Thinking Environments

Evaluating Organizational Models for DevOps to Accelerate Business and Empower Workers

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While the traditional IT organization is structured into functional silos, DevOps relies on empowered, cross-functional teams. Is it possible to blend the two approaches and work within the traditional structure? Or do you need to restructure your organization to support DevOps? This paper discusses ways to approach organization with DevOps in mind.

Additional Info

  • Pages: 67

    14 color images throughout

    Format: PDF

    Publication: October 1, 2016

  • Description

    While the traditional IT organization is structured into functional silos, DevOps relies on empowered, cross-functional teams. Is it possible to blend the two approaches and work within the traditional structure? Or do you need to restructure your organization to support DevOps? The traditional structure offered a way to continuously improve skills in individual practice areas—software development, infrastructure, operations, and security, for example. When you organize around cross-functional teams, do you lose the ability for more skillful infrastructure experts to oversee and coach more junior infrastructure specialists? And do you lose opportunity to build capability and expertise within that technical specialty? The traditional functional organization can be highly efficient at allocating expert across different projects, reassigning technical experts based on the company’s needs. Must a DevOps organization sacrifice this efficiency?

    These are questions that many of us grapple with as we travel along the DevOps transformation journey to improve our organizations. In this paper, we address those questions, identify some of the models that enterprises and organizations are currently using, and propose some ideas that can help leaders as they plan their future.

    Contents

    Preface
    Executive Summary
    Introduction: The Challenge Why Does Organizational Structure Matter?
    Organizational Models
    Model 1: Traditional Functional Silo Model
    Model 2: Matrix Model
    Model 3: Product And Platform Model
    Model X: Adaptive Organization
    Additional Concerns When Considering Organizational Design
    Conclusion: Operational Excellence

  • Authors
    • Mark Schwartz, CIO, US Citizenship and Immigration Services
    • Jason Cox, Director Systems Engineering, Disney
    • Jonathan Snyder, Sr. Manager, Service Deployment & Quality, Adobe Systems
    • Mark Rendell, Principal Director, Accenture
    • Chivas Nambiar, Director Systems Engineering, Verizon
    • Mustafa Kapadia, NA DevOps Service Line Leader, IBM
    Other contributor

    Alyson Hoffman, IT Revolution