DevOps – The necessary change to the traditional IT structure

There has never been a greater need to accelerate the speed of digital transformation in organizations as there currently is. Until last year, this was a growing topic, but due to the pandemic, it has definitely become a determining factor for most businesses.

Having said that, we are now at a critical point when it comes to enabling and supporting organizations to provide the business fabric with all the necessary conditions to accelerate the speed of the digital transformation of their business. 

Therefore, we cannot disregard the role of DevOps in this debate, as it is a union of people, processes, and technology with the goal of continuously delivering value to clients. In other words, it is the perfect symbiosis between development (Dev) and operations (Ops). 

As a behavioral and digital transformation tool, DevOps plays a critical role in integrating teams, and in streamlining and automatizing technological processes at the same time. A company that adopts DevOps is clearly promoting cooperation among team members and improving the workflow, while simultaneously ensuring safety and quality standards. At the end of the process, the goal is to add value to the project delivered to the client.

According to the global study "The Accelerate State of DevOps Report", companies that adopt DevOps are twice as likely to meet or even exceed their organizational performance goals. DevOps can therefore be synonymous with an increase in the productivity of an organization's information technologies, which is increasingly becoming a reality not only in large organizations but also in small and medium-sized businesses and even start-ups. As mentioned in another study, the "2020 Upskilling Enterprise DevOps Skills Report", developed by the DevOps Institute, even though the DevOps journey continues to be a challenge for more than 50% of companies, the adoption of this culture in organizations has increased by 24%. The same study also shows that 52% of companies have hired or plan to hire DevOps professionals.

However, one of the major handicaps of this process is precisely this last point, the significant skills gap in teams that is slowing down the adoption of this process in organizations. Finding and attracting skilled DevOps talent remains a challenge: In the same study developed by the DevOps Institute, 58% of surveyed people said that finding qualified individuals is a major challenge, while 48% said that retaining qualified people for DevOps is equally challenging.

By analyzing these factors, we can conclude that this is typical behavior of every technological innovation that has occurred in IT over the last half century, where early adopters start to develop the necessary talent when the widespread adoption of a certain technology begins. The only option in these cases is to find the right person and make offers that attract the necessary talent.

DevOps is undoubtedly a fundamental change in the traditional IT structure. It represents not only the adoption of new technologies but also, more importantly, a challenge to organizational transformation. It is therefore a bumpy road to take, but it is essential to add value to projects in the IT field. 

Article published on Dinheiro Vivo on March 3rd, 2021