When starting a DevOps adventure, we believe that preparing and having a business case is a key element. When you have no business case forget it. And when you have a business case, make sure you have management support and take care of the (human) change management.
Business case
It is always important to start with an Architectural point of view. TOGAF is a good example of a sound framework that can be used to define your business case and do the follow-up. In what TOGAF calls the Architecture Vision (contains the Value Proposition and KPI’s) we see following:
- Develop the business case for the architectures and changes required
- Produce the value proposition for each of the stakeholder groupings
- Assess and define the procurement requirements
- Review and agree the value propositions with the sponsors and stakeholders concerned
- Define the performance metrics and measures to be built into the enterprise architecture to meet the business needs
- Assess the business risk
Key for me are the value proposition for each stakeholder and the sponsor commitment.
Management support
When starting a huge change like a DevOps implementation it is key to have management support and sponsorship. All stakeholders should recognize the value, but knowing that management understands the value and is supporting the project is key. It is more than a critical success factor.
Change Management
Finally we are all humans and change hurts! Also a large bunch of mainframe developers already had a long career and know the current tooling and processes by heart. They can dream them.
It is normal there will be resistance. But when you know it, take care of it and give the people time.
Continue reading in our next post: The key elements of DevOps
About the author
Hello, my name is René De Vleeschauwer.
Throughout my career I've been responsible for the development of enterprise software. Since 12 years I've been leading the development of IKAN ALM, an open DevOps framework.