You need to integrate business, product development, and product operations in one single workflow to reduce waste, increase product security, and get maximum revenue out of the product. A business can only do that when it adopts the BizDevOps concept for product development. Most businesses in various industries were completely siloed before the digital transformation. After the digital adaptation, companies reduced the disconnected approach to any project. However, digital transformation also added many tools, apps, and workflows to different departments of a business according to their specialization. Now, companies are becoming more siloed because they need to learn to use different tools and specialize in those from department to department. So, business management experts discovered that digital or cloud transformation is not solving the siloed departments of businesses. Hence, great business minds sat together to find out new ways to break the organizations from siloed working culture and increase collaboration and understanding among teams. BizDevOps is the outcome of this revolutionizing effort by experts and leaders of businesses. Continue reading to learn BizDevOps from the inside out. You can apply the concept in your business to get extraordinary outputs. Alternatively, if you are a professional, you can become an expert trainer on BizDevOps for corporates and startups.
An Introduction to DevOps
DevOps is a product development framework that includes a set of tools, practices, and cultural philosophies. Such a combination integrates and automates the workflows between the operations and product (software) development teams. Its primary goal is to promote cross-team communication, team empowerment, collaborative work, and technological automation. The IT business leaders unveiled the DevOps framework somewhere between 2007 and 2009. Software companies came up with such a working model to resolve the regular product-related disputes between the software developers and the operations. DevOps is simply an abbreviation of development and operations. It brings the operations and development teams to one table from the start of software planning to market and redevelopment. After seeing the tremendous benefit of the DevOps process in the software industry, other industries that deal with products adopted the framework.
DevOps Strategy
This product development framework involves an infinite loop to show the continuous product development process. Though you might find a sequential appearance of phases in a DevOps model, you must notice that the process circles in a loop due to the continuation of product upgrades according to customer feedback. Here is how the DevOps strategy works:
Discovery of a need and product to meet the need (Development team)Planning the product development (Development team)Developing the product (Development team)Testing the product (Development team)Product deployment (Operations team)Operating the product or supervising its operation (Operations team)Observing product performance (Operations team)Getting continuous feedback from internal and external users (Operations team)Including feedback as needed in the initial discovery and going back to the planning stage (Development and Operations team)
DevOps Tools
The technology stack of the DevOps framework should include a combination of the following tools:
Project managementCustomer relationship manager (CRM)Software or product development apps or instrumentsPackage installersCloud and virtual devicesFeedback collectorsGroup monitoring
DevOps Benefits
Increase your product’s time to marketBoost project collaborationMarket apps or products rapidlyAccountabilityQuality assuranceSecurity
DevOps Challenges and BizDevOps in Rescue
Unwilling to Follow the Change
DevOps is a business process where the development and operations teams are present. You are leaving the business and administration team. Hence, you might experience the concerned teams being reluctant to adopt DevOps. But BizDevOps is a new model of business that incorporates the whole organization. Hence, your workforce will have no ground to resist the change.
Business Process Continuation
DevOps can not resolve the issue that businesses experience to a change in one software and all other connected software unable to perform their tasks. In product development, one product change hurts the marketing of other products. In BizDevOps, you take care of the entire business. It plans the updating or redevelopment of software or products in such a way that other related apps or products are not affected by the change.
Increases Siloed Work Culture
DevOps should have eliminated the silo in businesses. But with different apps for different teams, it has increased siloed working style. With BizDevOps, experts expect that the working in silos introduced by DevOps will reduce drastically.
DevOps Left Behind the Brain of Business
The business and administration unit is the brain of the company. Business and admin include sales, marketing, accounting, taxation, and so on. These teams did not know what is happening with the software, product, or services their company was producing. Hence, from budget approval to sales, the gap between the business teams and DevOps teams started growing. The DevOps team faces many bottlenecks when they need to get budget approvals, market their products, collect feedback from the field, and so on. You can expect that such an issue will not show up in your future product development projects when you adopt the BizDevOps framework.
Intra Company Communication
In DevOps, only the product development and product operations teams communicate with each other. The business team that manages sales, marketing, and revenue, does not know what is happening with the products they sell or market. Hence, when the sales team goes out in the field, they face tough questions for which they are unprepared. This happens due to a communication gap between the business team from the DevOps team. BizDevOps will groom the entire organization in a way that everyone is aware of the business, development, and operational part of company products. Hence, the marketing and sales team can easily answer customer queries and increase customer satisfaction and sales revenue.
What Is BizDevOps?
BizDevOps is a product or software development approach that encourages everybody to work together on a project to increase the project’s success and company revenue. The entire organization can take an idea from the business team and make it real. The development and operations team adds value to this idea. You can realize the significance of such a harmonious work culture when you see fewer complaints on your software or product from the client and increased revenue. Hence, when the business team also takes part in a product development process along with the developer team and operation team during the entire product lifecycle, then you call it a BizDevOps framework. With BizDevOps you can achieve the followings:
Align development of products and softwareEnhanced governance of the organizationIn-depth monitoringIncreased efficiency, productivity, and reduced wastage
In a nutshell, BizDevOps should bring down the barrier between business and technology of a project. Often, developers speak different languages. This language is not the human language. It is machine language. Devs speak in terms of codes and syntax. But, the business team does not understand this language. BizDevOps’ responsibility is to put the business team on par with the DevOps team. Hence, when customers report the occurrence of increased issues with a new product, the business team can appropriately convey the message to the DevOps team. Thus, you ensure that your teams do not lose the customers’ feedback in translation.
Best Practices for BizDevOps
Active Participation by all the Teams
All the project teams and members should participate in product development, testing, and marketing activities.
Create Self-Organizing Teams
The teams within your organization should be self-motivated and organized to complete their respective tasks and self-assigning new tasks from a common task bucket.
Train Teams to Be Cross-Functional
BizDevOps requires that you send your business, development, and operations team for training in cross-functional skills and technologies more often. Create multiple teams from the above departments and provide them with corporate training on business management, IT, and business operations.
Opt for a Flat Organizational Structure
On the product development side, there should not be any hierarchical differences. You can keep this for your HR team to handle in a non-product environment.
Increase Collaboration and Teamwork
You need to encourage the team leaders, top performers, etc., to work closely with their subordinates and peers to create a work culture that fosters knowledge sharing. Consequently, you will see increased team collaboration.
Adapt to Changes
You need to regularly assess teams’ performance and improvise the product development lifecycle. Also, you need to train your teams with business continuity plans so that they can handle a business emergency in an organized fashion.
Set Common Goals for all the Teams
BizDevOps is all about synchronizing the entire organization. Hence, the objectives or goals of your development team, operations team, and the business team can not be different.
Set Customer-Centric KPIs
Your business KPIs should focus on the needs of your customers. If you make different KPIs and customer satisfaction goals, you will face a disparity between product performance and business performance.
Working Model of BizDevOps
The working model of BizDevOps has three different teams, the business team, the development team, and the operations team. Each of the above teams has to deliver some tasks according to the following infographic: Transcribing the above image in the list below:
Goals of BizDevOps
Benefits of BizDevOps
Conclusion
BizDevOps will be the best practice for product development for future-ready organizations. If you adopt this framework earlier than your competitor, you will enjoy the benefits of being the fast mover – just like how Google is dominating the search engine industry by becoming a fast mover in the website business. Furthermore, it is not rocket science to implement BizDevOps. All you need is a professional team that is ready to accept the changes to stay afloat. The rest is up to the tools and technologies you use in your business. You can successfully upgrade your business to a BizDevOps status when you master the DevOps framework. Here are some reliable and accessible online courses that are essential to learn DevOps.
