Velocity, it’s just such
a cool word! When I type it, it just has
to be italicized. When I say it, I think of a speeding red
Ferrari, a fighter jet or Superman zooming through the air to save Louis Lane
from certain doom. It’s one of my
favorite TV channels. In the world of
Dev-Ops, Scrum and Agile it’s the rate at which a team converts items to “DONE” in a single Sprint, usually calculated
in Story Points and is really one of the pillars of the DevOps.
DevOps is a response to
the symbiotic relationship of software development and IT Service Management
and the historical disconnect that has usually separated these two very
critical and interdependent functions. This
divide has often manifested itself as conflict and inefficiency.
The purpose being to help an organization rapidly produce
software products and services
while ensuring communication, collaboration and integration between these diverse
professional groups.
Development is usually of the
mindset where change is the thing that they are supposed to accomplish. We must
respond to changing business needs rapidly and therefore are encouraged to
create as much change as possible. With “Velocity”.
Operations views change as the
enemy. Keeping the lights on and delivering the services that that
ensure utility and warranty, resisting change as it negatively impacts
stability and reliability is where our focus is and should be. How many times
have we heard the statistic that 80% of all downtime is due to those
self-inflicted wounds known as changes? Believe me, I have lived that reality.
Let’s face it; in the
world of ITSM, the current standards and frameworks that are employed, well Velocity isn’t really at the top of our priority
list. One of largest single points of
frustration for our customers and the development side of the organization is this
lack of Velocity!
In life and business
everything changes. Today’s reality is
that in order to just stay even with the competition, we in the operational
side of the organization are going to have to embrace this thing called Velocity.
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