The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations

by Gene Kim

Respond to the rapidly changing competitive landscape Provide stable, reliable, and secure service to the customer Frequently, Development will take responsibility for responding to changes in the market, deploying features and changes into production as quickly as possible. IT Operations will take responsibility for providing customers with IT service that is stable, reliable, and secure, making it difficult or even impossible for anyone to introduce production changes that could jeopardize production. Configured this way, Development and IT Operations have diametrically opposed goals and incentives. Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, one of the founders of the manufacturing management movement, called these types of configuration “the core, chronic conflict”—when organizational measurements and incentives across different silos prevent the achievement of global, organizational goals.‡ This conflict creates a downward spiral so powerful it prevents the achievement of desired business outcomes, both inside and outside the IT organization. These chronic conflicts often put technology workers into situations that lead to poor software and service quality, and bad customer outcomes, as well as a daily need for workarounds, firefighting, and heroics, whether in Product Management, Development, QA, IT Operations, or Information Security.