by
Matteo Mazzeri
Continuous integration Developer Devops

This is a follow up of this article with a community angle. Here we will share why the community is so important and why Devops is an entreprise wide cultural change before being a set of tools and techniques. We will also take you for a little tour of Ghent, where we had the pleasure to participate to the worldwide DevOpsDays co-organizers event since we co-organise DevOpsDays Geneva which will take place February 24th and 25th 2020.

As a DevopsDays organiser, last week I was lucky enough to participate at the 10 years celebration of DevopsDays in the magnificent city of GENT in Belgium.

DevopsDays GHENT 10 Ans Paysage
a view of Botermarkt at night

Successful Devops is about community

The first reason why DevOps is way more than CI/CD is because it is a community 🙂 Yes a lovely community of caring people that are passionate about what they and ready to help others advance in the DevOps quest.

DevopsDays GHENT 10 Ans VOORUIT
The location for DevOps Days GHENT 10th anniversary is the VOORUIT

Back to the event, it took place in a great theater that was originally the festival and art center of the Ghent-based labor movement, with a ballroom, cinema, theater, etc. It is now mainly used for concerts and other cultural events. It’s a really nearly mystical place with loads of rooms, halls, theaters and soo easy to get lost! Any way wherever you get lost in VOORUIT you’ll find a caring soul that will be there to help.

Patrick Debois
Patrick Debois and the DevopsDays “UNICORE” organizers 🙂

Here is the actual team of DevopsDays core organizers, they are all devops practitioners from all over the world and very active in facilitating the community of DevopsDays organizers with all is needed to make the events a great moment of fun, sharing, learning and advancing the devops needs.

DevopsDays Core Team
DevopsDays GHENT 10 Ans Worldwide

10 years after the first DevopsDays conference and the invention of the word DevOps over 250 DevopsDays events have taken plase and > 900 organisers worldwide in 2019 with 70 events in over 50 countries. These amazing numbers are a clear statement that Devops is way more than just a passing frenzie, but it clearly is an essential philosophy/culture/method of modern software engineering.

DevopsDays GHENT 10 Ans Brasil
The Brazilian DevopsDays event organisers! What an amazing story the way they managed to make their events a reality!

Entreprise wide DevOps culture

So what we have been talking about during this event? Culture and philosophy were a main topic, as it emerged clearly throughout the conferences and open spaces, tools cannot change culture and get people involved, what really makes the difference is company wide devops culture! Devops is about communication and making sure that the different teams and profiles that need to work together have clear, traceable, reliable, ways to communicate, to advance and to know what to work on in a benevolent and safe environment.

DevopsDays GHENT 10 Ans Salle
One of the surprising halls of VOORUIT

Devops definitely requires a number of tools to make sure all this automatisation, communication and collaboration happens in the most seamless of ways. The aim here is not to go in the detail of the tools but to highlight that in order to make sense of DevOps and facilitate the main aim, which is to deliver the most value to the customer and for the company, you need to have a company wide culture that embraces devops. This means, understanding that every one in the team/company/project is working together to a common aim!

From manager to facilitator

A manager rôle is not only to dispatch work, but to ensure that the team can deliver the work, and that the communication across the team is fluid and returns from the customer are visible, seen and treated by the right people at the right time with the common aim of delivering maximum value, safely and with high quality of delivery, security and maintenance. This mentality of following through and thinking of the whole process is what makes the difference, not only for managers but also for developers and sysadmins and all profiles that participate in the success of the projects.

This is what Devops Is all about. And having a great time with great people in beautiful cities.

Now that I have taken you for a tour of Gent and DevopsDays, if you want some tools to facilitate support you in your adoption or step up of DevOps I would be more than happy to take you for a tour of Tuleap. Tuleap is a great tool that does not impose workflows but adapts to the needs of the company, teams, projects as needed according to the maturity of transition of each project.

Set up valuable company wide DevOps

At Tuleap, we think of DevOps like Agile-plus-Ops. Because, while fast releases are important, the value delivered to your customers is also crucial. This is why DevOps should be deployed along with Scrum or Kanban approaches, with centralized Agile and DevOps tools.


About

Matteo Mazzeri

A tech evangelist, citizen of the world, and open source software ambassador, Matteo is passionate about helping private and public organizations thrive in the digital revolution. His talent lies in understanding the connections between technology and societal development. He facilitates the Tuleap community, especially in Switzerland.