How to use DevOps without using the word DevOps

Source – devopsonline.co.uk

Lidgey has an array of expertise in the agile field, working for the likes of Monitise, IBM and now Companies House, which involves exploring local organisations, Universities and companies, as the executive agency and trading fund of Her Majesty’s Government looks to promote not only as an employer, but as a digital platform.

Culture appears to be an extremely important word in the agile and DevOps world. More businesses are formalising digital-led transformations through new strategies and teamwork. Lidgey agreed: “DevOps is all about culture. Get the culture right, the people right, and the rest will follow.”

According to Lidgey, in order to achieve a good culture, there may need to be a change in teams, small steps phrased, demonstrations of results shown and DESC should be considered:

• D – describe what happened
• E – explain how this made you feel
• S – share what you would like to happen
• C – compromise by stating what you are going to do about it

Companies House is trying to achieve a good culture through automation. “We use automation through large testing teams, so a lot of risks to deadline. As soon as the teams finish a project they start another one straightaway; DESC helped with longer feedback times,” added Lidgey.

Like the majority of businesses, the firms main challenges are finance, time and teams. Lidgey revealed: “The issue we face is telling stakeholders we need time and money to support our innovative platforms.

“The best way to overcome issues is to determine what the issue is, work on it, demonstrate it and receive critical feedback – good or bad.

“There is a lot of technical stuff we need to do – automation, Jenkins, cloud, infrastructure and code.

“But because of test automation being our standard way of including training test teams, stakeholders and business analysts, we now only test for a day, instead of weeks.”

Lidgey also noted it’s a steep learning curve through coding, but support through training and finance means better benefits in the long run.