Six Steps to Increase DevOps Release Velocity by Removing Constraints

Digital organizations are placing a greater emphasis on accelerating release velocity to facilitate agility and manage unpredictability. Many IT directors need to understand how these processes affect their overall system to adopt DevOps and new working methods to accomplish this objective. When IT leaders analyze their workflow, they will discover the main limitation limiting systemic flow. Typically, waterfall development approaches represent product creation’s first and most significant limitation. As DevOps initiatives enhance development processes, the bottleneck generally shifts to testing.

Identifying and addressing existing difficulties within their workflow to make room for the newer, technique that is more agile is one of the most significant obstacles for DevOps firms. Below is a summary of the six actions indicated by Gartner that a business may take to reduce constraints, which can refer to any discomfort, setback, or other limiting factors that hinder a system from coming closer to accomplishing its goal and boosting DevOps velocity.

1. Define the process
DevOps teams must describe their processes when rewriting their techniques by outlining their workflow from inception to customer value. By documenting each step of existing methods, teams may more quickly identify and improve areas that may not positively contribute to the process. In addition, teams can better understand the entire value stream, including cycle timings, approximate time intervals, handoffs, and wait-for states. Teams may then readily identify the main process restrictions, take steps to enhance the process as a whole, and raise the efficacy of process documentation once this has been accomplished.

2. Determine the Greatest Restriction
There is always one element in a typical DevOps workflow that slows down the concept-to-value process. To achieve systemic change, teams must identify the phase hindering development and eliminate the source of the bottleneck. To determine the most significant constraint, ask, “What is everyone always waiting for?” This question enables teams to determine what requires additional attention to boost efficiency. Team members will be more likely to speak up if this is accomplished in a blameless, constructive setting. After determining the most significant constraint, check that the correct bottleneck has been discovered by monitoring the project’s progress.

3. Remove Waste to the Limit
When a restriction is recognized, the most frequent response is to throw more resources at it, such as additional personnel, funds, or new systems. However, it is more effective to focus on eliminating sources of lost potential rather than adding more (possibly ineffective) resources.

According to Gartner, the top three waste sources cited by clients are as follows:

• Incidents:

Time is spent on incident management at the expense of value-added activities such as product or feature development. Cross-training team members to be proficient in incident management is a best practice here. One strategy to prevent such events is to undertake blameless postmortems to determine the incident’s core cause and prevent it in the future.

• Waiting:

Waiting for people, external organizations, and other resources is difficult. Educating and hiring individuals with varied skill sets and knowledge to facilitate parallel work can reduce this. This will enable them to complete project objectives and other allocated tasks while awaiting a response to another project.

• Human potential: 

Many IT employees spend significant time performing manual tasks, such as updating a database or escalating an incident. Therefore, organizations will achieve more excellent value if they automate as much as possible so that employees may devote more time to high-value jobs.

4. Do Not Ignore the Limitation
Because of ignoring limits to concentrate on new, incoming concerns, the initial problems were never resolved, resulting in slower work and additional issues in the future. Again, consider a chain: if the weakest link is not strengthened, the remaining links will inevitably fail.

By ignoring limits, teams can face numerous difficulties, such as:

• An increase in errors and flaws.
• Adverse effects on team effectiveness and output
• Rework that is expensive in conditions with a high rate of change.

5. Boost Capacity
The processes mentioned above can increase throughput by at least 30% and give stakeholders the ability and time to examine problems, allowing them to thoroughly consider the optimal solution rather than opting for a quick fix. Teams should also use this time to determine alternative means of increasing capacity, such as contracting professional services or employing extra personnel.

6. Find the following most significant constraint.
Increasing release velocity is a challenging endeavour that demands constant process changes. For instance, even if a team can eliminate a restriction, another may appear elsewhere in the workflow. As a result, teams must adjust their methods and practices to attain a high development cadence. To guarantee that they satisfy the expectations of their customers, they must conduct due diligence on their development cadence and make any necessary adjustments.

Conclusion:
Various digital firms employ DevOps to speed their release frequency, but they also frequently need to address obstacles that inhibit agility. With over a decade of proven expertise in DevOps, iVedha provides you with a successful implementation plan. Leveraging our expertise in agile, we help our clients to eliminate loopholes and accomplish delivery automation.

Get a FREE consultation from our DevOps engineers today to gain Operational Efficiency at High-Velocity.