Assess and Decide

An organization adopts DevOps because of problems or to pursue opportunities for improvement. A business stakeholder may discover DevOps benefits by browsing customer stories, case studies and other Resources.

The business stakeholder contacts IBM to set up a meeting with an expert in DevOps adoption (the DevOps Expert).

They have an initial consultation to discuss DevOps adoption. The DevOps Expert recommends starting with a DevOps Lean Self-Assessment to agree on some high level goals and focus areas for improvement (aka business objectives).

Agree on High Level Goals / Business Objectives (using the DevOps Lean Assessment)  

The DevOps Lean Assessment is a quick survey to identify those areas that need to be improved first, starting with the areas that have the greatest need and best potential for improvement. The assessment also identifies appropriate measurements for setting goals and evaluating success.

One or more representatives of the business should complete this survey.

Based on the lean self-assessment, the organization could decide to focus on improving the software delivery capability in her organization.

Decide on Roadmap (using the DevOps Practice Self-Assessment)

The next step is to outline a roadmap for meeting the high level goals. Working with the DevOps Expert, the business stakeholder completes the more detailed DevOps Practices Self-Assessment of their organization, and using the practice proficiency model, determines a specific area for improvement (i.e., a specific set of DevOps capabilities to adopt).

For example, the DevOps Expert sees an opportunity for reducing the rework of assets by improving communication of the deliverable quality prior to integration testing.

The business stakeholder creates a roadmap of targeted improvement measures that aligns with their business objectives.

For example, the business stakeholder decides on a "Feedback Improvement" initiative to reduce the overall business requirement cycle time from 6 weeks to 4 weeks and to reduce the percentage of rework from 40% to 15%. The white box measures to be used to track and report there results are time to provide feedback and time for teams to respond to feedback.

A solution is defined and accepted as an adoption initiative. Baseline measures are created.

Also see, Step 1: Decide what you want to achieve.

Develop Project Plan (using the DevOps, Solutions, and Practices)

The next step is to plan the adoption. The business stakeholder identifies a DevOps adoption manager to plan and manage the adoption. The DevOps Expert helps identify the right tools and practices to adopt to support the DevOps capabilities that are being adopted. Detailed guidance for selected capabilities is provided by the DevOps Practices (this website). The simplest adoption plan is if one of the DevOps Solutions fits, since a set of practices, tools, and supporting collateral are already configured for use with minimal tailoring.

If an existing solution does not apply, then the DevOps Expert and DevOps adoption manager work together to identify appropriate practices, tools, and other assets to include in the initial adoption.

For example, they may decide to adopt the practice "Virtual services". This will help them test interfaces before investing too heavily in coding and unit tests.

After reviewing available guidance, the DevOps adoption manager creates a detailed project plan.

Also see, Step 2: Assess where you are today.

Establish Core Team

Part of the adoption plan is to assemble and educate a core team whose job is to ensure a successful implementation of the roadmap. This should include leads from relevant practice areas, such as:

• Development and Configuration Management
• Build
• Test
• Infrastructure
• Application Deployment

The team should include an Infrastructure Architect, who defines the architecture of the development environment, and sets up the environment after appropriate approvals and testing.

The DevOps Expert may deliver a workshop to educate the team and refine the adoption strategy, roadmap, architecture, and objective measures for improvement. The team learns how to use IBM DevOps resources to stay informed of topics of interest. The workshop establishes the core team with a good understanding of the solution and recommended usage model.

A "Proof of Technology" may be useful at this stage.

Also see, Step 3: Prioritize your improvements.

Define working model

The working model is a combination of tool configuration and process guidance that explains how work is accomplished in the new environment. A DevOps expert can assist with developing this model, if a standard model does not already exist. The business stakeholders should be engaged to ensure that the working model meets expectations.

Also see, Step 4: Plan and execute.

Choose and prepare pilot

A pilot project should be chosen to evaluate the working model. Some key preparation steps are:

• Define and identify pilot objectives.

• Outline an adoption plan for the pilot project, including an asset migration strategy.
  For example, if the new environment uses Rational Team Concert for source control, then preparation includes planning migration of data from the existing source code control system.

• Prepare training assets.
  A DevOps expert can help to create tailored role-based training assets for on-boarding new teams. This may include job aids, documents and videos that define specific techniques that will be used for the solution.

• Set up the environment to be used during the pilot, including mechanisms to gather measures to validate outcomes.

The core team should be available to serve as mentors to support and assess the progress of adoption.

Business stakeholders should be available to perform user acceptance testing on the solution and supporting assets.

Run pilot project(s)

Educate the pilot team on basic tool features. Training may be performed by experts within the organization (if these exist already). A DevOps expert can assist with initial training, while initial pilot team members may later serve as trainers/mentors for subsequent projects adopting the new working model.

The core team (optionally with assistance from one or more DevOps experts) provide ongoing mentoring to the pilot team as needed. Note that IBM provides many resources for additional learning and support, such as learning circles and the DevOps community.

The project is executed, and releases are rolled out. The core team focuses on measuring during the required period to validate attainment of the adoption goals.

First deployment win

The first win is defined as the first time your organization will use DevOps in a real project, application team or initiative. The users will apply the working model, technologies with real applications, testing and project requirements.

The scope of your first win should be sufficient to ensure continued momentum until you begin the enterprise adoption strategy. Your core team should be available to serve as mentors to support and assess the progress of adoption. Business stakeholders should be available to perform user acceptance testing on the DevOps solution and supporting assets.

The team publishes their success story with the DevOps Community so that it is picked up in the IBM DevOps newsletter and other community sites.

Execute adoption strategy

Once the approach has been successfully piloted, the adoption initiative is expanded to additional projects/programs, and a monitoring and mentoring program is established.  Profits soar, and Forbes names your organization as the best IT employer in the world!

Specific Practices Adoption

• Automated Deployment
• Continuous Integration
• Scrum
• Virtualized Services

Additional Resources

• Best Practices for DevOps Adoption
• Enterprise DevOps Best Practices for Executives
• DevOps Adoption Blog Posts