Over the past years, DevOps was effectively replacing ITIL in terms of operations management. Last week, we’ve discussed the new trends in IT operations management. Now, as a continuation, we present you 6 main steps that will help you identify and prioritize DevOps initiatives in an ITIL ruled enterprise.
1. List out your most used ITIL processes
Usually, companies have a lot of ITIL processed, and it’s important to define how each one of them should work in your company. However, that’s not enough. You have to go deeper and choose the three that are the most used (most instances per week), that involve the most teams (cross functional) and whose failure could cause the highest impact in terms of money and resources.
2. Gather representatives from each relevant team to review them
Even though more meetings might seem redundant, this one is very important. You could organize weekly workshops, with a set time. The important thing is to get the representatives from each relevant team to review the processes.
3. Identify the points in each process where things break down
This one is pretty simple. Just answer these three important questions: Where is time wasted? Where are the handovers? What costs the business the most money when things go wrong?
4. Determine how improved collaboration or automation could help
One of the key steps is to stop thinking about DevOps as a high level concept or methodology and focus on what it really means – collaboration and automation. Could automated testing be applied where the same errors are being introduced constantly? Should operations staff be introduced earlier than release night to the SDLC? Can we use Continuous Delivery? Can we do Build Automation?
5. Prioritize based on effort and reward
Getting developers and operations staff working in perfect harmony may not be easy but getting them talking is the key step, and can have immediate impact if done right. This is not an exact science but do your best to list each DevOps opportunity and prioritize them in terms of likely ROI.
6. Don’t over think it!
Once you have a prioritized list of DevOps initiatives, make sure you treat them like you’d treat any other work, and don’t forget about them. You have to learn what works for your company, and you will never do until you get started. And don’t forget to request input from each team, right from the start.
Finally, what we have to keep in mind is that DevOps provides the procedures that make ITIL effective and practical. The ITIL framework provides excellent guidance on IT service management, and it includes guidance for processes across the release control and validation lifecycle. With the right tools and processes, businesses can better understand the important value of reliable IT services that help facilitate the business and that improve quality and productivity.
Next steps
A successful company can never stay behind. Contact us here to get your enterprise to the next level of IT operations management. And if you want to know more about the new trend, check out our Introduction to DevOps prepared by our expert.
