May 2020

DevOps Institute
DevOps Journey SKILbook

Vision:
Adopt DevOps at the
Pace of Your Business

By Jean-Pierre Garbani, DevOps Institute,

with Eveline Oehrlich, DevOps Institute
and Karen Skiles, DevOps Institute

JP Garbani Eveline Oehrlich

 Executive Summary
Over the past century GDP per capita has been grow-
ing exponentially in most parts of the developed
world. Technology and innovations in technology, by
speeding up the way information is collected, pro-
cessed, and distributed, have been the key ingredients
of this expansion. There is, however, a downside to
this rosy picture: the multiplication of the potential
solutions makes choices difficult, and what looks like
the right path may prove to be an impasse from which
it may be difficult to recover.

This report shows that selecting the right path is in

fact the result of an objective process and not the
consequence of a whim. By looking at how and why
innovation has been adopted in different walks of
life we can define selection criteria that improve our
chances to make the right and successful choices.
Innovation Gets Adopted
Leveraging Multiple Ingredients

Innovation is not simply a matter of developing a new idea or a new product. To be suc-
cessful, any novel idea must combine multiple ingredients: a smart phone, for example, is
actually the combination of powerful chips, specialized networks, multiple technologies
for an intuitive user interface and especially miniaturization of the whole package into
a pocket-sized device. This chapter will look at innovations and the key elements that
drove their success or failure. This will provide a guide to help make informed choices in
tools, processes and expertise needed to successfully undertake a DevOps journey. The
latest DevOps Institute survey shows that 52% of organizations consider it a challenge
equally spread across people, process, and technology1. (See Figure 1)

Figure 1:
Building a Case for DevOps​

PEOPLE

52% The DevOps

say PROCESS

Journey is Difficult

TECHNOLOGY

Source: 2020 Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps Skills Report, DevOps Institute

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Innovations uncover latent markets. Innovators create prod-
ucts or processes on faith. A quote attributed to Marcel
Proust, a French novelist, illustrates this point by noting that
the Beethoven quatuors created the audience of the Bee-
thoven quatuors. The success or failure of innovations is thus
dependent on whether or not an existing process is improved,
simplified or replaced by a new one. The key to market adop-
tion must then reside in a set of criteria that shows clearly the
advantages of the new solution.

Innovations need to prove their economic value. In 1974 Ro-

land Moreno patented the “smart card” idea. The Honeywell
Bull prototype reached maturity in 1978. It was initially in-
tended for potential markets such as credit cards and individ-
ual medical records, but failed to effectively enter these mar-
kets due to the limited capacity of the chip, which mandated
a frequent replacement of the cards, and the need to install
different card readers. The cost of making a special chip could
not compete with the low cost of magnetic stripe cards. To-
day, technology progress has made the smart card one of the
most adopted innovations: SIM cards for cell phones, credit
cards with sophisticated encryption, portable medical records,
all markets that were considered initially but not achieved be-
cause of the lack of initial economic viability. Eventually, Bull
sold all its smart card patents and never saw the success of its
innovation.

Innovations are the key part of the process, but they are not
the process. Gutenberg’s invention of the moving type is cer-
tainly one of the key innovations of the modern era. But while
it is the key ingredient in printing books, it is only a catalyst of
the whole new process that had to be created around it. That
process required what we could call “complementary inputs”
to be completed, such as a very specific form of ink, paper
and an adaptation of the presses that were commonly used in
wine making. Of course, humans had to put the whole thing
together, and that also required imagination, expertise and
skills as complementary inputs.

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 Innovations can be wrecked by vested interests. Commercial
aviation has been the lynchpin of domestic transport in most
countries. In France, it is still very much underdeveloped
compared to the ubiquitous TGV (High Speed Train), despite
the high cost of acquiring land and developing tracks able to
support it. The key is in the powerful lobby of the national
railway company and its support by powerful unions. Against
valid economic arguments, vested interest took precedence
over economic ones.

Innovation Adoption
Requires a Whole Process

From studying innovations in several domains, an obvious conclusion is that innovative

ideas or products are only catalysts that spark the development of new, innovative pro-
cesses. Process success is in turn determined by objective criteria.

First criterion: process improvements. Innovation must pres-

ent a legitimate, and objectively verifiable business, technical
or technological process advantage when compared to what
exists. Bull, for example, was able to demonstrate in 1984
that a Cray supercomputer could not crack the security of a
smart card in 24 hours while it could decode a magnetic stripe
in a matter of minutes.

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Second criterion: economic advantage. Economic advantage
means the cost of all the components, hardware, software,
and humans that are needed for implementing the process
that will yield the innovation’s benefits. Commercial aviation
could not exist without airports, reservations, and ticketing
systems, as well as a myriad of other components catering
to passengers and airplanes. All these “complementary in-
puts” are part of the cost of the overall process built around
the initial catalyst, which in this case is the commercial
airplane.

Third criterion: compatibility with vested interests. DevOps

as an innovative process involves multiple organizations
with different missions, expertise, skills, and established pro-
cesses. Choices have often been made in tools and method-
ologies based on what was perceived as the most effective
solution at the individual group level. With DevOps, these
groups have now to reconcile their initial vision with a global
end to end process, which implies changes and inter-group
communication on a level that did not exist before. Design-
ing a complete DevOps process needs to take these vested
interests into account to achieve success.

Fourth criterion: availability of complementary inputs. In-

novation in application software development, testing and
packaging is often the initial catalyst that sparks a DevOps
process initiative. On the Ops side, other sets of tools are
needed to prepare the infrastructure for the deployment of
these applications. To succeed, the innovation will have to
ensure that these tools form a seamless ensemble within
the DevOps process itself. As in many industrial enterprises,
the process must create a whole supply chain to achieve
success.

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Applying Innovation Criteria
to DevOps Choices

Many innovative processes derive empirically from a catalyst idea and add complemen-
tary inputs as the need arises. This ad-hoc approach is fraught with risks as many of
the choices made may prove to be inadequate or incompatible in the long run. A safer
approach would be to start with the process in mind, taking into consideration choices
already made, looking at the complementary inputs needed and eventually evaluating the
process and economic benefits.

Start with a vision, end with benefits. Applying the four

criteria of innovation success to DevOps is going to use a
different approach than evaluating the potential success of
a new product, simply because DevOps is, by its nature, al-
ready an innovative process rather than a single innovative
solution. Thus, the starting point is to consider the holistic
concept of DevOps and understand two major compo-
nents: The complementary inputs, that is the products and
additional processes needed to implement it, and the vest-
ed interest, that is what is in place and needs either to be
integrated or replaced when moving to DevOps. These two
criteria provide the basic framework of the DevOps pro-
cess as implemented in a specific case. From this point, it is
imperative to justify the process by evaluating the technical
advantages, such as speed and quality, and the economic
advantages by understanding all the costs vs. benefits of
moving from the existing state to a full DevOps implemen-
tation. (See Figure 2)

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Figure 2:
Building a Case for DevOps​

Source: DevOps Institute

Looking for a Renaissance person. This view of how to

approach DevOps requires particular talents. For half a
century in IT, development, testing and deployment/op-
erations have been kept as separate organizations, with
specific skills and missions1. DevOps brings these distinct
pieces into a continuum, which implies blurred boundaries
and a single, end to end, mission. To create such a process
requires knowledge and experience, not only of the tech-
nology at play, but also of the different groups themselves,
all within the specific cadre of an IT department serving
specific business needs. This requires a leadership that pos-
sesses a knowledge of the moving parts, a vision of what
the end result should be and has the capacity to rely on a
specialist when required. In short, a Renaissance Person.
(See Figure 3)

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Figure 3:
The Renaissance Person​

Breadth of Knowledge

Human Skills

Expertise Automation

Process & Framework Skills

Depth of Knowledge

Experience

Exploration Functional Skills

Execution Technical Skills

Source: DevOps Institute

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What This Means
DevOps is a Transformation Initiative
that will Deeply Impact an IT Organization

Transformation means changes need to be accepted for

the transformation to be successful. Innovation adoption
criteria offers a logical and complete construct that encom-
passes all aspects of the transformation and the benefits
that could be expected by all parties, from the business to
the IT organization groups.

Understand the four innovation criteria above to ensure

success from the start. The above criteria for documented
innovation successes provide a guide for how DevOps, or
any transformation process, should be evaluated.

Think holistically to achieve benefits. The criteria empha-

size a holistic approach in evaluating the whole process,
its components, and its supporting organization. This leads
to the organizational and economic benefits for IT and the
business it serves and eventually to a decision to move for-
ward with an implementation plan.

Ensure you are planning some upskilling. Using the innova-

tion success criteria epitomizes the need for what we call a
“Renaissance Person”: a person with a deep knowledge of
the IT organization and of the tools that it uses in order to
effectively build a vision of the future DevOps processes.

Move on to the implementation plan. The next step is to

create an implementation plan that describes the stages
through which human roles and expertise will be described,
the organization is defined, and technologies evaluated and
acquired.
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References
1 https://devopsinstitute.com/upskilling-2020/

About the Authors

Jean-Pierre (JP) Garbani has extensive experience as an industry analyst through his
research at Forrester and Giga Information Group where he was the research director
of the computing infrastructure group. JP Started his career in early 1968 as a software
engineer working on the automation of nuclear power plants in France. After joining Bull
General Electric in Paris (subsequently Honeywell Bull), JP designed and implemented
very large projects including network infrastructures in France, Scandinavia and the Unit-
ed States. At Bull, JP occupied several positions in software development and market-
ing before moving to the United States in 1984 where he filled several engineering and
marketing positions at Bull Information Systems. In 1994, JP created Epitome Technol-
ogy Corporation, a middleware software company focused on Manufacturing Execution
systems. Prior to joining Giga, JP worked as an IT management consultant for very large
financial institutions in the US.

Jean-Pierre graduated from Ecole Superieure d’Electricite (Supelec-Mehari) in France and

was granted the equivalent of an MS in Computer Science in the US.
About DevOps Institute

DevOps Institute is dedicated to advancing the human elements of DevOps success. As a

global member-based association, DevOps Institute is the go-to learning hub connecting
IT practitioners, education partners, consultants, talent acquisition and business execu-
tives to help pave the way to support digital transformation and the New IT.

We help advance careers and support emerging practices within the DevOps community
based on a human-centered SKIL Framework, consisting of Skills, Knowledge, Ideas, and
Learning. All our work, including accreditations, research, events, and continuous learn-
ing programs, is focused on providing the “human know-how” to modernize IT and make
DevOps succeed.

Address and Other Details

Please contact
oehrliche@devopsinstitute.com
for questions about this report.