Software teams are always looking for new solutions to expedite software development. DevOps aims to remove issues and encourage collaboration between teams that results in a faster product rollout whilst maintaining a high standard of quality. This can lead to higher levels of automation, faster product rollout, enhanced collaboration, and more responsiveness to shifting business requirements. The DevOps methodology provides ways to bridge the gap between the two departments. Whilst it may not be practical to merge both teams for every business, companies should take notice of these six best practices.
1. Process Automation
Process automation can be a major pain point in any organisation—DevOps teams are no different. Teams need to automate as many processes as possible to increase efficiency. By automating processes, teams can focus on more important tasks, such as developing new features and products. There are several ways to automate processes—one example is applying Infrastructure as code (IaC) alongside automation, which enables IT teams to provide self-service capabilities.
2. Continuous Integration
Continuous integration (CI) involves merging all working copies with shared mainline several times each day. This approach leads to faster feedback easier debugging, and reduced integration problems. However, to fully enjoy the benefits of CI, developers need to integrate their code changes early and often. This requires a culture shift in which developers are encouraged to commit small changes frequently rather than waiting for large batches of code changes.
3. Documenting Processes
A crucial part of DevOps is documenting your processes—this ensures that everyone understands how the system works and can make changes as needed. It also allows you to track your progress and identify areas for improvement.
Good documentation has several key characteristics. First, it will contain a high-level explanation of the entire project process, ensuring that all who access the documentation are aware of the aims and objectives of the project. In addition, the documentation should contain a description of each contributor’s role and contact information. It’s also likely that the documentation will reference other materials—make sure to include references to other documents to allow for expanded reading.
Another essential characteristic of good documentation is diagrams to illustrate concepts and processes. While diagrams take significantly longer to create than summarising points in a couple of sentences, they are usually more helpful to the reader. Visual sources such as diagrams enable readers to digest complex information more effectively. Next, good documentation is frequently updated—it goes without saying that out-of-date documentation will cause unnecessary confusion. Finally, including a comments section within each document is beneficial because it allows team members and stakeholders to post queries. This section of the document acts as a FAQ for future readers, allowing them to quickly find answers to common questions.
4. Eliminate Complexity
There are many benefits of adopting DevOps practices, but one of the most important is that it can help eliminate complexity. Many organisations struggle with managing the ever-increasing complexity of their IT environments, which can lead to problems such as delays in delivering new features or updates to customers or outages when things go wrong.
DevOps can help reduce this complexity by automating tasks and processes and providing teams with better tools and visibility into the entire system. This can help them identify and fix problems more quickly and avoid introducing new ones. In addition, DevOps culture encourages collaboration between different teams, which can further reduce complexity by making it easier to identify and fix dependencies and potential issues before they cause problems.
5. Rethink Delivery
Traditional software development and delivery can lead to tension and conflict between teams. For example, Development teams may feel like they're being held back by Operations, while Operations may feel like they're constantly cleaning up after Development. The DevOps approach changes how we think about delivery by treating Development and Operations as equal partners.
In a DevOps environment, both teams work together from start to finish to deliver software quickly and efficiently. By breaking down the silos between Development and Operations, we can achieve better communication and collaboration throughout the delivery process. This results in faster turnaround times, fewer errors, and happier customers!
6. Feature Lifecycle Management
As product teams grow and change, it's important to have a flexible system to track new features' progress through the development process—enter feature lifecycle management. Feature lifecycle management tracks and manages new features' progress from ideation to launch. By tracking features throughout their lifecycle, teams can stay organised and aligned on what's being worked on, what's been completed, and what still needs to be done.
There are several ways to approach feature lifecycle management, but one popular method is using a kanban board. Kanban boards visually represent workflows and help teams see where each feature is in its development journey. Kanban boards can be used for small projects with just a few people or large projects with hundreds of people. They're also flexible enough to be adapted as needs change over time.
In Summary
Following the six DevOps practices above will significantly improve productivity and efficiency within your organisation. Following these practices will boost rollout times and allow teams to collaborate closely and work towards shared organisational goals.
If your organisation requires assistance with the installation of DevOps products, the Evolvere team is available to help. We can install and integrate some of the most popular DevOps products within your systems and processes at a fixed cost. You can learn more about our infrastructure projects here.