According to the 2019 DevOps Visibility Report, 84% of organisations stated that DevOps visibility is important to them. Most organisations are now trying to find ways to improve real-time DevOps visibility to increase overall efficiency, make better business decisions, and improve the quality of software releases.
Without achieving end-to-end visibility in the software development lifecycle, DevOps teams may find themselves hindered, which could cause work to stall. A digital workplace or process automation tool can help you incorporate the much-needed visibility in your DevOps processes.
What is DevOps? A complicated principle with transformational outcomes
Why visibility matters
Let’s consider a situation where developers create code for an application. The testing team tests the code according to the common use cases and the release manager is responsible for overseeing the integration and deployment of the newly developed application.
If somewhere during the development phase, the operations team finds out there is a problem with the application, they want the development team to quickly identify and fix the issue by rewriting a section of the code. This is exactly where visibility in DevOps plays a crucial role.
When there is visibility in DevOps, the operations team no longer needs to specifically highlight the issues to the development team. Instead, the development team can directly get notified about the issues through the digital workplace or automation tool and understand what parameters they need to work on for rectifying the issue.
Following a more visible software development lifecycle doesn’t just save time, but it also helps create a more effective feedback loop. You are able to detect any issues with the code pretty early in the development stage or prevent them altogether.
How DevOps works in the enterprise
How to improve visibility in DevOps
1. No more spreadsheets
While spreadsheets may be a good way to analyse static historical data, they are not as useful for DevOps teams that have to analyse data and make decisions in real-time.
Static reports represent historical data and not the current state of information. For DevOps teams that are meant to be agile, poor reporting practices can lead to wrong decisions and loss of productivity.
Not to mention, in a fast-moving and small team, creating static visibility reports can take skilled employees away from key deadline-driven tasks that are more important to the project and it can cause the team’s timelines and performance to suffer. Instead, they can use automated reporting tools that pull real-time data to generate reports automatically.
2. Visual digital workplace
Additionally, using a visual tool that helps you not only create, but also organise your work better to gain greater visibility. Whether it is managing case tickets, planning out a flexible plan, or handling predictable processes, having a visual orientation to all the work that goes beyond spreadsheets is important.
A digital workplace helps your team prioritise their work and access real-time information. These tools are automated and have a simple interface which does not require any deep project or process management knowledge.
3. Quick and easy reports
DevOps reports aren’t just utilised by technical teams, but by business users as well. In order to ensure that the DevOps reports can be understood by people at multiple levels of the organisation, who may or may not have in-depth technical knowledge.
At the same time, it should also be possible for business users to create reports on their own without any help from the DevOps team.
The ultimate guide to DevOps
Find clear visibility no matter where you look
Poor visibility limits the success of DevOps teams and in turn, causes misalignment. It’s important for organisations to adopt optimum and real-time.
DevOps visibility solutions so that their employees can focus on deadline-driven tasks and provide relevant real-time information to managers. Search for a visual digital workplace tool that gives your team the tools it needs to get the job done.
