What exactly is Devops ?

This is a tough one to answer. But I can tell you straight away what devops is not:

• It is not a set of tools
• It is not a scripting language
• It is not a particular person in a team

I have seen many a teams equate devops to the one or more of the points above. I thought I would pen down my two cents..
Devops is a mindset and a culture. Unlike other software books, books on devops do not talk about the technical tools and software processes, it always talks about devops being a culture, a mindset. It is about blurring the line between development and operations.

The premise is to create a collaborative environment between the teams to deliver value to customers. The reason why many companies struggle with this journey to become a devops shop, is that, installing and using tools is easy, but changing the culture is very difficult.
There needs to be a shared understanding of the customers’ needs and a shared value of the product. For this reason, devops is about people, and for this reason we need the following in a team:

• Open and transparent communication. Team members need to leave their egos at the door and walk in with an open mindset.
• Don't punish anyone!! Things go wrong all the time. Instead build a culture of improving no matter what. When someone points out a possible improvement, do it!! Respect everyone's opinions and discuss what you feel needs to be churned in the "collective hive brain" of the team.
• Everyone comes from different cultures, backgrounds and have certain pre-conceived notions. Be adaptible, adapt to your new team, and find your place instead of forcing your notions in there. Use the "Hive brain".

To enable greater collaboration, it would be good to have a devops goal for the team. A kind of team "North Star". Some common measurable goals that one can use are:

• Reduce time-to-market for new features.
• Increase overall availability of the product.
• Reduce the time it takes to deploy a software release.
• Increase the percentage of defects detected in testing before production release.
• Make more efficient use of hardware infrastructure.
• Provide performance and user feedback to the product manager in a timelier manner.

A software is useless unless it provides value to its users. The faster we learn what is valuable to users and faster we provide it, the better it is for everyone. This is the essence of devops. Keep the continuous flow of value perpetual... "Don’t just write code and throw it over the wall”!! Make it work and grow it!!