Why DevOps Is Essential to a Remote Workforce and Business Continuity

The conversation around business continuity and remote work is changing. There’s no denying the disruption to the way we used to work. Although remote work has been gaining in popularity for years, especially for tech companies, more businesses are now realizing — even though they were forced to — that they don’t need their teams in one physical spot to be productive and effective.

For organizations that choose to build remote workforces and strengthen their business continuity plans, DevOps is essential. Here’s why.

DevOps Breaks Down Silos

It’s rather difficult to collaborate with a distributed team if there’s no interaction or connection. This problem actually applies to teams in the same physical space. What DevOps does is marry the development process and the IT operational aspects. It’s a silo buster. DevOps principles break down barriers between team members and empower them to work together for a faster product delivery that meets users’ needs.

Without a DevOps framework, your teams live in different worlds. It’s harmful to performance and speed. These are things you cannot ignore in the modern world. To keep a competitive edge and ensure digital products are viable, embracing DevOps is a must for remote teams. DevOps supports remote teams by providing a framework that prioritizes working together efficiently.

Teams Remain Productive

Many companies worried for years that they would see productivity decreases if they were to allow remote work. That’s a common misconception. Much research suggests the opposite. One study, for example, found that remote employees work 1.4 more days per month than those in offices. After all, remote work eliminates the time it takes to get ready and commute.

Looking specifically at software dev teams, GitHub issued a report on the impact the rush to remote work caused by COVID-19 had on productivity. The overall finding was that productivity was mostly consistent and even slightly greater than it was pre-pandemic.

A DevOps culture doesn’t just positively impact programmer productivity. It also has the ability to optimize operations, streamline workflows, promote collaboration, and maximize throughput across the board.

Achieving Cross-Functionality May Happen Faster with a Remote Workforce

One of the biggest impediments to DevOps adoption is the cross-functionality conundrum. There may be “invisible” or perceived barriers that set up a “them versus us” mentality in a physical setting. Once teams are remote, these barriers could disappear, though, because communication and collaboration are more deliberate.

What I mean by this is that in an office, lots of informal side conversations may arise that then impact the work of an individual. Remote teams are now “standardizing” these interactions with daily stand-ups, scheduled project meetings, and constant communication through IM channels. You may find that collaboration improves with a distributed team!

I highly recommend video meetings over traditional conference calls because video meetings create a more human experience and allow each person to interpret body language. They can also reduce multitasking.

DevOps Empowers Remote Teams to Innovate

In the silo scenario noted above, one of the biggest casualties is innovation. If teams are not in sync and they’re just putting out fires all day, they’ll never have time to think about what comes next or incorporate user input.

A DevOps culture, however, encourages new ideation and quick responses to user feedback. When your company is in a constant state of innovation, it doesn’t matter if the people behind it are in the same room or meeting screen to screen. A DevOps foundation is the support that teams need to deliver better features, create new revenue streams, and be truly agile.

DevOps Reduces Downtime

Downtime is the foe of every IT team. Even a few seconds can have serious consequences. Business continuity plans address downtime and how to react if it happens, but preventing it from happening at all is certainly the goal.

So how does DevOps help businesses get a better handle on downtime? By closely integrating development and operations, companies master reliability, an absolute necessity for any digital product. If your software has reliability issues, it’s hard for users to be confident in deploying it. Further, in the event of a disaster that triggers downtime, a DevOps framework ensures a faster response and a quicker recovery.

DevOps Tools and Procedures Align with Recovery

The tools and procedures of DevOps teams are ideal for a quick recovery from service disruptions. These tools enable automation and monitoring, which are extremely important to business continuity. The same workflows that allow you to reduce the risk of failure when you make incremental changes also work in business continuity situations.

Keeping Your Business in Business

DevOps methodologies promote the idea that every release must be ready for production. This mindset obviously has an impact on business continuity. The crux of business continuity is keeping your business in business, and DevOps can support this objective. Here’s how:

● Define the impact and value of any incremental improvements.

● Create confirmation tests for all user stories.

● Distribute feedback from tests to all stakeholders.

● Resolve all critical issues before release.

Is DevOps Enabling Your Organization’s Future Success?

DevOps principles can play a significant role in future-proofing your development and operations, which supports remote work and business continuity. Having the right DevOps team is vital for success to be a reality.

Whether you’re just beginning to build this team or you’re expanding it, recruiting, vetting, and hiring can be challenging. Let our team of DevOps/SRE recruitment specialists help. Contact me today to see how we can help.