Pictures to represent DevOps

Open your browser and search for DevOps. Your search result is full of a picture (or its variations) which essentially lists SDLC steps in an eight shape.

Certainly it is a great picture, but does is depicts DevOps in its full glory? I think it is not. We need imagery which can depict business as well as technical aspects of DevOps. I am using two pictures to depict DevOps in its full glory, one each for Business and Technical audiences in mind.

Let’s talk about Business audiences first. These audiences have no appetite to divulge into technical details though love to keep themselves updated about technology and its effects on the business.

This picture focuses on customer experience and Market Demand and mechanism to close this loop via Market feedback and continuous Delivery.  To complete this loop, organization focuses in Continuous Planning, Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment & Release, and Continuous Operations. To reduce the rework due to security related requirements, security should be embedded into each and every step of Software Development & Operation. To reduce the cognitive load on the Development team, security by design paradigm can be employed. To reduce cost of development & operation and risk Shift Left paradigm need to be embraced.

Let’s talk about technical audiences. These audiences are keen to take deep dive into technical realm. Here the focus is on practices at Application as well as infrastructure level, Work Item tracking, Integrated Dashboard, Collaboration among stakeholders, Knowledge repository, Security, and incident management. In the picture of DevOps for Technical folks, mapping to Business picture is provided by incorporating Capabilities over Practices and CICD pipeline.

 

In business audience focused picture, there are several feedback loops are depicted to emphasize the continuous feedback mechanism. In Technical audience focused picture only one feedback loop is depicted to encompass numerous small ones which results from practices listed below the Pipe. Delivery is achieved with various small steps, not necessarily in sequential manner.