DevOps play a vital role in improving an organization’s efficiency, productivity and profitability – but complex insights can be difficult to disseminate to the rest of the team, creating a transparency problem that can hinder the overall value DevOps provide.
DevOps play a vital role in improving an organization’s efficiency, productivity and profitability – but complex insights can be difficult to disseminate to the rest of the team, creating a transparency problem that can hinder the overall value that DevOps provide.
To examine this further, SmartDraw commissioned the 2019 DevOps Visibility ReportOpens a new window . What we found was clear—each company surveyed is actively interested in ways to improve DevOps visibility, with 84% of respondents listing it as somewhat to extremely important to their company. So, why is real-time visibility so important?
Goals of DevOps Visibility
Respondents cited three primary goals that improved visibility would bolster:
First, real-time visibility would improve DevOps efficiency. A system capable of automatically generating direct and timely transparency would enable employees to spend more time on skilled tasks and operate from the most accurate data available.
Second, real-time visibility would bolster the quality of new software releases. When all decision makers are equipped with the same data, release errors or inconsistencies are a lower risk.
Third, real-time visibility allows for improved decision-making. When all stakeholders are able to track the up-to-the-minute status of data, the company can move forward with the best available option.
Roadblocks to Achieving DevOps Visibility
But achieving such transparency is difficult. Organizations identified key roadblocks surrounding visibility:
First, survey respondents report that visibility reports remove skilled workers from high impact priorities. A good DevOps team must be agile and responsive, so, requiring a team member to focus on creating and updating a report rather than crucial deadline-driven work can cause quality and efficiency to suffer.
Second, the reports can too often become visually dense and not insightful. DevOps employees typically are not trained in design or infographics, which can result in an unwieldy and wasteful report that does not provide any actionable insights.
Finally, and often the most disruptive, the reports are a snapshot of data and do not accurately represent the live state of information. Because DevOps teams are meant to be agile, sub-par visualization updating standards lead to old data. When that old data is then relied upon by decision makers, quality suffers and productivity declines.
Key DevOps Visualization Recommendations
So, how can DevOps Managers rectify this? The 2019 DevOps Visibility Report identified four key strategies to improve operational transparency and efficiency with real-time DevOps data visualization:
1) Spreadsheets are not meant for reports:
Spreadsheets are designed for specific purposes—analysis, storage and organization. However, spreadsheets are the wrong tool for visualization. Given their static nature, visualizations created within spreadsheets quickly become outdated and irrelevant. Further, in a business landscape that requires rapid change and adjusting for competition, the need to constantly redo manual work slows teams and reduces productivity.
2) Make the report easy to understand:
Respondents cited issues in reporting data in a way that any level of audience could understand. Often these reports are written by a technical employee, and can be too dense for other sections of the company to comprehend. Instead, the focus should be on delivering a simple, readable report that can be disseminated across the organization. The survey found that successful organizations delivered visualization reports in an easy-to-understand way.
3) Reduce code-requirement for visualizations:
By implementing a visualization solution that is heavily automated, organizations free DevOps members to pursue deadline-driven work. Further, this automation allows for more up-to-date information, and reduces the risk of decision makers utilizing stale data.
4) Reports should operate without engineering support:
Survey respondents cited another key to success—create reports that do not require updates from DevOps team members. Allowing key stakeholders to self-generate reports results in a more useful process and a smaller impact on day-to-day operations. Further, the reports need to allow all consumers to drill down into the raw data, enabling further analysis and insight generation.
Key Elements of a DevOps Visibility Solution
Additionally, our survey respondents reported on the important features that a good visibility tool would contain:
1) Flexibility
The visibility tool needs to integrate with the DevOps tools already in use, such as Jira. Without this integration, implementing a new solution can be more trouble than it’s worth. Similarly, a solution should work with all DevOps data, no matter the point of origin.
2) Consumable
A solution that requires the DevOps Manager to involve a team member in the report generation is not a true solution. These reports should be easily comprehendible and enable for deeper dives into the source data.
3) Real-Time
A solution that relies on outdated information is harmful. Any effective solution will allow for continuous updates with current information.
Driving Key Decisions
The goal of a DevOps team is to save an organization time and money while improving output quality. Yet, a lack of transparency hinders effectiveness and results. Organizations should implement a real-time DevOps Visibility solution to narrow DevOps focus, allow real-time information to drive key decisions, and generate easily consumable visual reports.