Top Resources for Leveraging DevOps Best Practices and Patterns

As enterprise leaders find success in DevOps, more information is available in the marketplace. While new resources and advice are released all the time, the market has become a bit saturated with information. It can be challenging to know which resources have provided the most value to technology leaders. We are fortunate to have backstage access to the DevOps Enterprise Summit (DOES17) London speakers, who represent some of the leaders of DevOps transformations around the world.

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These leaders have walked through challenging, yet successful DevOps transformations and they are chock full of recommendations. We asked if they would be willing to share their favorite and most valued DevOps resources for leveraging best practices and principles for success. In turn, we received a wide variety of options across several different mediums.

Multiple speakers cite the value of in-person events and industry conferences as key resources for DevOps insight. In an industry where collaboration is essential for success, in-person events serve as a natural platform for learning and sharing DevOps stories. These events foster an environment where people are open and willing to share their triumphs, challenges and failures. Oliver Jacques, IT distinguished technologist at DXC Technology, Jonathan Smart, head of development services at Barclays, Jose Quaresma, DevOps lead DK at Accenture, Rob England, from The IT Skeptic, and Dr. Nicole Forsgren, CEO at DORA, each call out DevOps Enterprise Summit as a resource for anyone at any stage of a DevOps journey.

“I took a lot away from previous DOES editions, starting in 2015,” adds Jacques. Jonathan Fletcher, chief technology officer at Hiscox, agrees with the value of in-person events. He notes, “nothing is better than talking face-to-face with others that are going through the same transformation.”

Speakers also list books that have been instrumental in their DevOps transformations. For those new to the DevOps world, The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr and George Spafford came highly recommended.

“The Phoenix Project book is my favorite resource to introduce someone to the DevOps world, it is a wonderful way of getting people to start thinking about DevOps and what it can bring to an organization,” notes Quaresma.

For the more technical information, Quaresma and England both recommend, The DevOps Handbook, by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois and John Willis.

“On a more technical level, the The DevOps Handbook is a great resource, expanding on the different concepts and processes behind DevOps while also providing a lot of enlightening case studies,” Quaresma adds. He also references a book he is currently reading, The DevOps Adoption Playbook, by Sanjeev Sharma, a book focused on bringing DevOps to the Enterprise.

“It looks promising,” he adds.

For online resources, the podcast fans of the group – England and Quaresma – recommend, “The DevOps Café” and “DevOps Chats” podcasts. Quaresma and Sathiya Shunmugasundaram, enterprise architect at Capital One, also note Devops.com as a reliable online industry resource.

Dr. Steve Mayner, SAFe senior program consultant trainer at Scaled Agile Company, shares his passion for research and identifies the opportunity for more research around DevOps, “my doctoral journey has taught me the value of scholarly research to support the growth in the body of knowledge in any domain. DevOps is no different. Right now the depth of peer reviewed journal articles in DevOps is pretty thin, so that means the door is wide open for new thought leaders to emerge and strengthen the foundation of knowledge that will support this movement for years to come.”

Dr. Tuuli Bell, partner account manager at Tasktop, prefers to find information and inspiration from real DevOps stories citing, “the ones I hear about from passionate and inspiring people.”

Rosalind Radcliffe, distinguished engineer, chief architect for DevOps for enterprise systems at IBM agrees, calling out “actual user stories” as her go-to resource. Jens Wilhelms, Head of Development Foundation, Swisscom, is also on board with Bell and Radcliffe.

“I personally benefit most from personal exchange with people who can share practical experience from their own DevOps journey,” he adds.

While most speakers identify specific resources, others recommend a blend of resources, “It’s a mixture of articles, blogs, webinars, conferences, books and specially the dialog with experienced colleagues from other companies,” says Christoph Schär, head of digital development at Swisscom.

Forsgren adds more to the mix, “The Goal, Lean Enterprise, Good Strategy Bad Strategy, Start With Why, Four Agreements, the DevOps Enterprise Summit, DevOpsDays, Lean In, Getting to Yes, anything that Ben Rockwood tells me to read, the Google SRE book (O’Reilly), my amazing Women in Tech community (hey men, you’re missing out if you don’t have a WiT community you rely on), and scholar.google.com.”  

As the speakers here revealed, there are many reliable resources to guide DevOps patterns and best practices. However, perhaps the biggest trend and notable takeaway from this group is the value of in person events and real-life DevOps stories. For a unique opportunity to connect with these speakers, join us at DOES London, Jun 5-6, 2017. Check out the agenda and plan ahead!

If you’ve been waiting for your chance to speak at a DevOps Enterprise Summit conference, don’t forget to submit a proposal for DOES17 San Francisco. Watch this video to guide the development of your submission:

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