DEVOPSdigest

As your development team is working remotely and being tasked with conducting "business as usual," you need simple solutions to put into place for your newly dispersed team to ensure your team can work effectively and efficiently. It is critical that each person is set-up to have a productive work space, proper communication technology and DevOps tools.

A Productive Workspace

Each team member should have a computer, a solid Internet connection to a modem, and a camera to enable video communication. Ultimately it is most productive to have two to three monitors so one monitor can be devoted to video conferencing and the others devoted to their workspace. If working in a loud space, consider headphones to block the noise and reduce distraction when conferencing.

Top Communication Tools

A virtual workspace can be setup to emulate the office space. A Video War Room, in which everyone on the team participates all day, allows people to feel like they are all together as well as enables conversation.

When you work in the office, it is easy to lean over and ask your co-workers a quick question. Those quick questions don't have to go away just because you are working remotely. You’ll want to decide what kind of platform your team wants to use for Instant Messaging. Our platform allows everyone to be the most productive and get answers quickly. One feature we've utilized is multiple channels, which can be created for specific areas of business (i.e. marketing team, customer specific project groups).

DevOps Tools

As a team disperses, managers tend to panic that they won’t have the regular insights into what their team is working on each day. It is critical that your team members are clear about their objectives and tasks at hand. Implement a work project tracking tool for your team.

As a team lead, it is critical to maintain — and even increase — the pace of your implementations into production with confidence. If any part of the items below have been on your list for some time, waiting to be taken care of — now is the time to implement them:

■ Distributed Version Control System

■ Visual Studio

■ Integration Build

■ Automated Environment Provisioning & Deployments

■ Analytics/Observability

■ Solid DevOps Pipeline Structure

Whether business is conducted one-on-one, in an office setting or virtually, the workflow doesn't have to be disrupted. Implementing some new approaches to daily business needs allows your team to continue business operations, keeping communication lines open and project deadlines on track. Now is the time to take advantage of implementing the core principles that enable your team to work fast, producing quality code and running with confidence.