How to convert your sysadmin team to devops

In India people love to adopt new buzz words without getting into the real means. Managers thought less to pay, more to get and started demanding for Developer+Operations. Recruiters rushed to full fill the demands. But they forgot to infuse the culture.

Now lets talk about, How to convert your sysadmin team to devops?

Find out who is ready to change.

The moment you infuse a change in the team by introducing a new automation tool like opscode chef, you see a bell curve of your team. Few would be excited and ready to change, this would 10%–30% of your team. Good for you, less efforts required.

Image courtesy to http://www.continuousautomation.com/from-devops-to-sysops-and-back/

What about who don’t want to change?

In general managers tend to churn them out gradually, but if you a good leader, do the following before you churn;

1. Focus on there trainings.
2. Do initial handholding.
3. Show them the power and magical experience of less work and more output.
4. Introduce them to coding challenges.
5. Build a culture for them to meet other people in real community challenges like offered by http://www.venturesity.com/. To think out of the box, you as a leader should become ladder to your team.

Finally plan to churn the one which are not letting your team grow, not willing to change attitude. Give them enough opportunities before you do, its a tricky, but thats how it is.

Bring in new alpha talent in your team, who can infuse his learning in the team. Apart from skills, he should be better than you in every sense.

And finally have patience, it takes time :)