Business leaders, managers and supervisors should pay attention to the state of DevOps, especially in the tech industry. DevOps gives companies opportunities to improve many aspects of software development. A recent study touts how DevOps has an unintended consequence: Tech firms improve organizational performance across all departments. Find out what DevOps means to your company and your future by looking at the current state of affairs.
What Is DevOps?
DevOps, short for "development and operations," refers to the way two business units communicate and collaborate. An IT department needs to be on the same page as sales, marketing, customer service and accounting. The ultimate goal of DevOps is to achieve the optimal level of software development while having as few problems deploying and updating the software as possible. To this end, a business's organizational performance benefits greatly from the current state of DevOps for many reasons.
DevOps Versus Everyone Else
Firms that employ a DevOps strategy, according to a study of 25,000 tech professionals over five years, release software 200 times faster than competitors. Tech firms recover 24 times faster from failures, and less time is spent fixing issues. This environment leads to better employee loyalty and less turnover because less time is spent in crisis mode and more energy goes towards improving the value of a company's product. Engaged employees who have a vested interest in DevOps strategies collaborate better, and organizational performance improves as a whole.
Teamwork
DevOps is a strategy involving teamwork. All departments, including IT, work together towards the same goal. This allows tech firms to deploy software updates quicker than before. Instead of updates every few weeks, developers send out dozens, if not hundreds of updates per day. This constant state of software evolution gives companies competitive advantages over those that don't foster this type of organizational performance paradigm.
Improved Organizational Performance
Deploying regular software through DevOps is more about company culture and less about technology. Every employee should have an equal say in the outcome of the tech firm, and business leaders should foster collaboration and teamwork above other aspects of the company. Employees should see how their hard work pays off, both in realizing the positive impact they have on customers and seeing how the company invests in its staffers. When employees engage with the company culture and plug into a DevOps strategy, tech firms make more money.
Applications Beyond Tech
Business leaders should pay attention to DevOps for one critical reason: If tech firms can employ this methodology to bring product to customers faster while maintaining happy employees, what can businesses in other industries do? Manufacturers, retailers and health care companies that can strategically deliver products and services faster, with better collaboration and the use of the right technologies, have an edge over those that don't. That's why every business professional should know about DevOps.
Organizational performance is only as good as the people who buy into a particular strategy. DevOps, a merging of a collaborative effort with computer software delivery, is one way to go, and it could be the future of tech firms and other types of businesses.
Photo courtesy of The Official RG Photo Archive at Flickr.com
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