💃 Not Another DevOps Article🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds! DevOps has become a trending topic over the last few years. Up and down all organizations - from the dev team to the C-level - it's a conversation being had seemingly everywhere! Although there is still some back and forth over what it is and isn't, there is no doubt that it has raised the level of discussion around dev processes and the impact they have on organizations. Today the 💃 ChaCha 🕺 gives our perspective on DevOps!

Agenda for today includes

• Foundations

• Sooner, Safer, Happier

• Daily Principle

• All the Memes

Foundations

Before we get going let's level-set on what DevOps even is. We're talking about more than just tooling here. But rather, the core concept is all about the people that develop/maintain technical solutions and the processes they follow to get this done effectively.

Traditionally, in an enterprise setting, DevOps was a set of principles followed by cross functional teams (dev, tech ops, etc.) to manage change within their systems. Devs would responsible for introducing new functionality to the system while tech ops would be responsible for maintaining the reliability of the system. This wasn't always smooth - just think about how easy it is for those goals to be in conflict. 💥 Teams were forced to find a solution. Behold, the rise of DevOps!

We're lucky imo - ☁️ Salesforce effectively takes over the tech ops side for us. SaaS systems like Salesforce handle the stuff a tech ops team would traditional handle. Things like Servers, Networking, Storage, etc., etc.. This frees us up to stay focused on introducing new features instead of arguing with Mike, the Sys Admin, about when or how to promote changes. Remember his job is to ensure the system as is stable, yours is constantly update it!

Sooner, Safer, Happier

Jonathan Smart, a business agility practitioner, thought leader, and coach has literally wrote the book on elegant DevOps practices call "Sooner, Safer, Happier".

In it, he lays out his arguments to optimizing your teams agile processes. "Don't focus on an Agile/Lean/DevOps transformation. Instead, focus on the outcomes you want to achieve. Then you will achieve agility. Focus on better value - Sooner, Safe, Happier."

Let's check it out.

🕒 Sooner

Teams that understand how to get value into their system with a better flow and less lead-time win the day! The longer your users have to wait for things they've asked for the less important it becomes to them. Also, the more time it takes a feature to get in the hands of users the more likely you to forget details. Don't think about working fast here, think about working efficiently.

Implementing DevOps tools & process that allows for devs & admins alike to promote functionality with ease - like CI/CD with Gearset - will most definitely help you deliver sooner!

☔ Safer

Just like with vehicles - speed only matters if you arrive safely. Being able to release features that work well and don't break other things is the name of the game. Keep in mind, this implies we're testing thoroughly. Unit testing, regression testing, integration testing, user acceptance testing, ALL THE TESTING!

Adhering to a solid DevOps strategy will include automation for your testing (potentially at multiple gates) to help with this. Tested code is safe code. Safe code will minimize downtime for your company.

🤗 Happier

Focusing on continuous improvement of the developer experience AND user experience is a primary goal of a mature DevOps strategy. The idea is that the processes and interactions between teams should be increasingly positive and provide the fastest feedback loop possible for everyone involved. These are the teams that SLAAAAAAAY.

Fast resolutions of issues (sooner) + minimized downtime (safer) = HAPPY teams.

Daily Principle

and now....Your Daily Memes