DevOps at first sight appears to be a simple combination of operations and engineering. However, reality hits when you realize it involves a complex set of processes demanding ongoing refinement. Adopting strong DevOps practices works as a guideline for development teams. Yet many companies struggle to realize its full potential. Engineering teams often wish to improve their DevOps practices but they lack a clear implementation strategy. Numerous challenges may exist, including a disjointed SDLC, and inter-team conflicts (not to forget the communication gaps!) In this article, we explore the top 5 DevOps practices that can boost your team’s efficiency!
Statistics About DevOps
Everyone in the tech arena is aware of the advantages DevOps offers. If you look at what statistics say, DevOps can lead to a staggering:
- 66% increase in innovation
- 64% improvement in service quality
- 70% boost in software delivery efficiency
5 Best DevOps Practices for Teams
Software development is a specifically competitive world. As you read this, countless features are being coded and deployed by developers around the globe. This is where you get the fruits of adopting DevOps best practices. Here are some of the 5 best DevOps practices for streamlining workflows and promoting shared responsibility:
Combining Agile and DevOps
One of the best practices in the DevOps landscape is the integration of Agile methodologies. DevOps and Agile are often seen as separate methodologies in SDLC. However, integrating them can be beneficial for both immediate and long-term goals. Agile helps you focus on quick delivery and iterative development. On the other hand, DevOps helps you streamline both collaboration and operations. Together, they create a powerful synergy in software development.
When Agile principles are applied within a DevOps framework, teams benefit from increased communication and transparency. Agile sprints allow for continuous feedback. Teams can log DevOps activities in sprint planning sessions too. This approach helps ensure each team member clearly understands their role.
Additionally, including DevOps in sprint reviews leads to fruitful discussions about not just product features but also operational aspects. This holistic view helps spot potential bottlenecks early. Agile complements DevOps via frequent adjustments based on real-time insights, ultimately resulting in faster delivery cycles and higher-quality software.
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Optimizing the Feedback Loop
This is one of the best approaches to improving DevOps collaboration. Many teams find code reviews monotonous. They tend to put them lower on their to-do list instead of prioritizing them. However, improving without understanding past failures can be counterproductive. Regular code reviews are important to deliver high-quality projects.
But if you are expecting teams to adopt code reviews overnight, it would be unrealistic for sure, especially while under the pressure of rapid release cycles. Instead, the right tools can make a big difference. Clear accountability can reduce unnecessary back-and-forth messages.
Once internal feedback is optimized, DevOps teams should extend this approach to customer feedback. Engaging users about their experiences allows teams to iterate quickly, minimizing time to market.
Using the Right Metrics to Track and Improve CI/CD Pipelines
Continuous improvement lies at the heart of DevOps philosophy. Short development times are more prone to having SDLC issues. By monitoring metrics, teams can identify issues early and prevent major setbacks.
DORA metrics by Google provide 4 critical indicators to balance software stability and velocity. However, relying solely on these indicators may not uncover the root causes of CI/CD bottlenecks. Teams should use additional metrics like code churn, cycle time, progress status, and review time to gain more comprehensive insights.
Industry-standard frameworks (like DORA and SPACE) help assess both developer satisfaction and project health. Each team faces unique challenges. Thus, a one-size-fits-all approach may not suffice. You can even set self-imposed development milestones to improve the code quality. This could be something like something like limiting LoC to 200 per pull request.
This is a top DevOps strategy every developer should know. If you are looking for employee training for your DevOps team, EducationNest’s range of expert-led courses and customizable training programs are here to make your team shine!
Adopting an Async Work Culture
Switching to an asynchronous work culture is an effective daily DevOps practice. This approach moves away from daily status reports and traditional stand-up meetings. Inefficient meetings cost companies an astonishing 24B hours of work and $37B annually. You would be surprised to know about 71% of meetings are actually considered unproductive! Hence, traditional methods are no longer delivering optimal outcomes.
DevOps teams often suffer from the consequences of constant meetings, which disrupt deep work. By using this top DevOps strategy, you can spot and reduce issues early on. Async culture does not eliminate synchronous meetings. It simply enhances them by converting status updates into meaningful discussions.
Async practices let team members prioritize tasks more effectively. When a developer faces a choice between debugging code and attending a status update, the async model allows for flexibility, enabling them to manage both while still achieving productive outcomes.
Defined Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Implementing RBAC can be a double-edged sword. If executed poorly (either being too lenient or too strict), it can create significant DevOps collaboration challenges.
Insufficient access hinders team members from effectively collaborating, as they may lack the necessary permissions to share resources or contribute to projects. On the flip side, excessive permissions can lead to serious risks. When individuals can deploy changes without the required approvals, it opens the door to potential errors and security vulnerabilities. Furthermore, there could be unchecked merging of code too! It can lead to unreviewed changes being pushed into the codebase.
The best DevOps solution for collaboration is to find that sweet spot or the right balance. Properly defining roles and permissions along with regular audits is the way to go.
Conclusion
For every successful project, you need successful collaboration between your developers’ team and operations. Driving away the communication gaps that exist between the teams (operations and developers) is crucial. This synergy will not only accelerate project timelines but also better the overall product quality at the end. DevOps practices can come in immensely handy if you want to bridge the gap between the two departments – operations & development. The above practices are some of the simplest ones that companies can adopt even though they could feel tricky to implement at first.
If you are looking for employee training to foster collaboration, EducationNest is the right choice for you. Being one of the top corporate training providers for organizations, they have numerous courses with a proven track record of excellence in driving results.
