DevOps: A Value Proposition

Editor's Notes

• #3: but only if these IT investments occur with the right mix of IT, culture, and practice called DevOps. For the last two years, I have conducted research to study organizations that use DevOps practices, to truly understand what contributes to the success of their DevOps practices, and for the first time, test and measure the impacts of these practices on their bottom line.
• #4: This is revolutionary. [pause] We would like to think this is common sense, but it isn’t. In fact, it flies in the face of decades of research and experience. Investments in IT just don’t impact the bottom line. Time and time again, studies fail to show any link between IT investment and any kind of organizational impact. ANY KIND! It actually has a name! It’s called the productivity paradox. … Any company can buy a server, throw it in the closet, maybe give it some pretty uplighting like we see here.  But then so can any other company. You put enough lipstick on a pig… it’s still a pig. Your pretty server is still just a server. This doesn’t create any kind of sustainable advantage. And the path from IT investment alllll the way down to the 10-K is long and winding. ROI rarely pans out, and even then, it’s usually after years… if that! So… I knew this, but I just didn’t have it in my heart to tell it to the team, especially since I had a hunch that DevOps might be different. I’ll tell you why in just a minute.
• #5: So… what makes DevOps different? Why are we seeing this impact NOW? It is because DevOps is fundamentally different. It is because the impacts are seen only when IT investments occur with the right mix of IT, culture, and practice. So we can’t just *invest* in IT. We have to invest in IT *and* our culture and practices… very much like the stories we’ve been hearing here. In fact, just as Lean and the Toyota way revolutionized manufacturing in the 80s and 90s, we believe DevOps will be the force that revolutionizes the way that technology is done across all industries in all organizations. THIS is that hunch I had when we were planning the DevOps study last year. THIS is why I suggested we include organizational performance, even though it flew in the face of every other case of IT investment strategy. DevOps isnt’ just and investment strategy. It is a revolution. But how did we get here?
• #6: Velocity 2009: John Allspaw & PaulHammond “10 deploys per day: Dev & ops cooperation at Flickr” - Crazy. Maybe even irresponsible. Historic. Visionary.
• #8: This is fascinating throughput, and clearly good for IT.
• #9: Stark contrast to Intuit… 165 experiments during busy season. Five years ago, we would not have seen this… but when else to deliver or test delivering functionality to customers? And you see that second emphasis? (Added by me) Conversion rate is up 50%. Those are organizational impacts. That is the bottom line.
• #10: THIS ISN’T JUST FOR THE UNICORNS. THIS IS FOR THE HORSES, TOO. “All the stories you heard yesterday are examples of how organizations are creating business value and competitive advantage by adopting DevOps principles and patterns. These stories paint a rich, nuanced picture of what DevOps looks like in organizations, and suggests that it can – and does – help organizations achieve their goals. But we wanted to take this a step further, and see if the data agreed with these stories we see over and over again. And the data we collected over the past two years – covering 14,000 respondents and hundreds of organizations – backs this up. DevOps is good for IT. DevOps is good for organizations. Let’s start by looking at the impacts of DevOps on IT.
• #13: In the past, we’ve known that DevOps is good for IT. But NOW we know that DevOps is good for organizations. DevOps has impacts that can be seen in the bottom line. This is because DevOps isn’t just IT. It’s the practice of IT.
• #15: In the past, we’ve known that DevOps is good for IT. But NOW we know that DevOps is good for organizations. DevOps has impacts that can be seen in the bottom line. This is because DevOps isn’t just IT. It’s the practice of IT.
• #20: This is why we see the impacts to the organization and the bottom line. This requires IT, yes. But it also requires CULTURE PEOPLE PROCESSES This isn’t just an investment in IT. This is an investment in IT practice. And these investments are revolutionary in the change they bring about. Not just to the IT function, but to the organization as a whole.