Simplicity and adding value to the business the key to effective DevOps projects, advises Micro Focus's Stephen Walters

The vast majority of 'business transformations' don't deliver on their promises, so a change in approach is essential, DevOps Summit 2017 is told

The vast majority of 'business transformations' don't deliver everything that's promised, and people and the way in which they communicate are major part of that problem.

That's according to Stephen Walters, lead solutions consultant at Microsoft Focus, the world's seventh-largest pure-play software vendor, speaking at the DevOps Summit in London today.

"Quite often, it was because we were focusing on, or just dealing with, specific areas," said Walters. "We were concentrating on specific areas; on specific things. Even today… we tend to concentrate purely on the development teams. DevOps provides an almost-unique opportunity to actually open up the entire organisation and start looking at the complete, end-to-end lifecycle.

"It's not just about the development and operations, it's about the entire organisation."

However, in major organisations, especially multinational organisations, these still presents a number of challenges.

Breaking down silos within IT organisations and across organisations is therefore about people management and communications, added Walters. "The more complex your communication structures, the more complex the architecture that you are having to deal with.

When you look at processes, make them lean and the leaner they are the less potential you've got for 'breaks' within the process

"That's both a challenge, but it's also an opportunity. It opens up a way of thinking where we can start to break down those silos," said Walters, because it's an opportunity to simplify communications structures, as well as the designs. "Surely, that's meeting what we want from DevOps?"

What that ultimately comes down to, said Walters, is the old 'people, process and technology'.

For people, it comes down to training to understand different personality types, and therefore knowing and respecting how other personality types communicate.

"Understand who you're talking with and how you're going to deliver the message in such a way that they will understand… so the first stage of understanding a DevOps culture and breaking down the silos is understanding that not everybody is the same. If you understand the people you are working with, you will work better with them," advised Walters.

In terms of processes, again, we can blame people for introducing so much complexity in the first place.

Again, simplification is the key - an over-complicated process will only encourage people to find their own ways round it. "It's about simplifying as much as you can around the value that you're delivering," said Walters. "So when you look at processes, make them lean and the leaner they are the less potential you've got for 'breaks' within the process.

"That's what it's about at the end of the day - making that process as simple as possible."

And, in terms of technology, the focus should be on the value it provides. That doesn't necessarily mean buying the cheapest or whatever helps cut costs the furthest, but instead on the value it can potentially provide to the business.

While calculating that might not be an easy process, it will help convince the business as a whole of the merits of DevOps and, indeed, any project the IT department proposes.

"It's not about going for the best toy or what's new out there or what you think you know, but matching the 'thing' that you want to implement to what you actually need to do that will deliver the best value," concluded Walters.