DEVOPS

THE BUSINESS OF
TRANSFORMATION
ACCELERATING INNOVATION
THROUGH CULTURAL CHANGE
TAY HONG HUEI
"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."
- Steve Jobs
 4 Introduction

8 Building high-performing teams

17 DevOps: Beyond continuous deliveries

Contents 29 Catalysing and sustaining transformation

35 Navigating the challenges of transformation

44 Conclusion
 4

The digital age permeates all industries without bias and reframes our
beliefs in time-honoured business principles. Organisations that fail to “After all, the first prototype
embrace technology and innovation are handicapped at best, and risk
facing demise should they remain intransigent. of a digital camera was
Kodak, Nokia, and Yahoo are a few clear examples of industry leaders
who were disrupted by innovation and consequently declined rapidly
created in 1975 by Steve
behind their competitors.
Sasson, an engineer working
for … Kodak.” 1

Kodak’s downfall is a classic tale of disruption that is often

deliberated over. At a glance, it appears that the digital age
ousted Kodak from its pedestal. After all, its core business was
printing pictures, then came the age of digital cameras and
online photo sharing. But technology was not the threat.

1
Kodak’s Downfall Wasn’t About Technology,
Harvard Business Review
 5
“Companies often see the
disruptive forces affecting
their industry. They frequently
divert sufficient resources
to participate in emerging
markets. Their failure is
usually an inability to truly
embrace the new business
models the disruptive change
opens up.” 2
2
Kodak’s Downfall Wasn’t About Technology,
Harvard Business Review
An organisation’s ability to innovate quickly,
repeatedly, and consistently is critical to its
success - but, how?
From improving the way a business engages its customers
to increasing workforce effectiveness, digitisation enables
businesses to reinvent themselves as they discover new and
radical ways of acquiring customers while adding incremental
value.
But innovation is not just about adopting or revamping
technology - investing in people and their practices matter
even more.
Organisations need to discover how these interconnected forces
can impact culture, influence collaboration, and spur innovation
in a competitive market. They must first understand the
difference between doing something and doing the right thing.
 6

This paper will focus on examining the practice

of DevOps, its influence on innovation, and
how adoption challenges are causing some
organisations to struggle with embracing change.

Based on global DevOps practices, case studies from leading

transformation programs, and *data-driven analysis derived
from our team of consultants, we will present:
• The underlying proposition of DevOps
Our team
• Common pitfalls and misguided strategies
• Our guiding principles that can help sustain and drive
meaningful innovation alongside core businesses

40% DevOps Consultants 36% Developers

14% Automation Engineers 5% Engagement Manager
5% Scrum Masters

*Consolidated from projects across various industries such as banking,

insurance, government, transportation, and logistics, worth in total
approximately US$40 million over 3 years.
 Picture of anything

"Technology Innovation means Business."

 8

BUILDING
HIGH-PERFORMING TEAMS

“High-performing IT organisations experience 60X fewer failures and Analysis further revealed that teams that have the ability to
recover from failure 168X faster than their lower-performing peers. develop and deliver quickly, are also better at:4
They also deploy 30X more frequently with 200X shorter lead times.”3
Innovating, designing, Reacting to conditions
To stay ahead of the competition, businesses will need to establish
and creating value faster when necessary:

50% x2.555
scalable teams designed with agility, velocity, and innovation
capabilities - common traits displayed in teams that embrace DevOps
practices.

High-performing teams are characterised by their ability to deliver and faster lead time to deploy;

x2.604
maintain a high degree of software performance. time spent.

faster lead time to recovery.

Keeping
up with Meeting or exceeding
regulatory organisational goals

3
State of DevOps Report
Puppet Labs, IT Revolution 2015
4
Accelerate: State of DevOps, Strategies for a New Economy
DORA 2018
demands 1.53x
more likely.
 9

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

High degree of “With more work

automation automated, high
Although traditional mindsets may lead to some apprehension
towards the legitimacy or effectiveness of automation, research
has concluded that teams which automate significantly more
performers free
are also the same group that has the most time to innovate,
sustained by a rapid feedback cycle.5
their technical staff
Highly automated and self-sufficient ecosystems are the
backbone of a fast workflow, whether in driving core business
values or embarking on innovation endeavours.
to do innovative
work that adds
real value to their
organisations.” 6
5
State of DevOps Report
DORA 2017
6
Accelerate: State of DevOps, Strategies for a New Economy
DORA 2018
 10

ASPECT OF
SOFTWARE DELIVERY
PERFORMANCE
ELITE HIGH MEDIUM LOW
Fast and stable
DEPLOYMENT
FREQUENCY
On-demand
(multiple deploys
per day)
Between
once per
hour and
Between once
per week
and once per
Between
once per
week and
software release
once per day month once per
month For 5 consecutive years, high-performance teams categorised
under the Elite group were observed to consistently excel in four
LEAD TIME FOR Less than one Between one Between one Between one
CHANGES hour day and one day and one month and measures under two aspects of software delivery performance:
week month six months Throughput and Stability.

TIME TO RESTORE SERVICE Less than one Less than one Less than one Between one ‘Deployment frequency’ and ‘Lead time for changes’ represent
hour day day week and one Throughput, while ‘Time to restore service’ and ‘Change failure
month rate’ both represent Stability.

High-performance teams are found to develop and deliver

CHANGE FAILURE RATE 0-15% 0-15% 0-15% 46-60% quickly with minimal disruption caused by errors or recovery
activities. They apply speed to software delivery, but not at the
expense of quality.7
Accelerate: State of DevOps, Strategies for a New Economy
DORA 2018

7
Accelerate: State of DevOps, Strategies for a New Economy
DORA 2018
 11

HIGH-PERFORMANCE TEAMS:
IMPACT ON INNOVATION TIME SPENT ELITE HIGH MEDIUM LOW

Proactive new work NEW WORK

UNPLANNED WORK
50%

19.5%
50%

20%
40%

20%
30%

20%
AND REWORK

VS REMEDIATING
SECURITY ISSUES
5% 5% 5% 10%

Reactive unplanned
WORKING ON DEFECTS 10% 10% 10% 20%
IDENTIFIED BY END USERS

CUSTOMER SUPPORT WORK 5% 10% 10% 15%

work Accelerate: State of DevOps, Strategies for a New Economy

DORA 2018

Both elite and high performers see teams spending 50% of The obvious goal is to shift people who are cemented in unproductive
their time doing new work: designing, innovating, and creating work to something more beneficial and meaningful.
value. On the other hand, low performers spend more time on
customer support work and defects, which are considered low
value and unproductive interruptions, essentially struggling to
get things done.
 12

Industry does not

matter
From technology and retail industries, to financial services
and healthcare sectors, industry verticals do not affect an
organisation’s ability to achieve a high degree of software
performance.8

High performance teams were also found in both high degree

- regulated and non-regulated industries, substantiating high
degree of regulatory compliance as a non-factor in software
delivery against their non-regulated counterparts.

8
Accelerate: State of DevOps, Strategies for a New Economy
DORA 2018
 The most dangerous phrase in language is:
“We have always done it this way.”
 14

CHALLENGES TO SOFTWARE
DELIVERY
Long software release cycle
A common but misguided approach observed in the industry is the practice
of long release cycles.9 The frequent argument posed here is that additional
time can be given to test and ensure quality between releases.
Categorised as misguided performers, these teams primarily
suffer from the inability to recover quickly from failed or
degraded services. Interestingly, the ‘change failure rate’ is
even higher than medium performers. It is more beneficial
to develop in short, iterative cycles.

“It is estimated that 55% to 75% of MISGUIDED PERFORMERS

all ERP projects fail to meet their DEPLOYMENT FREQUENCY Between once per month
and once every six months

objectives.” 10
LEAD TIME FOR CHANGES Between one month and six months

TIME TO RESTORE SERVICE Between one month and six months

CHANGE FAILURE RATE 16%-30%

9
Accelerate: State of DevOps, Strategies for a New Economy Accelerate: State of DevOps, Strategies for a New Economy
DORA 2018 DORA 2018
Your Guide to a Successful ERP Journey
10

Deloitte
 15

Complex systems &

cascading failures
Database Integrity Subsystems Overloaded
Data corrupted or lost; Long Traffic spikes across other
recovery process systems; Chain reaction
Studies have highlighted that building and managing Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) systems can be a demanding exercise.

“Implementing an ERP system is extremely challenging because

it requires redesign of business processes, change of perception
in how people approach their jobs, and integration of many
types of information systems.”11

This is compounded when large changesets are introduced with System Outage
each release. Not only does it make troubleshooting a pain, Unavailability; Economic
cascading failures throughout the system make recovery an implications
extremely long and tedious process.

Multiply that by the hundreds of applications in development, and

indeed, many organisations are treading in dangerous waters.
And the consequences are real.

Implementation Challenges of Enterprise System and Its

11

Advantages over Legacy Systems, Dr. Nabie Y. Conteh

 “Companies can test and launch digital
products and services faster, and at a lower
cost, by integrating their product development
and IT operations, also known as DevOps.”
- McKinsey Digital
 17

DEVOPS: BEYOND
CONTINUOUS DELIVERIES
Originating from the desire to improve collaboration between Unfortunately, this motivation is lost to some adopters, who
Development and Operations, DevOps (hence the name) is simply view DevOps as using a certain set of tools.12
fundamentally a transitive concept designed to accelerate
software delivery through collaboration, and concurrently
keep quality and security intact. “Using Puppet or Docker or
Neither the concept of automation nor the frustrations of siloed Jenkins or other tools does not
mentality are new. This stretches way back before Patrick Debois
started championing for change in 2009, after experiencing mean you are “doing DevOps.”
the “wall” between these two traditionally opposing units. At
the time, he was inspired by an O’Reilly Velocity conference The tools are not DevOps, they
presentation: 10+ Deploys Per Day: Dev and Ops Cooperation at
Flickr. merely enable it.”13

To have fully shared responsibilities between Development and Some are even confused and cannot distinguish between
Operations, and eliminate “hand overs, no longer my concern” DevOps, Continuous Integration, and Continuous Delivery
mentalities between units along the value chain, DevOps (CI/CD). While CI/CD is definitely a key practice, the scope of
encourages nothing but everyone’s end-to-end commitment. DevOps is larger than that.14

5 Things DevOps is Not

12

DevOps.com
DevOps and Continuous Delivery: Not the Same
13, 14

DevOps.com
 18

TRENDS & ADOPTION

STATISTICS 17%

100 10%

75
50 0%
In 2017 In 2018
25
FULL DEVOPS ADOPTION RATE
Extent of DevOps adoption by software developers worldwide in 2017 and 2018
Statista
1 JAN 2004 1 AUG 2008 1 MAR 2013 1 OCT 2017

SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN DEVOPS

INTERESTS OVER THE PAST 5 YEARS ABOUT 20% OF ORGANISATIONS
Google Trends: DevOps THAT ATTEMPTED TO IMPLEMENT
DEVOPS HAVE FULLY DEPLOYED IT
Assembling the DevOps Jigsaw
CA Technologies
 19

PROMINENT PRACTITIONERS

FACEBOOK AMAZON NETFLIX

1- Shortening of release cycle led the
company to improve tools, and automate
testing and procedures.15
2- Android mobile app rollouts were
reduced from 8 weeks to 1 week,
approximately 87% time reduction.16
3- Continuous deployments enabled
the organisation to scale their team and
code base while maintaining productivity
and keeping critical production issue
constant.17
Continuous Deployment of Mobile Software at Facebook,
15, 16
1- Created internal deployment service -
Apollo, that handled 50 million deployments
in 12 months - an average of more than one
deployment per second.18
2- Efficient and reliable automated
deployments removed the bottleneck and
enabled rapid delivery of new features for their
services.19
3- Released AWS CodeDeploy inspired by
Apollo as a service to help customers manage
automated software deployments.20
AWS News Blog: Now Available
20
1- Architecture and DevOps team support
allowed its developers to launch hundreds of
software changes a day.21
2- Netflix won the JAX Special Jury Award in
2015 - “The rate at which this entertainment
game-changer has adopted new technologies
and implemented them into its DevOps
approach is setting new standards in IT.”22
3- Created Simian Army, a suite of automated
tools that tested its internal infrastructure to
proactively identify and resolve vulnerabilities
before they impact customers.23

Facebook Research AWS CodePipeline

Continuous Deployment at Facebook and OANDA,
17
Beyond agile: Reorganizing IT for Faster Software Delivery
21

2016 IEEE/ACM 38th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering McKinsey Digital
Companion 22
JAX Award Winners Announced at JAX 2015 Conference
The Story of Apollo - Amazon’s Deployment Engine, Werner Vogels CTO
18, 19
Jaxenter
Amazon.com
The Netflix Simian Army
23

The Netflix Tech Blog

“If you automate a mess, you get an automated
mess.”

- Rod Michael, Director of Global Market Access Strategy & Channels,

Rockwell Automations
 21

THE ESSENCE OF DEVOPS

Shared responsibilities first, tools later

DevOps encapsulates efforts beyond tools and automation. This
entire ecosystem of practices plays a pivotal role in end-to-end
collaboration, as each intertwines with your ability to deliver
quickly, securely, and with quality examined at all stages of
continuous delivery.

Source Control Software Infrastructure

Development Proactive & Predictive
& Strategy Quality as Code
Standards Monitoring

Quality Cost & Resource

Definition Optimisation
CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION CONTINUOUS DEPLOYMENT
Security BAU Support
Policies Escalation Policy

Testing Approach Release Plan &

Configuration Automated Monitoring
& Strategy Workflows
Management Testing

Open Source Environment Self-Service Test & Performance

Software Policy Strategy Platforms Infrastructure
 22

DevOps is more than CI/CD

In the nascent stages of adoption, it is common to witness CI/ Our analysis also revealed a lack of understanding of the
CD taking shape. Although it integrates and delivers software, purpose of DevOps tools against the collaborative nature of
CI/CD is neither the primary nor the holistic answer to an DevOps practices in the industry.
organisation’s collaboration challenges.
The key to avoiding this very common mistake is to simply
The recurring pitfall is the complacency that develops after refrain from thinking “tools-first,” as this usually leads to a
establishing automated pipelines, followed by completely losing cascading effect of building platforms, integrating tools, and
sight of core objectives. automating aimlessly to fulfill the DevOps development and
delivery lifecycle. The intent of implementing tools is first and
“Through 2023, 90% of DevOps foremost, serving as enablers to sharing, and this motivation
sets up the underlying premise for collaboration.
initiatives will fail to fully ORGANISATIONS UNDERSTAND THE INTENT
meet expectations due to OF DEVOPS TOOLS. THEY USE OR IMPLEMENT
TOOLS TO FOSTER CLOSER COLLABORATION.
the limitations of leadership
45.4% Indifferent
approaches, not technical
27.2% Agree
reasons.” 24

5 reasons your DevOps initiative could fail, and how to avoid them
24 27.4% Disagree
Gartner
 23

DevOps is about sharing

Adoption should always start with education: raising awareness ORGANISATION UNITS SHARE A COMMON VISION AND
and learning the fundamental proposition of this practice. The
attitude of sharing is an aspect that eliminates hierarchies, THE RESPONSIBILITIES TOWARDS ACHIEVING IT.
fosters mutual respect, and delivers excellence.25 This is
however, not a common practice. 13.6%Agree
The factor to success lies simply in the principle of sharing:
86.4% Disagree

A study conducted in an unnamed financial organisation once revealed

Sharing of vision Sharing of Sharing of “how some employees are concerned with the sharing aspect of DevOps,
responsibilities information which require a high-level of openness. Developers are worried about the
increase in responsibilities, including being within reach when problems
While this can appear relatively straightforward, the practice of
occur.”26
sharing has its own fair share of challenges. Some established
working practices, as well as certain mindsets, are particularly DevOps stretches thinking beyond comfort zones. It not only introduces
resistant to change. cultural shift, but also structural changes across the organisation. Like all
preceding transformations that change the way things work, it can be a
relatively agonising process without proper execution.
Secrets to Collaboration in DevOps
25

DevOps.com
26
Evolution and Processes: A Qualitative Study of DevOps Usage in Practice
Journal of Software

ADOPTION PITFALLS
Non-linear transformation
Automation helps low
performers progress
to medium performers
Teams begin
transformation and
identify quick wins
Accelerate: State of DevOps, Strategies for a New Economy
27
DORA 2018
State of DevOps Report
28
DORA 2017
Automation increases test
requirements, which are
dealt with manually. A
mountain of technical debt
blocks progress
Technical debt and
increased complexity
cause additional manual
controls and layers
of process around
changes, slowing work
Relentless improvement works leads to
excellence and high performance! High
and elite performers leverage expertise
and learn from their environments to see
jumps in productivity
24
DevOps transformation is an enlightening experience, as it serves as
a learning journey for organisations to root out dated mindsets and
misguided practices in software delivery. The initial stages, however, are
often filled with challenges and uncertainties.
A typical J-curve of transformation illustrates the experience and various
stages an organisation goes through during adoption.27 A few quick wins
at the beginning will throttle a euphoric experience, as teams begin to
see tangible progress as automation is put in place and silo breakdowns
open up the possibility of closer collaboration.
This progress is met by a sharp dip immediately after, when
technical debt and backlog mount as automation often increases test
requirements. During transition, some work will still need to be done
manually or will require manual intervention. This causes sloppy work-
arounds to adapt processes while a solution is in development, resulting
in longer albeit temporary and often frustrating workflows.28
This experience should be expected, as teams find ways to course
correct, challenge assumptions, and make improvements to their end-
to-end workflow.
While planning and strategy could alleviate some of these struggles,
perseverance is ultimately the key to overcoming them.
 25

Automation without
refining processes
Automation is a core practice in DevOps and it focuses on optimising
flow instead of individual processes. This involves evaluating your
team’s practices and procedures.
When layers of tools are clumsily put together and automation is
simply forced upon existing processes that do not make sense,
it results in a bundle of systems that are neither streamlined nor
efficient, and makes collaboration worse.

“To accomplish this goal, the business

will have to let go of some of the ways
that they do things today. They will have
to re-engineer processes to be more
compose-able and componentized so
that they are less static.”29
29
Being Agile Is All About Controlling The Flow
DevOps.com
 26

Lack of proper motivation

& support structure
It is common to initiate transformation from a single project as a POC or
ORGANISATIONS UNDERSTAND THAT DEVOPS
through Open Innovation.
IS A CULTURAL METHODOLOGY AND STRIVE TO
The rationale for this practice is to minimise risks and ascertain the
WORK COLLABORATIVELY. immediate effects of automation. However, there are associated risks,
such as executing the “tools-first” strategy. This consequently leads
people to think that tools can change mindsets.
54.6%Disagree Without a proper support structure, projects usually do not have
enough mandate, or in some cases, cooperation from other
collaborators to actually make meaningful progress. There is little
governance or drive in the project when it is expected to both deliver its
45.4% Agree backlog and somehow demonstrate the implementation of DevOps. It
usually ends up as no more than an unnecessary distraction.
“The fastest way to succeed is to double your
failure rate.”
- Thomas Watson Snr., Head of IBM
 28

TRANSFORMATION MEANS
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENTS
ORGANISATIONS HAVE A SYSTEMATIC AND Combined with the right environment, organisations can accelerate
transformation rapidly. DevOps encourages people to iteratively try
CONSTRUCTIVE WAY TO DEAL WITH MISTAKES new ways to improve their current system. Experimentation is risky and
AND TO LEARN FROM IT. that means mistakes are bound to happen, but they can also be turned
into valuable lessons. A safe culture means providing the bedrock for
31.8%Neutral positive change to happen.
Organisations with low tolerance towards mistakes or do not have a
constructive method to deal with them often struggle with change and
18.1% Yes innovation.

“They should insist that their organisations

50.1% No
develop a clear understanding of what
happened—not of “who did it”—when
things go wrong. This requires consistently
reporting failures, small and large;
systematically analysing them; and
proactively searching for opportunities to
Strategies for Learning From Failure,
30

Harvard Business Review

experiment.”30
29

CATALYSING AND SUSTAINING

TRANSFORMATION

The pillars of
transformation
To change an organisation from one that is only concerned
with its bottom line into one that is respected for its
innovation, thought leadership, and ability to disrupt the
industry, it is important to establish a strong foundation in
culture and mindset. To achieve excellence, the principles
must first proliferate across all levels of the organisation.
This change fundamentally encompasses the people,
technology, and practices within the business, forming the
basis of our DevOps Transformation Framework.
 30

1 2 3
Framework lays out the foundation that An ecosystem of automated self- The organisation establishes a safe culture
aims to nurture a growth mindset and service systems facilitate workflows, for transformation to flourish. Teams are
solidify the understanding of DevOps and encourage the use and sharing guided by a long term vision advocating
principles and practices. of tools to promote collaboration. creativity and self-driven initiatives.

TRAINING & COACHING PRINCIPLES

• Coaching and mentoring leaders and teams • Agile and Lean principles
• Workshops (vision, alignment, value stream) • DevOps principles
• Certified trainings • DevOps key practices

PEOPLE TECHNOLOGY PRACTICES

PLATFORM CULTURE & MINDSET

• Enterprise platform and tools • Create a safe, innovative environment
• Self-service infra and workflows • Empower teams to self-organise
• Easy to use and automated • Inspire fully shared responsibilities
CONTINUOUS &
• Secure and robust • Work across silos to achieve strategic alignment
ITERATIVE IMPROVEMENT
 31

ESTABLISH A COE TO
SUSTAIN MOMENTUM Structured vs
Anti Patterns
1 1
The establishment of a Centre of Excellence (COE) is a Advocates DevOps Advocates
common practice to catalyse change in an organisation. It practices and DevOps, but has
serves as an important entity to facilitate change through provide metrics for no metrics to
leadership, best practices, research, and training in an success criteria measure success
area of interest.31

A COE can be a focal point and useful accelerator for

2 CENTRE OF
2
DevOps transformation, some establishments with
certain characteristics can be ineffective. A DevOps COE
Provides tools, EXCELLENCE Acts as a silo,
trainings and becoming a
that serves as an enabler for transformation cannot just enable teams to be (COE) bottleneck to
simply be an advocator. self-sufficient teams dependant
on them

3 3
Shares equal Behaves as
responsibility separate entity
with teams on the pursuing
success of DevOps independent
Establishing a Center of Excellence to Scale and Sustain Open Innovation,
31

Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard

adoption agenda and
roadmap
 32

Key recommendations
2
Create awareness and provide leadership to
To sustain transformation, a dedicated, transparent, support the movement or initiatives
proactive, and consistent champion is needed. Our
research highlights the most important goals to consider
when designing a DevOps COE:

1. Establish and share precise vision, strategic

orientation, and success metrics
5
2. Create awareness and provide leadership to support Define best practices and security policies
the movement or initiatives TOP 3 FROM
3. Mediate conflict between innovation and core business PALO IT
CONSULTANTS

4. Develop expertise and standards

5. Define best practices and security policies
6. Explore and incubate new competency (R&D) 1
7. Offer tools, tutorials, and training with the purpose of
Establish and share precise vision, strategic
enabling teams to be self-sufficient
orientation, and success metrics
8. Avoid implementing narrow policies that stifle
innovation and creativity
 33

To facilitate teams by helping them learn, grow, and adapt to new

changes, a COE plays a pivotal role in convincing people within the
organisation to cast aside outdated methodologies by showing:

1. Pragmatic alternatives
2. How to achieve them
3. Immediate and long term benefits of adopting change

With guided learning and a basis to transform, a proof of concept

on a project backed by a COE can sustain more consistently and
progress further.
“Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy.”
- Jim Rohn, Entrepreneur and motivational speaker
 35

NAVIGATING THE CHALLENGES

OF TRANSFORMATION

Organisations that are taking their first steps towards embracing

change face an immediate and apparent ripple effect.

By employing a pragmatic approach, we can navigate and overcome

prevalent blockers to maintain steady progress.

1. Be ready for internal resistance

2. Equip workforce with the right skills

3. Be mindful when using Cloud

4. Deliver quickly but with confidence

5. Coach more, restrict less

6. Focus on flow, not individual processes


Be Ready For Internal
Resistance
1. Be specific and precise on vision
and roadmap
2. Provide literature review to cite
success in the industries and conduct
benchmarks against them
3. Collaborate with business functions
to advocate value proposition
4. Provide workshops and trainings to
establish common understanding
Focus on Flow, Not Individual
Processes
1. Your workflow is as fast as its
slowest point
2. Fighting the symptoms of slowness
by increasing manpower resources
may not necessarily help
3. Where workflows cannot be
automated, they must be equipped
to notify, escalate and supply precise
information to hasten the recovery
process
36
Equip Worforce With The Right
Skills
1. COE needs to work in tandem with
HR to identify relevant and necessary
skills sets
2. HR needs to identify talent
strategies and training plans to
upgrade existing workforce to foster
innovation
3. HR could find and recruit new
talents
Coach More, Restrict Less
1. Focus on doing things "the right
way". Remove security theater and
blind policing
2. Setup a learning campus to instill a
culture of continuous learning
3. Promote awareness to best
practices through trainings and
workshops
4. Use routine surveys to help
perceive the efficiency of organisation
workflows
Be Mindful When Using Cloud
1. Use Cloud as an extension or
overflow from an already existing data
centre
2. Hybrid setup gives the benefits of
running your own data centre and the
flexibility to use on-demand resources
to cope with abrupt or unanticipated
pressure
Deliver Quickly But On
Confidence
1. Continuous delivery without
accurate means to measure quality
increases business risks
2. Bring forward test planning and
strategies
 37

BE READY FOR INTERNAL

RESISTANCE A CLIMATE OF FEAR
Creating a Culture of Digital Transformation
Microsoft

By introducing new concepts, organisations need to be ready for

internal resistance. Innovation programs will start disrupting the Changes in tasks creates
norm and people may find this intrusive and react defensively. anxiety amongst employees

Critical to managing this is effective communication.

A COE should:
Employees express fear of
1. Be specific and precise on vision and roadmap change when we introduce
digital transformation
2. Provide literature review to cite success in various industries
initiatives
and conduct benchmarks against them

3. Collaborate with business functions to advocate value

proposition Where tasks are being
automated, employees are
4. Provide workshops and trainings to establish common concerned about job security
understanding
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Strongly agree Disagree

Agree Strongly disagree
Neither agree nor disagree Don't know
 38

EQUIP WORKFORCE WITH THE

RIGHT SKILLS

Building a platform to support innovation is not just a matter of

buying and installing new technology. People must be reskilled or
up-skilled to engineer and manage frameworks in a performant,
secure, and effective way.

To achieve this:
1. A COE needs to work in tandem with HR to identify relevant
and necessary skill sets
2. HR needs to identify talent strategies and training plans to
upgrade existing workforce
3. HR could find and recruit new talents
 39

BE MINDFUL WHEN USING

CLOUD

DevOps workflow focuses on speed and quality. This leads to an
increase in demand for infrastructure efficiency and availability
at a lower cost, primarily as a result of automation and testing.
The reactionary, knee-jerk course of action to this upsurge is for
organisations to start migrating everything into Cloud.
A better approach would be to use Cloud as an extension or
overflow from an already existing data centre. A hybrid setup
allows the use of additional Cloud resources as and when only
necessary.

As a result, organisations can enjoy the benefits of running

While it is true that DevOps can benefit from Cloud’s on-demand their own data centre, while having the flexibility to tap into on-
resource, adoption does not necessarily entail Cloud migration. demand resources when faced with abrupt or unanticipated
It is unwise to start shifting the entire enterprise to Cloud (which pressure.
is simply another data centre, albeit with almost unlimited
resources) and tearing down an established one. By itself, Cloud
migration is a complex and lengthy exercise.
 40

DELIVER QUICKLY BUT

WITH CONFIDENCE

Continuous delivery without accurate means to measure quality
increases business risks, while casting doubt and sundering
confidence at the same time.
“Given that most firms, even the ones following continuous
testing best practices, admit that their software testing processes
have risk gaps and do not always give accurate measures
of business risk, it stands to reason that the 80% who say
they always or often deliver within acceptable risk may be
overestimating their capabilities.”32
This underscores the urgency to focus and invest in automated
testing, as it is crucial to continuous delivery. Test planning and
strategies should be brought forward and be involved during
the early stages of software development. Underestimating test
infrastructure capacities can also cause poor executions and
congestions that often erode both the speed and quality of your
deliverables.

32
The Definitive Software Quality Metrics For Agile + DevOps
Forrester Research
 41
COACH MORE, RESTRICT LESS
DevOps is built on the foundation of trust, continuous learning,
and collaboration. The purpose of a COE is to deliver with
excellence and to unify silos under an equal banner.
However, workflows that are too restrictive can upset the
improvement of system flow. While certain security measures
are put in place for good reason, some restrictions simply act
as security theatre - defined as “the practice of investing in
countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved
security while doing little or nothing to achieve it.”33
Security Theater
33
Wikipedia
We experienced a familiar practice where a long list of approvers
was mandatory for even the most common and routine
requests. Despite having this in place, requests were blindly
approved and justifications were not properly validated. It was
neither foolproof nor effective, and did little but elongate a
process.
Blind policing is inefficient and instead, people should be
coached to do things the “correct way.”
1. Set up up a learning campus to instill a culture of continuous
learning
2. Generate awareness of best practices through trainings and
workshops
3. Use routine surveys to help perceive the efficiency of
organisational workflows
 42
FOCUS ON FLOW,
NOT INDIVIDUAL PROCESSES
Your workflow is as fast as its slowest point.
Although some bottlenecks are caused by a limit in capacity, not
all teams experience the same issue. Fighting the symptoms of
sluggishness by increasing manpower resources should not be
the blanket solution.
Improving flow requires time and effort, as well as analysing,
planning, and simplifying processes. Using pre-emptive
measures to establish a flow that grants some form of control
can also be beneficial. These measures are not necessarily
technical in nature, and can be methodological, such as Agile/
Lean Management or the practice of Scrum/Kanban in teams.
In addition, an often neglected practice in the industry is the
lack of automated recovery systems, where automation is
designed to deliver only one-way - from code to production
environments. But when problems occur, teams fall back on to
manual intervention and slow recovery activities, thereby causing
blockers that may cascade to other workflows.
In reality, not all workflows can be fully automated. But when
it is absolutely necessary to mediate the situation manually,
processes must be equipped with the ability to:
1. Quickly notify or activate relevant support teams
2. Escalate workflows that are blocked to maintain progress
3. Supplement precise information to hasten the recovery
process and keep downtime minimal
Focus on achieving this with teamwork, implementing robust
policies, and modernising notification systems and logging
mechanisms.
 43

DEVOPS ADOPTION FORECAST

SOFTWARE TIME SPENT COLLABORATION WORKFLOWS ENTERPRISE CONTINUOUS

RELEASE SYSTEMS IMPROVEMENTS

Long cycles Re-work, customer Siloed units Individual and Bottlenecks and Climate of fear
(3-6 months) support (+20%) disconnected dependencies when making
processes mistakes

Short cycles (on- Re-work, customer Fully shared Optimised overall Automated Safe culture,
demand - weekly) support (<15%) responsibilities flow and self-service systematic learning
Innovate, design systems
and create value
(30%-50%)
44

An organisation’s innovation potential is influenced by its

ability to develop and deliver quickly. While DevOps adoption
has increased significantly in recent years, it is important for
organisations to remain vigilant on the common pitfalls and we
have identified cultural and misguided practices as dominant
obstacles.

Our approach and strategies, when coupled with the

right motivation, can play a pivotal role in accelerating
transformation by establishing a solid foundation necessary to
catalyse and sustain change.

Organisations will observe smoother transition in various

stages of their transformative journey and see the tangible
outcomes from DevOps practices, leading to better alignment
with business vision, closer collaboration, shorter release
cycles, and a culture of continuous learning.

Perseverance is the key to success in a transformative journey

that seeks to improve an organisation’s end-to-end workflow,
and to position it as an industry leader known for thought
leadership and strong innovation capabilities.
 45

ABOUT OUR DEVOPS ABOUT PALO IT

FRAMEWORK
DevOps provides practices which bring PALO IT is an award-winning international
traditionally separated silos together: consultancy specialised in Human-
development and operations, to improve Centered Design, Agile Software
agility, speed up time-to-market, and Development, and in the transformation
reduce cost. of forward-thinking companies.

PALO IT’s team of DevOps consultants Our end-to-end approach takes the
can help organisations to assess best out of Design Thinking, Agile,
their maturity of practice, identify and DevOps to help clients disrupt
implementation gaps, and provide their industries, reduce their time-to-
expertise to align transformation goals market, and successfully run their digital
and accelerate adoption rate. transformations.

For more information, visit

https://www.palo-it.com
Copyright © 2019 PALO IT. All rights reserved.
PALO IT, its logo, and the contents of this paper are trademarks of PALO IT.
 46

THE AUTHOR
HONG HUEI TAY
DevOps and Cloud Lead

Hong Huei has over 15 years of diverse experience across enterprise systems, Cloud & container architectures, IoT tech., mobile
platforms, AR/VR applications and gaming. He considers himself a software generalist and is convinced DevOps should be a part of
every organisation's playbook. He is also a co-author of multiple ACM and IEEE publications.

EDITED BY DESIGNED BY
MOSES XIAO GREGOIRE BONNIN
Content Strategist Marketing & Design
Specialist

SPECIAL THANKS
DIMITRI BAIKRICH CHRIS CHAN JELINE LIM
CTO Creative Lead Design Lead

For more information, visit

https://www.palo-it.com
Copyright © 2019 PALO IT. All rights reserved.
PALO IT, its logo, and the contents of this paper are trademarks of PALO IT.