Operational readiness in a digital world

Everything is going well

Continuous Delivery is an approach that enables software to be deployed automatically at any point in time. The approach relies heavily on automated testing and automated deployment techniques, helping to reduce risk in the software release process. It is reliant on the use of Agile delivery methodologies (what's the point in releasing continuously if you only get a new build every 6 months?). It also comes with it's own challenges, such as ensuring that unfinished features don't inadvertently appear in the production environment each time the software is deployed. Practices such as Feature Toggling help to manage this, enabling unfinished features to be 'hidden' from use when the latest code is pushed to production. So, you have an Agile delivery team, with an automated test framework and deployment pipeline, adopting Continuous Delivery and Feature Toggling practices, and everything is working brilliantly. You finish a feature and inform your stakeholders that it's in production and ready to be toggled on, then

Disaster strikes

"Wait - we're not ready, keep the feature toggled off" The operations team isn't ready to use the feature - perhaps they haven't been trained, or worse - they haven't finished recruiting the people needed to support the feature. This scenario might seem strange but is much more common than you think. When you hear the term 'digital', you automatically think of online and mobile channels, a well-designed electronic experience for your customers. But we don't live in a fully digital world just yet. People are required in contact centres and need to be on hand to deal with emails and tweets - not to mention the staffing of face-to-face drop-in centres. "Operational readiness' is the term used to describe whether or not the business has everything in place that it needs to support a change such as the launch of a new feature. Now, there may be a number of legitimate reasons why a completed feature needs to remain toggled off. You may wish to coincide the launch with a marketing campaign scheduled for another date. Perhaps the development finished ahead of schedule and the readiness activities are still in progress. But, often the reason isn't as straightforward and might indicate a problem. The team may have misunderstood priorities - or worse, progress updates between the development team and operations might have broken down. When organisations first transition to an Agile way of working, the problem can be exacerbated. The operations team often doesn't expect to have to do any readiness activities for another 6 months, and are caught off guard by the speed of Agile delivery. This mismatch in expectations can lead to animosity between the development team and operations, only making the problem worse. Luckily, there's a simple fix. Misunderstood priorities and a breakdown in communication are symptoms of a lack of collaboration. The delivery team and the operations team can easily work together throughout development - making sure that the right people join the sprint review, making things visible and getting people talking to help build relationships. You'll be surprised by how effective this collaboration can be.

The future

Unfortunately, the simple fix mentioned above isn't necessarily the best long-term fix. Poor collaboration between separate teams is natural. The organisational barrier itself creates a divide, and often an 'us vs them' attitude between development and operations (and other teams for that matter). Businesses know that this needs to change. They know that they need to reinvent themselves if they want to function properly and stay relevant in a digital world. This process of reinvention is known as Digital Transformation. When Digital Transformation has progressed sufficiently within an organisation we'll start to see the barriers between operations and development teams break down. Digital Transformation might be the long-term fix, even if not the simple one - unfortunately, it doesn't happen overnight. So for now, make sure you collaborate - that's certainly a step in the right direction.