Peering into the crystal ball – or maybe throwing down the gauntlet?

Trying to predict the future is a mug’s game. But increasingly it’s a game we all have to play because the world is changing so fast and we need to have some sort of idea of what the future’s actually going to be like because we are going to have to live there, probably next week.

Douglas Adams, the Salmon of Doubt

I have long described myself as a true believer in ITIL, and my personal ambitions for career progression has long had a clear slant towards process work. I have operated as Change Manager for one of our customers for almost a year now, a role which has provided me many lessons, and further shown me that this is where I want to concentrate my efforts. Likewise, my role as deputy Incident Manager for that same customer has been an arena of good lessons, I have a strong track record in what we do, now I want to step back and look at how we do what we do.

While I remain a believer in ITIL, it’s almost four years since I stopped thinking that ITIL alone could provide the process methodologies necessary to achieve the levels of success for an IT operations shop that I believe are possible. It is my belief that an understanding of Lean, and applying the lessons of the theory of constraints are also key to these pursuits. Simply put; I believe the way forward is DevOps.

Though I have many thoughts on the subject, they are at present tempered by a lack of knowledge. As I read up on these subjects, as I attend training in them, and as I gain more practical experience, I expect to gain more confidence within the field, and hope to make DevOps an important part of my career to come.

I am saying this because I think DevOps awareness and knowledge is important. Though the term is coming up on ten years old, it’s still early days for its adoption, and it is my hope that I will be able to be part of ensuring that adoption increases, to the best, both of vendors and our customer.