Think and Act Holistically
Look around in your own environment. You can see challenges, obstacles, resources and opportunities everywhere.
- How do you distinguish one from the other and from all of this how do you determine a path?
- How will you recognize it when you see it and when the vision does start to form in your mind, how will you lead your team through it?
- How well can you all work together?
- Are you all ON the team?
- Is your team ready?
To advance will mean change. New ways of operating and new ways of managing.
Questions:
Is your organization ready?
How will you pull it all together?
Will it be DevOps or ITIL?
Are they really that different?
Can there be synergy between the mindsets?
You are convinced that they can coexist and also that you need both perspectives to co-create and deliver value.
Find your observation deck, where you can see the bigger picture … the view from above provides a new perspective. Now you can see the whole system as well as the holes in the system.
The picture you develop sees DevOps and ITIL coming together. You can see how each contributes to the service value streams that provide value for your customers.
Many IT organizations and service providers see DevOps and ITIL as an either/or scenario. Let’s look at how they actually work together to co-create better value with customers and users of IT based products and services.
Technology professionals at all levels need to be leaders in new ways of working and managing. Not just of how people work together in swarms, teams, squads or tribes but also be leaders of how people communicate with customers and users of the outputs, products and services that are provided.
If you are in the DevOps camp, don’t discount ITIL. When you cut through the bureaucratic style of its documentation and extract the heart of the message from each key concept you will see that it will mesh perfectly with your DevOps values, objectives and methods. There is real value in ITIL Best Practice Thinking.
If you are in the ITIL camp you need to recognize that the DevOps methods have proven to be successful and will continue to grow and scale. The role for ITIL Best Practice Thinking is to support and enhance DevOps activities. DevOps may focus more on how things are made (developed) but it is also begging for risk reducing controls that can be shifted left and work at the speed of the customer.
The synergy of the two camps comes when you understand that all activities performed need to ensure that value for the customer is the primary “raison d’être”.
Thinking and acting holistically is important guidance and IT professionals need to be the leaders that foster and build environments and cultures of high cooperation. It’s not DevOps or ITIL it is DevOps and ITIL! Principles and practices from both camps will be required to build a high performance oriented, service provider organization.
Performance Oriented Service Provider
About the Author
Jim Jackson is the Managing Director of Blue Sky AFC Associates LLC. Jim holds the ITIL Expert Certificate (V3) and has also completed ITIL 4 Foundations certification. Jim is a service management professional and has been an accredited instructor of ITIL Foundations since 2005. He has shared his open, non-restricted view of the ITIL framework as he has trained and assisted hundreds of candidates to prepare for and pass the ITIL Foundations examinations. Jim has also written accredited courseware for earlier versions of ITIL Foundations and he contributed to ITIL 4 accredited course materials for Thought Rock in 2019.
Acknowledgements
ITIL is a registered trademark of Peoplecert. Diagrams and images contained in this article have been created by Jim Jackson and remain the property of Blue Sky AFC Associates LLC, copyright 2019.