DevOps Team at a Large bank
This example is based on an actual DASA DevOps customer, and names and identifying details have been changed.
In this example a newly formed DevOps team consists of 5 people: Tom, Gerard, Katja, Bob and Emma. All of them assessed their skill levels against the DASA Team Competence Model. In our case they completed the DASA DevOps Quickscan, but it could also be done through internal discussions, or supported by a DevOps coach.
Building relevant skills in your DevOps team
Everyone in a team needs to be able to understand the key DevOps principles and practices, and operate at level 2 ‘competent’ in the DASA Team Competence Model.
In the journey of the DevOps team in a large bank several skill gaps were identified, and by addressing these skill gaps, the team is able to work more effectively together and deliver results for the business.
Not everyone has to achieve the ‘exert’ level for all 12 competencies. While working effectively in teams, individual members start taking over responsibilities from other members, but not everyone can become an expert in everything.
Key Work profiles
DASA has identified three key work areas within a team, and we identify them as profiles. The profiles are: Specify and Verify, Create and Deliver, and Enable and Scale.
The team members then upskill in the areas relevant to them.
Specify and Verify
Specification and Verification constitute the activities performed by a DevOps team that determine and communicate what is valuable within a product, both functionally and non-functionally, from the customers’ perspective and ensuring the delivery of the desired value. The profile extends traditional analysis, test, or architecture roles through its combination and relation with each other, and puts them in a DevOps context.
Specify and Verify covers the four knowledge areas: Business Value Optimization, Business Analysis, Architecture and Design, and Test Specification
In our example (everyone first completed the Fundamentals program) Gerard best fits the Specify and Verify profile. As the product owner in the team, his activities are closely aligned to the Specify and Verify knowledge areas. The DASA DevOps Professional Certification Specify and Verify helps him to bring all his capabilities to level 3 – ‘Proficient’. Gerard will need to consider additional programs in the Test Specification space to further improve that specific capability
Enable and Scale
Within the team, the team member(s) with affinity to the Enable and Scale domain are best equipped for taking a leadership position in building coherence within the team. They traditionally would have played the ScrumMaster role in a Scrum team, and in they DevOps team, they are naturally focused on developing Leadership, continuous improvement, teambuilding and courage within the team.
The key aspects of the competence framework that are vital for this role are found in the skills areas. DASA recognizes four major skill areas: Courage, Team-building, DevOps Leadership and Continuous Improvement.
In the example of the DevOps team for a large bank, Emma is best equipped for the Enable and Scale Profile. As a senior engineer, she is experienced with all steps in the delivery of products and services to the market, and can leverage this expertise to really lead the team.
By taking and completing the DASA DevOps Professional Enable and Scale Certification, she will become a stronger leader for his team, focus on continuous improvement of the activities performed in the team, work on building the individual contributors to becoming a coherent team, and help every member to stand up for themselves, and engage actively with others.
Create and Deliver
About DevSecOps, or in other words to consider security as a key component, and as relevant as Dev and Ops. In DASA’s vision security is one of the 12 key capabilities, and addressed through tThe majority of a DevOps team will fall into the Create & Deliver profile. The core knowledge areas are Programming, Continuous Delivery, Security, Risk & Compliance and Infrastructure Engineering. This is really the heart of the team’s capabilities.
In the example of our bank, the Create and Deliver profile best suits Tom, Katja, Bob, but also James. For Tom, Katja en Bob the DASA DevOps Professional Create and Deliver Certification is meaningful, as it helps them strengthen their skills in building and delivering solutions. James does not need to complete this program, as he is already proficient on all four knowledge areas.
For Katja, coming from an operations background, becoming proficient in programming is a substantial change from her previous experience. She will need to work with code on a daily basis. Many organizations who started their DevOps transformation are struggling with the lack of software engineering skills, and developing these capabilities requires a lot of effort.
Everyone will benefit from building an understanding in Continuous Delivery, as this helps the team to build capabilities in the automated delivery of new code through a well-constructed “pipeline” from development to production.
Infrastructure Engineering is a capability that is more relevant to infrastructure teams, and not for the Application team we are talking about. At the same time it is important for Application-oriented DevOps teams to have a good understanding of the underlying infrastructural technology (being on-premise or based on cloud-native services) so that they can ensure that their applications match the standard infrastructure models in an optimal way.
There are many discussions in the markethe Security, Risk and Compliance knowledge area. Attention to secure coding, understanding the risks related to not just the technology but also the functionality being created and ensuring that business rules being coded comply with industry regulations is essential to ensure that the applications deployed have value for the customer.
In our vision, where teams are able to manage all responsibilities thrown at them, and are taking on the full responsibility from cradle to grave for the product and services they support, specific roles are disappearing. In the future, there will be no Testers, programmers, business analysts – no everyone will be take on multiple roles, depending on what the team demands from the user.
2 minutes to find out your skill gap
Take the DASA DevOpsCompetence Quickscan to see if you have the skills to work on a DevOps team.
The scan contains 24 questions and your results are immediately visible.
Take the Quickscan Now