Quantifying DevOps Outcomes: Managing Risk

Last week, we held our second webinar in a four part series focused on digital transformation. In that session, we focused on why mitigating risk is essential to increasing speed. In case you missed it, you can watch a recording of the second episode, “Managing Risk” below.

Outperformance means shipping software faster, but also more safely and reliably. You can’t ship software quickly and do it poorly without bleeding customers. The primary defense mechanism we have for ensuring safety is focusing on how we test changes for compliance with information security standards.

We asked our audience to tell us how they’re performing today. Over half (54%) indicated they believe the risk mitigation strategy they’re using today is slowing them down. When gauging the most important concerns for lowering risk, overcoming manual security processes was, unsurprisingly, at the top of the list. A secondary concern was lack of communication between teams.

Automated compliance solutions have the potential to address both of those concerns. The goal of this webinar series is to help you think about your DevOps transformation initiatives using objective data, not a focus on tools. However, the poll results lead us to a place where I have to point out that InSpec helps address both concerns at the same time. InSpec enables communication between InfoSec as well as Dev and Ops teams using the same language to carry out both systems integration and compliance tests using the same framework. With InSpec, your teams collaborate and communicate by default.

“The tools we use reinforce the behavior; the behavior reinforces the tool. Thus, if you want to change your behavior, change your tools.” – Adam Jacob

One of the main ways to drive change in our organizations is to choose tools that enable the behaviors that lead to the outcomes which lead us to success. So while this series isn’t specifically about tooling, there are opportunities to find tools that help drive your progress and ultimately change your culture. Our particular focus in this session was mitigating risk, but an essential part of that is nurturing the practices that make moving quickly safe and, ultimately, help drive transformation.

In our next installment, we’ll specifically look at what practices matter when focusing on increasing speed. Join us live on March 22 at 10:00 AM PT so that we can address your specific concerns during the interactive Q&A session.

George Miranda

Former Chef Employee