It’s a business fable. And, I loved it anyway! Remember reading “The Goal” by Eli Goldratt back in B school? This is the DevOps twin. Written by Gene Kim @RealGeneKim, Kevin Behr @kevinbehr AND George Spafford @gspaff.
What is DevOps?
It’s a concept that signifies tight, systems collaboration between Development and Operations (IT). As this post on Dev2Ops explains, “DevOps is a response to the growing awareness that there is a disconnect between what is traditionally considered development activity and what is traditionally considered operations activity.”
One of my favorite quotes from the book is in reference to an IT department:
“You’ve just described ‘technical debt’ that is not being paid down. It comes from taking shortcuts, which may make sense in the short-term. But like financial debt, the compounding interest costs grow over time. If an organization doesn’t pay down its technical debt, every calorie in the organization can be spent just paying interest, in the form of unplanned work.” “As you know, unplanned work is not free,” he continues. “Quite the opposite. It’s very expensive, because unplanned work comes at the expense of…” He looks around professorially for an answer. Wes finally speaks up, “Planned work?” “Precisely!” Erik says jovially. “Yes, that’s exactly right, Chester. Bill mentioned the four types of work: business projects, IT Operations projects, changes, and unplanned work. Left unchecked…”
If your business includes deploying any type of code to a website or other online access, and uptime and security matter. Then you will relate to this story. And be inspired to work towards positive change!
Agile Dreamer 
Leave a Reply