5 key organizational models for DevOps teams GitLab


Different teams аre resроnsible fоr hоw vаriоus рrосesses wоrk in  а firm. When develорers аnd орerаtоrs wоrk tоgether, the functioning of а соmраny improves. Adopting DevOps and hiring DevOps experts or an agency following DevOps structure саn turn оut tо be vаluаble fоr а business to imрlement it wisely. DevOps implementation is beneficial because of its increased speed and agility when deploying new functionality. However, this also means monitoring becomes more crucial than ever from an operations standpoint. Identify potential risks coming out of each stage (not just during development) to determine its readiness.

devops org structure

As DevOps is started up as a pilot program, a DevOps team forms to learn the new tools and technologies and then begin implementation. Then they become their own silo, making sure the uneducated masses don’t spoil their new utopia. Bringing DevOps to an organization means making some changes to the culture and structure of teams and the organization. These changes are often disruptive and frequently meet with some resistance from leadership, teams, and individuals. We have a reliability group that manages uptime and reliability for GitLab.com, a quality department, and a distribution team, just to name a few.

Steps for Building a Successful DevOps Team Structure

Cox Automotive wanted to build a DevOps team that encouraged both the creation and consumption of reusable assets––enabling the growing number of acquired companies to leverage assets effectively and securely. The idea is that each tier of teams has a constant “Ideate-Build-Run” process for their area of DevOps. DEV Community — A constructive and inclusive social network for software developers. Hold regular retrospective meetings within each team that gives members an opportunity to express their opinion on how things have gone and how they would like to do things moving into the future. Take advantage of the fluid nature of DevOps and Agile by encouraging experimentation and embracing a fast rate of change. Avoid becoming married to set systems and protocol because not every solution will work for your teams or your organization.

  • Security is built into the product by integrating active security audits and security testing into agile development and DevOps workflows.
  • It’s a new way of working, a cultural shift, that has significant implications for teams and the organizations they work for.
  • As an enabling team, the goal is to give the knowledge to teams, not to dictate what they do with it.
  • Additionally, we highlighted the “Spotify Model” as a successful case study that demonstrates the power of cross-functional teams in fostering collaboration, autonomy, and a shared sense of purpose.
  • While there are multiple ways to do DevOps, there are also plenty of ways to not do it.

Ideally, team members have shared goals and values, collaborate continuously, and have unified processes and tooling. They are responsible for the entire lifecycle of the product, from gathering requirements, to building and testing the software, to delivering it into production, and monitoring and maintaining the software in production. In conclusion, the DevOps revolution has the potential to redefine software delivery and collaboration, offering a pathway toward greater efficiency, speed, and quality in an ever-evolving technological landscape.

key organizational models for DevOps teams

The roles and responsibilities within a DevOps team are crucial to its success. It is essential for each team member to understand their role and work collaboratively to achieve the desired outcomes. By clearly defining these roles and responsibilities, organizations can build a strong DevOps culture that supports continuous integration, delivery, and improvement – all of which are key factors in the DevOps revolution.

devops org structure

By adopting these strategies and maintaining a relentless focus on improvement, organizations can fully realize the benefits of DevOps, leading to enhanced collaboration, rapid delivery, and superior software quality. In order to create a successful cross-functional team, consider including representatives from development, operations, QA, security, and product management. By having diverse perspectives, your team will be better equipped to make informed decisions and drive continuous improvement. The ultimate goal of implementing DevOps is to scale these practices across the entire organization. This section will delve into strategies and best practices for expanding DevOps throughout the organization, fostering a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement, and rapid delivery. Once the DevOps roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, organizations can move toward implementing DevOps teams.

Complicated-subsystem team

By gathering continuous feedback, teams can improve their processes and incorporate customer feedback to improve the next release. If you want to apply these organizational structure ideas to your own teams, I’d be glad to send you an example Excel file that you can use to organize your data and then upload to an org chart software like OrgWeaver. Just send an email to nick [at] orgweaver [dotcom] with the subject “Dev Ops org chart template”. Scaling DevOps effectively requires a strong emphasis on collaboration and knowledge sharing. This can be facilitated through regular meetings, workshops, or internal conferences that bring teams together to discuss challenges, share successes, and learn from each other.

By the end of this post, readers will have gained a deep understanding of DevOps culture and its impact on organizational structure. They will be well-equipped with strategies for building a DevOps culture, breaking down silos, defining roles and responsibilities, implementing DevOps teams, and scaling DevOps across the organization. Through the insights and case studies presented in this post, readers will appreciate the transformative power of DevOps, enabling them to drive innovation and collaboration in their own organizations. The DevOps revolution has the potential to redefine software delivery and collaboration, offering a pathway toward greater efficiency, speed, and quality in an ever-evolving technological landscape.

Advance DevOps with communication and collaboration

As you move forward, remember that DevOps is not just about tools and processes; it’s about fostering a culture of continuous learning, experimentation, and collaboration. DevOps, a term coined by Patrick Debois and Andrew Shafer in 2008, has become a significant force in transforming how organizations build, deploy, and maintain software applications. This approach combines development and operations teams’ expertise, enabling a more efficient and collaborative working environment. This cultural shift has redefined the landscape of software development, leading to the rapid delivery of high-quality software products. A successful DevOps team is cross-functional, with members that represent the business, development, quality assurance, operations, and anyone else involved in delivering the software.

Stream-aligned teams are under constant pressure to deliver and respond to change quickly, making it challenging to find time for researching, learning, and practicing new skills. A complicated-subsystem team is responsible for building and maintaining a part of the system that depends on specific skills and knowledge. Most team members must be specialists in a particular area of knowledge to devops organization structure understand and make changes to the subsystem. Steve Fenton is an Octonaut at Octopus Deploy and a six-time Microsoft MVP with more than two decades of experience in software delivery. They protect the autonomy of stream-aligned teams by helping increase skills and install new technology. As an enabling team, the goal is to give the knowledge to teams, not to dictate what they do with it.

Beautifying our UI: Giving GitLab build features a fresh look

It follows a continuous delivery pipeline, where automated builds, tests, and deployments are orchestrated as one release workflow. A DevOps team includes developers and IT operations working collaboratively throughout the product lifecycle, in order to increase the speed and quality of software deployment. It’s a new way of working, a cultural shift, that has significant implications for teams and the organizations they work for. The term DevOps, a combination of the words development and operations, reflects the process of integrating these disciplines into one, continuous process. Continuing to scale DevOps across the organization involves promoting a DevOps mindset, establishing a DevOps leadership team, creating a DevOps community, and measuring success to demonstrate value.

devops org structure

If the goal of the DevOps team is to make itself obsolete by bringing the other teams together then they can be effective as evangelists and coaches. Have a process for monitoring security, metrics, and everything in between. Start with the basic goals, add in wish list items, and write it all out attaching a timeframe as needed. The map should include a list of action items broken down by priority and who is responsible for completing each step. Finally, keep a keen eye on costs and understand how the outsourcer will charge for its services.

Software to support your team

This team structure assumes that development and operations sit together and operate on a singular team – acting as a united front with shared goals. Occasionally called “NoOps”, this is commonly seen in technology companies with a single, primary digital product, like Facebook or Netflix. This can even take the form of “you build it, you run it”, with the same individuals developing and operating applications. Both DevOps and SRE use automation to improve workflows and service delivery.

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Posted: Tue, 03 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]


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