The
“Best of the Professor” blogs focus on one unique individual topic and will be followed by links
to papers with more in depth information.
DevOps
initiatives
are supported by three basic principles. In
his book “The
Phoenix Project“, Gene Kim leverages
the Theory of Constraints and the knowledge learned in production environments
to describe the underlying principles of the DevOps movement in three ways.
These principals are referred to as The
First Way, The Second Way and the Third
Way. In earlier papers from the “Best
of the Professor” we discussed the
“First Way” and how this DevOps principle was all about the flow of work from
Left to Right. We then discussed the “Second
Way which was all about the flow of work from right to left and how critical
that is for measuring DevOps value. In
this iteration from “The Best of the Professor“, the focus will be on the last
of these three DevOps Principles known as “The Third Way”.
The Third Way – Continual
Experimentation and Learning (Don’t
forget the learning part)
The
goal of this DevOps principle known as “The Third Way” is to create a culture
that fosters two things. One of those
being continual experimentation such as taking risks and learning from failure
and the second thing is to understand that repetition is the prerequisite to
mastery.
Every
service provider really needs both aspects of “The Third Way” equally.
Experimentation and taking risks are what ensures that we keep pushing to
improve even if it means going deeper into the danger zone than we have ever
gone before. We also need mastery of the
skills that can help us retreat out of that danger zone when we’ve gone too
far. Companies that really want to show
their commitment to innovation, and fearlessness when it comes to failure,
cannot punish people who fail. In order
to ensure “Continual Experimentation and Learning” will require that we
allocate time for the improvement of daily work. It will also mean that we should create rituals
that reward the team for taking risks and perhaps that we introduce faults into
the system to increase resilience. Be
sure to read up on all 3 of the DevOps Principles to ensure optimum
results. They really do work.
For
further information from the professor on DevOps Principles:
For information regarding Agile and DevOps training and
certification: http://www.itsmacademy.com/brands/DevOps.html
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