Making the Invisible DevOps Work Visible: The Power of Communication skill
Communication is one of the most crucial soft skills for DevOps engineers.
The DevOps tasks in the company are often invisible to the rest of the teams. Communication in DevOps is important not only because it helps to connect between the different teams in a company, but you can also use it to show your effort to other teams and management.
Let’s dig into it and see how the communication skill makes the invisible DevOps work visible.
We (DevOps) work behind the scenes
Think about the movie you watched recently.
You enjoyed acting, dialogs, and special effects. But behind it, there is a huge amount of work done by the “invisible people." Screenwriters, camera operators, makeup artists, location managers, video editors, sound technicians, etc.
Those people are doing behind-the-scenes roles, but without them, there would be no movie.
The same refers to the tasks that the DevOps team handles to ensure smooth deployment, operation, and scaling of applications and systems. These tasks often occur “under the hood” and are not immediately visible to other teams within an organization.
For example, infrastructure setup and maintenance involves setting up servers, databases, and other necessary tools. Routine tasks like backups, server patching, or updates are performed quietly but are crucial for system health.
None of the other teams are aware of these tasks if you are not telling them about it.
No news is good news
In the context of DevOps, the phrase “No News is Good News” refers to the idea that when things are running smoothly, nobody notices or talks about it. Only when something breaks does everybody‘s attention turn to the infrastructure and processes.
When servers are running smoothly without any issues, it’s rarely brought up in meetings. However, the moment there’s a downtime, everyone notices, and it becomes a top priority.
While the absence of issues is a testament to the effectiveness of DevOps practices, it can also be a double-edged sword.
Without visible “wins” or outcomes, the critical work of the DevOps team can be taken for granted or overlooked. If you, as a DevOps, don’t talk with the team about what you’re doing and how you’re improving the system, no one knows why you’re here and what you’re doing.
You becoming invisible.
The negative impact of invisibility
- Undervaluation of DevOps: When efforts are invisible, they may be undervalued or overlooked during resource allocation or recognition.
- Burnout: Constant work without acknowledgment can lead to burnout.
- Knowledge silos: Without visibility, other teams might not understand or appreciate the difficulties of DevOps, leading to miscommunication or unreasonable expectations.
What you can do as a DevOps
- Regular Reporting
Periodically update on completed tasks, prevented incidents, and system improvements.
Be initiative. Create a weekly meeting with the dev team and spend 20 minutes updating them on what you have done in the last week. Ask what makes their work hard. Maybe software they don’t like or some process they do manually, which you can automate for them.
Solve anything that bothers them.
- Visualization Tools
Use dashboards and other visualization tools to represent infrastructure health, deployments, and more.
In one of the companies I worked for, the DevOps team owned a large monitor showing the system's health and traffic. The monitor was not only for DevOps use.
It was visible to anyone interested.
- Teach
Organize sessions where you teach the other teams hints and tips on their working tools.
Create a DevOps Confluence space, share it with all the team members, and document everything.
Write tutorials and manuals, share your knowledge.
- Feedback Loops
Encourage other teams to provide feedback on the tools and processes set by the DevOps team.
Once a month, send a short survey to the DEV team and ask if they are satisfied with their cooperation with the operations team.
- Be initiative, Lead
Even if not in formal leadership roles, DevOps engineers may need to take the lead in certain situations.
Leadership skills include motivating and influencing team members, setting a positive example, and driving initiatives forward.
Don’t be an invisible and humble DevOps engineer. Be a key figure.
Nobody knows that you are smart and hard-working if you don’t show it.
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