DevOps culture is all about speed, innovation and collaboration. When IT companies can break down silos and help teams to work together more cohesively, it adds value to the workers, the customers, and the business.
If part of your DevOps strategy is to utilize on-demand tech talent, look into Fiverr Enterprise, a Freelancer Management System (FMS) that supports your journey from sourcing and hiring to management and payments.
Keep reading to understand the main characteristics of DevOps culture, and some challenges to avoid as you transform your own IT organization for the better.
This article is part of our guide on talent management.
What Is DevOps Culture?
More than just integrating Development and Operations teams, DevOps culture is about the mindset behind the change. When DevOps is working well, there are key cultural components to the shift which contribute to its success. Here are some of the most common beliefs behind a strong DevOps culture:
- Change is good: Deep in the DevOps mindset is the idea that what got you here won’t get you there. While you may have seen success with the processes, systems and tools you’ve been using so far – that shouldn’t stop you moving onto the next.
- Embrace failure: Getting it wrong just means you know what doesn’t work. If something is going in the wrong direction, think about the Agile methodology of failing fast, and move onto the next. Failure is part of learning.
- Accountability: Taking responsibility over your portion of the product or service is really important in a DevOps culture. This helps to reduce bottlenecks, encourage ownership, and break down the work into modular parts to see value faster.
- Innovation is key: In a DevOps culture, team members are always thinking about how to do things differently and in an out of the box way. It’s not just about moving faster or improving design, it’s about finding user challenges and solving them.
- Collaborate in everything: DevOps culture is breaking down silos between teams. Of course that means Development and Operations, but it can also mean creating squads with Security. QA, testing, and more. As a team, there is more communication and less bottlenecks.
- Use tools where you can: Automating manual or repetitive tasks is an important part of a DevOps culture, as well as continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. Where possible, use technology or tools to improve and optimize processes.
What Are the Benefits of DevOps Culture?
When your team embraces DevOps culture, there are benefits for all stakeholders. To start with, team members see enhanced collaboration and communication, leading to more effective problem solving and a cohesive work environment between development, operations and security teams.
For decision-makers, choosing to adopt a DevOps culture often leads to a faster time to market with new products and features, because workflows are streamlined and manual tasks tend to be automated. As CI/CD pipelines increase the frequency and reliability of deployments, customers are served faster and organizations can use speed to market as a competitive advantage. At the same time, DevOps encourages cost-efficiency with the automation of routine tasks and optimized resources across teams, while freeing up time for workers to be more creative.
Most DevOps teams also enjoy fewer errors and increased quality of their work, due to automating the testing and deployment which detects issues far earlier in the build cycle. By leaning on the right tools and technology, there is usually a more efficient use of resources, and more flexibility and scalability than those teams who work in a more traditional way.
Common Pitfalls in Transforming DevOps Culture
One of the most common challenges when looking to transform your business with a DevOps culture is getting the right people on board. DevOps relies on small teams that have all the necessary skills in place, and depending on the project at hand – skills can be hard to come by.
Many companies struggle with teams who have insufficient training or skills, leading to gaps in innovation or sub-par products making it all the way to production. Without the right people in place, teams can feel like they are responsible for too many areas of the project, leading to overwork, burnout, or blurred roles and autonomy.
These challenges are particularly noticeable in DevOps, where there are so many different kinds of niche skills and expertise needed to meet specific client and business needs.
Best Practices for Transitioning to DevOps Culture with On-Demand Tech Talent
One smart approach to meeting the skills gap head-on is to leverage on-demand talent and freelance workers. This can be a great alternative to hiring in-house employees who you may not need for every project, and spending weeks or months onboarding new hires when an emergent need is around the corner.
Utilizing on-demand talent is a great way to get into the mindset of having a DevOps culture in the first place. It’s an innovative solution that thinks outside of the box, it leans on collaboration, embracing the right skills and talent to increase speed and value, and each freelancer can take accountability and control over their part of the project, while working alongside your in-house team.
If you’re wondering where to find on-demand tech talent for a DevOps team, here’s where picking the right tools comes into play. Fiverr Enterprise provides an IT talent pool, curated especially for you – one place where you can gain instant access to your own carefully vetted Dev & IT talent, that’s ready-to-hire and able to meet your business requirements.
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Ready to embrace change in your organization and add on-demand tech talent to your DevOps teams? Speak to one of our workforce experts about scheduling a 30-minute demo of Fiverr Enterprise.