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Velocity

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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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