devops: 5 pitfalls to avoid.

Whether you work for a startup or a multinational, if your DevOps strategy is set up correctly, you’ll reap a lot of benefits and automatically save on unnecessary costs. It helps you deliver working software quickly and efficiently through a set of procedures and tools. But a lot of companies struggle to implement a DevOps strategy successfully. What obstacles should you avoid at all times? We are happy to outline them for you.

1. thinking too big.

A DevOps strategy is not developed overnight. Despite this, many companies seem to want to pull out all the stops immediately. The biggest teams and the most expensive tools are used to tackle the most complicated projects. Unfortunately, this often leads to too high expectations, sky-high stress and disappointing results.

There’s nothing wrong with starting small and then scaling up if the results are positive. That way, you have time to check which processes are running well, which are not, and what the team still needs.

It’s also vital that the expectations of all stakeholders are aligned at the start. You can only start shaping the correct strategy once you know the concrete expectations - for example, innovation or cost reduction. You will thus arrive at the best approach and strong results one step at a time.

2. not establishing the right culture.

If you implement a DevOps strategy, your working method will inevitably change. And it goes without saying that if you don't establish the right culture - including change management - it will be difficult for your DevOps strategy to succeed.

Did you buy new tools, but colleagues don’t understand why they are needed? Do teams continue to work according to their own processes and agreements? If so, the benefits of a good DevOps strategy will not materialise.

Listening to the different teams and clearly communicating why things must change is essential. Accept that implementing change requires a transition period. Give your team members enough time to get used to the new working method and the associated tools and processes.

3. creating an entirely new team.

It may seem logical to put together an entirely new DevOps team, but doing so makes it hard on yourself. A new team lacks a lot of knowledge about your company, its goals and processes. It will take some time before your new employees are up and running.

Who has all this useful business knowledge? Your current quality assurance (QA), development and operations colleagues. The whole idea behind DevOps is to make everyone involved in software development work better together. So there's nothing better than to ask if anyone in your existing team is enthusiastic about developing the DevOps strategy. This way, you create support, and nobody feels left out.

If your team lacks specific expertise, nothing prevents you from recruiting staff with that knowledge. Combining current and new colleagues is the most efficient way to add a strong DevOps team to your organisation.

4. using too many tools or the wrong ones.

Many tools on the market can help you set up and implement your DevOps strategy. Selecting the right tools is difficult, and ensuring they’re used correctly can also be challenging.

You want to make progress as quickly as possible, so purchasing a set of tools promising optimal results is tempting. However, it’s important to identify the bottlenecks and what you want to achieve. Ask yourself what the impact will be on the way you work and whether your team is ready for this. You can only select the right tools once you know all that.

And honestly? You might not even need a tool for some challenges. Sometimes a solution can be easier than you think.

5. not measuring results.

How do you know if your DevOps strategy is really paying off? Not by relying on your gut feeling, but by measuring. This is something that’s often overlooked. 

On the one hand, measurements enable you to tackle your bottlenecks faster and in a more focused way and to improve your processes. On the other hand, you can use positive statistics to prove the success of your strategy to your stakeholders and build support.

These four metrics are worth investigating:

1. deployment frequency
2. lead time for changes
3. failure rate
4. average time until service is restored

These results will help you estimate the efficiency of your development team. A DevOps team is supposed to positively impact those four metrics. If they don’t, it’s a sign that something is amiss with your DevOps strategy.