GitOps Fish Series — (Rib 1) Top Management Alignment: Bridging Vision, Value, and Validation

9 min readAug 28, 2023

Many IT organisations recognise the need for deep-seated transformations — embracing practices like GitOps, automating infrastructure provisioning, or even overhauling their entire cloud strategy. Though technologically crucial, these endeavours demand substantial time, resources, and a shift in mindset. Yet, with its unwavering focus on delivering features and meeting market needs, the business side often fails to accord due significance to these transformational journeys. This tug-of-war between IT transformation necessities and business pressures poses unique challenges.

Top management, driven by business outcomes, often overlooks the intricacies and value of GitOps and DevOps transformations. They might see them as mere IT exercises rather than strategic imperatives.

While focusing on the Government Industry, Gartner’s “Five Key Digital Transformation Challenges Government CIOs Must Tackle” describes the challenge of getting organisation-wide alignment, where with the highest rank (23%), Siloed strategies and decision-making appear as the number one challenge. Based on my experience, this is also the case in all industries.

I faced several times teams within IT (either Development or Operations) trying to spark the transformation or even entire IT Organizations, struggling to improve their efficiency and failing due to not considering that these initiatives require complete alignment and a medium to long-term roadmap to achieve success. I like to name the root cause for that as “Diverging Priorities”.

Diverging Priorities

Diverging priorities refer to the conflicting or misaligned goals, objectives, or focuses that different departments, teams, or individuals within an organisation might have. These misalignments often arise from differences in short-term vs. long-term objectives, distinct departmental mandates, variations in performance metrics, or even cultural disparities within the organisation. When various parts of an organisation pull in different directions due to their unique priorities, they are said to have diverging preferences.

The very nature of IT’s role in modern organisations — interacting with diverse departments, managing evolving technologies, and balancing varied demands — makes it a prime candidate for facing diverging priorities. Effective communication, clear strategy articulation, and strong leadership are essential to navigate these challenges.

At the core, I often find the following Diverging Priorities:

Short-Term vs. Long-Term Goals: Business units (or other teams/departments), primarily driven by market dynamics or their own agenda, focus on immediate returns, constantly prioritising short-term gains. Conversely, IT transformations are strategic initiatives promising long-term efficiencies and capabilities.
Visibility and Tangibility: New features or products often yield tangible results, from revenue surges to customer feedback. While impactful, changes in IT don’t always have immediate, visible outcomes.
Cultural Disconnect: The broader business might need to grasp the nuances and benefits of practices like GitOps, seeing them as IT jargon rather than organisational imperatives.

When transformation/transition is attempted in such a misalignment, it is not unusual that additional challenges arise:

Resource Strain: With pressing business deadlines, teams might need to be more balanced, forced to deliver on immediate commitments while juggling transformation-related activities.
Incomplete Transformations: The continual push to “go live” can lead to cutting corners, resulting in half-baked implementation of practices that might do more harm than good and increasing technical debt.
Quality Compromises: Under business pressure, teams might compromise on quality, skipping crucial steps like testing, leading to potential post-deployment issues and increasing technical debt.
Burnout and Morale: A relentless chase for deadlines, combined with the weight of transformational change, can lead to burnout, impacting team morale and retention.
Siloed Efforts: Transformation endeavours might get siloed within specific teams instead of a cohesive organisational movement, leading to inconsistencies and knowledge gaps.
Missed Opportunities: By not fully embracing or understanding the value of IT transformations, businesses might miss out on long-term efficiencies and capabilities.

A Real Life (Common) Example

In the bustling offices of TechnoCorp, the IT Infrastructure Management team saw a golden opportunity. The weight of technical debt had been a constant thorn in their side, and they believed that turning to Cloud technologies paired with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and GitOps practices could be the balm they desperately needed. They thought, “Why not experiment with our upcoming application project?”

Gathering a tight-knit group of enthusiastic team members, all fervent advocates for IaC and Cloud computing, they embarked on their transformation journey. Their goal was clear: to create versatile IaC assets that would serve the current application project and future undertakings. But the trip wasn’t smooth. Grappling with unfamiliar IaC toolsets and the nebulous world of Cloud computing, they realised they needed to re-evaluate their platform decisions for maximum efficiency.

But technology wasn’t the sole challenge. Their newfound techniques had management implications. They had to ensure monitoring, backup, and, importantly, integrate new tools with their existing ones. For instance, alarms generated had to be channelled to the tried-and-true operations console and ticketing system they had always relied on.

In their pursuit of synergy, the infrastructure team began collaborating with the application development crew. However, they hit a roadblock. Assumptions they had made about the application’s deployment didn’t match reality. The application’s deployment, rife with manual procedures and scripts, demanded automation. But the developers, already swamped, couldn’t assist, leaving the infrastructure team in a bind.

As if these challenges weren’t enough, the ever-ticking business clock added to the pressure. The go-live date for the application loomed large, and the executive team was in no mood to hear about potential delays, no matter the reason.

As days turned to weeks, the drive to optimise introduced more complications. They needed help with issues like correctly tagging resources for cost and determining the right size for their cloud resources. Without any previous benchmarks to rely on, the team realised they’d need load/performance tests. The alternative was to size resources according to vendor recommendations, which fell under the “costly” or “too good to be true” categories.

And then, an internal debate erupted. The network team, essential to the IT Infrastructure department, expressed discomfort. They were unfamiliar and uneasy with the new-age concept of managing and versioning network configurations and firewall rules. Next, the security and compliance teams required that the same type of pieces of evidence were collected as if the resources were provisioned manually, and the Service Management team needed all provisioned resources to update the CMDB in real time (even the ones with elasticity characteristics, like auto-scaling compute resources or Kubernetes nodes)

In the end, what started as a hopeful journey for TechnoCorp’s IT Infrastructure Management became a lesson in the complexities of transformation, illustrating the delicate balance between innovation and the practical realities of an enterprise.

Sounds irrealistic? Believe me, it is not! I have faced similar (and worse) scenarios countless times.

Critical Pillars for Successful Organizational Alignment

In the journey of any IT transformation, like adopting GitOps, it’s not just about adopting new technologies; it’s about aligning every facet of an organisation and teams towards a common goal. The complexities go beyond technological shifts and dive deep into organisational culture, strategy, and value demonstration.

I consider the five critical pillars that underpin a thriving and holistic IT transformation (I will dive into the technology/architecture in the future “fishbone rib” article).

Demonstrate Tangible Value

Generically, the transformation can be indexed to four areas:

Cost Savings: Calculate/estimate potential cost savings from reduced downtime, faster deployment, reduced errors and less manual intervention
Increase Productivity: Measure/Estimate the time saved by automating processes and how that translates to cost savings
Enhanced Quality: Estimate the reduction in errors, bugs or issues and its impact on user satisfaction
Business Activity: How faster deployments/updates can help business

The above needs to be linked to each stakeholder analysis; it’s fundamental to translate to each agenda/goals/objectives.

You need to identify who will be impacted by the change and how. Engage with them early and ensure their concerns are addressed/considered.

2. Educate on Strategic Alignment

DevOps isn’t just an IT play; it’s a business enabler. Connect the transformation dots to business objectives. The organisation won’t halt its progress, waiting for improvements. It’s essential to factor in various projects/initiatives timelines and milestones, not just those related to IT.

3. Costs (Real) Visibility and Classification

Whenever the existing IT cost has a detailed/granular level, it facilitates demonstrating tangible values. However, you must get a real visibility and classification of direct, indirect and opportunity costs. Return on Investment is a classic that should be, at least, attempted to be determined.

Direct Costs: These are easily identifiable costs associated with project/initiative like software licenses, hardware, training and potential external consultant services.
Indirect Costs: These are not directly tied to the project/initiative but are consequences of change. Examples might be temporary reductions in productivity during the learning phase or potential downtime during the transition.
Opportunity Costs: What other project or investment will the business forego to fund the current/proposed one?
Return on Investment: Calculate/estimate the expected return on investment by comparing the benefits (both tangible and intangible) against the costs over a set period.

4. Regular Progress Reporting

Define a set of Objective Key Results (OKR) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) with an Executive/Board Level Governance to track and take action on their results/values. This will also represent an opportunity to increase technology literacy at the top management level.

5. Seek Sponsorship for Cultural Shifts

Transformation isn’t just about processes; it’s about mindsets. Secure top management’s buy-in for cultural initiatives, from training programs to team-building exercises. This will also be valuable as a “reverse mentorship” for the top management.

Conclusion and Takeaways

As we’ve explored, it is paramount to bridge the gap between top management’s vision and the tangible value of IT initiatives. It’s not merely about adopting the latest technologies but ensuring that every facet of an organisation moves in concert towards a shared vision.

Key Takeaways:

Diverging Priorities: Followed goals and objectives within teams can help IT transformation. Understanding and addressing these priorities is crucial.
Strategic Alignment: IT transformations aren’t isolated IT endeavours. They’re intertwined with broader business objectives and need top management’s understanding and backing.
Demonstrate Value: Quantifiable metrics tied to business outcomes, such as ROI, can speak volumes to stakeholders, emphasising the tangible benefits of IT initiatives.
Regular Progress Reporting: Consistent updates using OKRs and KPIs keep top management informed and facilitate necessary course corrections.
Embrace Cultural Shifts: Successful IT transformation transcends technology; it involves a paradigm shift in mindset, necessitating top-down support and encouragement.

See the other articles in this series here.

Please note that the opinions and views expressed in this article are solely my own and do not represent my employer’s official position or policies. This is a personal commentary based on my experiences and thoughts, and although I aim for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in the content.

Articles in this series:

GitOps Fish Series — (Rib 1) Top Management Alignment: Bridging Vision, Value, and Validation

Diverging Priorities

A Real Life (Common) Example

Critical Pillars for Successful Organizational Alignment

Conclusion and Takeaways

Written by Alexandre Soares