to every aspect of the company operations.

Previously I’ve posted this article in my company’s blog: https://itsvit.com/blog/10-subtle-superpowers-devops/