DEVOPSdigest

DEVOPSdigest asked DevOps experts — analysts and consultants, users and the top vendors — for their predictions on how DevOps and related technologies will evolve and impact business in 2019. Part 2 covers DevOps culture and people.

Start with 2019 DevOps Predictions - Part 1

CULTURE OF SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

DevOps is about people, process and tools. For any DevOps initiative, the people and process need to come first to deliver the most value. In 2019, we will see enterprises place increasing emphasis on fostering a culture of shared responsibility for delivering across the complex application pipelines. These teams require visibility into collaboration and progress. For the initiatives to succeed, the key is to share the results of the effort with the company as a whole, as the projects progress. After all, there are few better ways inspire the teams than with evidence that their efforts are delivering key results.
TJ Randall
VP of Customer Success, XebiaLabs(link is external)

THE END OF SILOS

For 2019, we can expect to see A breakdown of organizational siloes. As exhibited by organizations shifting left, embracing DevOps, and integrating web performance management, teams will become less and less siloed, so that interoperability can empower efficiency and optimization for application development and performance.
Denis Goodwin
Director of Product Management, AlertSite by SmartBear(link is external)

2019 will result in the demise of silos. IT teams will be increasingly multifunctional with analysts, designers, dev, test, ops, and business becoming a part of them. With these experts working alongside product owners, there'll be less be less silos, less handoffs, and more loosely coupled team structures.
Raj Fowler
Principal DevOps Consultant, DevOpsGroup(link is external)

DEVOPS GOES BEYOND IT

With DevOps transformations well under way in the largest organizations, they will experience impacts beyond just “IT” or software development. They will begin to realize that other functions from marketing to legal to compliance must be transformed to work with a continuous delivery model. Fixed contracts, long lead times and delays in these other areas will sap the impact of continuous delivery and DevOps if they are not examined and addressed.
Christina Noren
CPO, CloudBees(link is external)

FOCUS ON DEVELOPERS

Many of the DevOps discussions over the past few years have focused on business models and technology. However, a key ingredient for successful DevOps is often not given the attention it deserves: talented, well-resourced developers. Given the extraordinary business value they can deliver, we expect to see organizations treat them more like high-performance athletes and empower them to deliver more functionality in less time without sacrificing quality. We also see movement towards a culture of continuous improvement that rewards developers, across all areas and platforms, when they deliver innovation that really moves the needle for the business.
Christopher O'Malley
CEO, Compuware(link is external)

RISE OF THE DEVOPS ENGINEER

In 2019, the DevOps Engineer title will become more prevalent and critical to the success of a DevOps initiative. However, companies will need to be careful when hiring for this position and should look for candidates who have both maturely developed soft skills (leadership, collaboration, etc.) and technical skills (development technologies, deployment environments, etc.). DevOps Engineer will be a more coveted title in 2019 and candidates will have to bolster their resumes to get the job.
Jonathan Fries
VP Engineering and Digital Transformation, Exadel(link is external)

RISE OF THE SRE

In 2019 we will see 25% or more of those with "DevOps" in their titles shift towards using SRE titles as they become more fashionable, similar to the newest gadget of choice. While this makes more sense for a title, it doesn't mean these organizations have evolved in managing and operating as an SRE team.
Jonah Kowall
VP of Market Development and Insights, AppDynamics(link is external)

2019 is the year that SRE reaches mainstream awareness in the enterprise. SRE is the recipe for the high-velocity operations needed to complete DevOps and Digital Transformations.
Damon Edwards
Co-Founder, Rundeck(link is external)

DEVOPS JOB CHANGES

More development, testing, operations, and CISO-like people will change jobs in 2019 than ever before. As the DevOps culture-change wave rolls through most every company on the planet, those individuals who can't make the culture shift will have to move along.
Sammy Migues
Principal Scientist, Synopsys(link is external)

DEVOPS NEEDS T-SHAPED PROFESSIONALS

The need for upskilled and cross-skilled talent is on the rise in 2019 as the market recognizes the need for T-shaped professionals whose core competence (the stem) is supplemented by a broad scope of other knowledge including soft skills (top of the T). Skilling is a human endeavor that supports both transformational and cultural goals. Since the lack of new skills is a recognized constraint, then the investment in people will continue to be perhaps the most significant to a DevOps transformation as the investment in practices of automation.
Jayne Groll
CEO, DevOps Institute(link is external)

DEVOPS-AS-A-SERVICE

In 2019, I expect to see an expansion of the idea of DevOps-as-a-Service. It can be difficult for an organization that either doesn't have many developers or perhaps doesn't have the breadth of skills to kickstart a DevOps journey, which is where DevOps-as-a-Service providers come in. The organization looking to fill in their DevOps skills gaps would purchase a subscription from a provider who would then send in and manage the teams needed to get a DevOps transformation off the ground. DevOps-as-a-Service models will come to the forefront to help organizations leverage this strategy even when they may not have the requisite internal resources.
Dmitry Binunsky
VP Products and Platforms, Exadel(link is external)

We see clients quickly moving toward an as-a-service hybrid cloud model. Companies are starting to see cloud more as a true platform to build and deploy cloud native services and applications and less as an infrastructure provider. CI/CD, pipelines, Infrastructure as Code, APIs and micro-services are best practices fully adopted by the clients who are accelerating their digital transformation. This adoption curve is quickly pushing service providers to completely revisit the way they are delivering services and the associated resources. Managed services for applications is no longer about break-fix time but actual continuous deployment of your application code. To accomplish this you need Agile Software Developers and product managers that own the software lifecycle. I believe 2019 will be a very strategic year where we will see service providers massively re-inventing themselves as DevOps-centric organizations to better serve their clients in climbing up the cloud value chain.
Jerome Sandrini
VP & Head of Big Data, Atos(link is external) North America

BEWARE OF DEVOPS GURUS

Judging by some of the resumes I've been seeing, 2019 will be the year many companies get burned by hiring self-proclaimed “gurus” who only see DevOps as a buzzword they can use to command a high salary. Beyond that list of the latest DevOps tools, can they really use them to deliver ROI? Can they explain how to optimize a value stream or automate a deployment pipeline? DevOps isn't about implementing a technology — it's about reducing friction to value, reducing manual processes, and making teams more productive and happier. Hire carefully!
Nate Berent-Spillson
Senior Delivery Director, Nexient(link is external)

VALUE STREAM MANAGEMENT

As speed and quality of software delivery are now massive competitive advantages for large enterprises, more organizations will look to value stream mapping to understand whether they're connecting the dots between their software development and overall business value. This shift will reduce waste across the software release pipeline and create greater cross-functional team collaboration.
Lisa Wells
VP of Product Marketing, XebiaLabs(link is external)

In 2019, there will be an increase in executive involvement in DevOps, whereby, organizations want to make sure software is not only delivered on time, but that it satisfies business goals and customer expectations. Thus, the question of being able to scale both up to the project portfolio and across the organization will be paramount. As a result, a common language around Value Stream Management will enable software teams to better align with company management.
Eric Robertson
VP of Product Marketing Management, CollabNet VersionOne(link is external)

2019 will be the year of up-leveling in the development process so that teams and organizations can maximize the efficiencies and benefits of their value stream. The goal for all organizations should be understanding how to demonstrate to customers the key steps in the process while also showing which steps actually offer any real value to the process. Organizations will have to learn to take a step back, look at the big picture and identify areas for improvement as well as those not integral to the process.
Jeff Keyes
Director of Product Development, Plutora(link is external)

Read 2019 DevOps Predictions - Part 3, covering the development process.