Don't reorg for DevOps

The point of DevOps is to span silos not create new ones.

I'm seeing too much of enterprises assuming one of the first steps of DevOps is a reorganisation.

If DevOps is about collaboration across silos, how does rearranging the silos help? DevOps isn't about org structures.

You can organise into functional technology silos with virtual product teams, or into product teams with virtual technology functions and guilds. Either way it is a matrix.

Most legacy enterprises are organised into functional teams. Although the current preference is for a product team instead and there is an argument that a team should stay together over the long term, the reality is that the size of the team will grow and shrink over time as the volume of change in the prodict varies. Therefore only a core will be constant anyway - the teams need to be fluid. So I dont see the downside in them being virtual teams taken from functional groups.

Moreover, I see the future as product teams brought together from multiple departments not sourced exclusively from IT: marketing, product design, digital design, shadow IT teams, third party suppliers, vendors... All the more reason for them to be virtual.

Your internal IT technical teams may want to regroup as providers of platforms, automation, tools, security etc but there is no need to rush into that either until you understand exactly how it will work on your enterprise.

Reorgs just churn. They unsettle people and disrupt processes. Get the DevOps working first, then a reorg may be an optimisation.

Dont start the journey to DevOps with a staff reorg. When DevOps makes your people realise they need to reorganise, then it is time.

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