This website covers knowledge management, personal effectiveness, theory of constraints, amongst other topics. Opinions expressed here are strictly those of the owner, Jack Vinson, and those of the commenters.

DevOps from a TOC perspective

Fountain in Forsyth Park

Evgeny Zislis has a great piece on DevOps Transformation using Theory of Constraints, where he takes us through the 4 Questions for Technology (I've written about them a few times).  I found it a great example of using the questions.

A reminder on the questions:

  1. What is the value of this new technology?

  2. What limitation does this technology diminish?

  3. What were the policies and rules that governed before trying to adopt this technology?

  4. What must the new policies be when this new technology is used?

It was also a help for me to understand what is DevOps, which I have never fully understood.  His definition borrowed from that of others, but what I took from it was that DevOps is more a way of thinking about managing development and operations, rather than any specific practices or tools.  This is not too far from Theory of Constraints or Agile or Lean - they are concepts and frameworks that create a frame of reference or lens through which I can look at the world. 

In Evgeny's discussion, I was particularly interested in his view of the policies/practices that exist in the current reality and the policies/practices that need to be created if the value of DevOps is to take hold.

The short version of the discussion is that it is far too easy for people to apply the tools and outward signs of <pick your poison> without fully taking the change on board. And as a result, the power behind that change is never fully released.

Buffers in short

Do you know it when you see it?