One Ingredient Recipes Can’t Fix IT

Can you think of a one-ingredient recipe? I can’t and I’ve been trying. Someone suggested black coffee, but in actuality, it has two: coffee and water. Even eggs require at least salt and pepper for taste.

Why then are organizations constantly on the lookout for one ingredient recipes to solve their corporate IT challenges? Millions of dollars have been invested in agile software development training and tools hoping that smaller iterations would increase flow downstream. Millions of other dollars have been invested in ITIL training and ITSM tools hoping that command and control would lead to better IT governance and lower risk. Millions of dollars are now being invested in CI/CD automation and training hoping that more automation will help IT deploy faster. While each approach has delivered some degree of improvement, none are a single ingredient end to end solution. Worst yet, most were implemented in isolation and therefore benefits were at best limited.

Ingredients need recipes to optimize their value by combining with other ingredients — especially in IT.

DevOps is not an ingredient — it is a recipe. This is why DevOps is so difficult to define — it is not a one ingredient framework or a silver bullet solution. DevOps is a recipe for New IT that includes fresh ingredients from sources such as CI/CD, Agile, Lean, ITIL/ITSM, SRE and a host of automation and technologies. The most important ingredient is human. When blended together in the right proportions, the DevOps recipe can increase flow, manage risk and improve the entire value stream from ideation to realization. It is the capstone of what every IT department has done or should do in order to meet the rising demands of the digital revolution.

Ingredients alone do not make for a great recipe. Results can vary both in the kitchen and in the business depending on the care taken to prepare and produce the end product. Too much of one ingredient (e.g., automation) and too little of another (e.g., culture) and the recipe will not come out as expected. As most chefs will confirm, first attempts at a new recipe are not always successful. This is why upskilling, experimentation and practice is so essential.

Recipes can also vary depending upon which ingredients are included in the recipe and in what order they are introduced.

Here are some that should be considered when devising yours:

• Upskilling programs, knowledge sharing and human/soft skill training (Culture)
• Providing support and the ability to experiment and practice (Culture)
• Value Stream Mapping (Lean)
• Agile Software Development/Product Management (Agile)
• Agreement on Service Level Objectives or SLAs (SRE/ITSM)
• Agile Change Control or Error Budgets (ITSM/SRE)
• Agile Change Management or Error Budgets (ITSM/SRE)
• CI/CD, automated testing and toil reduction (CI/CD, SRE, Automation)
• DevSecOps (Security)

Face it — despite marketing and media, there is just not a single ingredient solution that will make the business more competitive in the digital age. That’s why DevOps is so critical at this point in time. The secret is in the recipe.

DevOps Institute is dedicated to advancing the human elements of DevOps success through the SKIL Framework: Skills, Knowledge, Ideas, and Learning. Learn more.