What if Orgs and DevOps were on Tinder?

*Substitute your own image of Org and DevOps.  Successful relationships come in all shapes, sizes, age differences, genders and diversities.

So what will it take to make the relationship work?

Is the zany Org prepared to be more organized (Implementation Lifecycle including the DevOps Process)?

Often the root cause of a chaotic org is a lack of a clear and well followed implementation process. This is requirements capture, evaluation of requirements through business process mapping, risk-based user stories, org analysis for conflicts, solutioning with architecture and security considerations, strong development standards, repeatable testing, a structured release pipeline and a focus on user adoption. Sounds a lot, but it is straightforward.

However, simply fixing the development and release cycle is not enough. Sure, you can change faster, but the release rollbacks will grow and user adoption tanks.  DevOps is “Building The Thing Right”.  But the early phases of business analysis is making sure you are “Building the Right Thing”.  In short SHIFT LEFT.

What constant surprises are going to keep cropping up from Org’s past (Configuration Knowledge)?

The history is probably there, but in siloes of documentation or hidden in the dependencies between metadata. What is needed is a full and frank Org Discovery and then all the configuration knowledge can be organized, analyzed and connected; requirements, user stories, process diagrams, metadata and dependencies, metadata usage, tech specifications, security scans and end user training.  We call this CHANGE INTELLIGENCE which the basis for any long term relationship.

Are there the clear guidelines for the relationship and support from family and friends? (Center of Excellence)?

This structure is a called a Center of Excellence (COE) There are 13 pillars to a COE.  Some of these are Leadership, Standards, Metadata Management Security and Tooling.  Not all need to be in place on day 1, but the most mature and valuable relationships – i.e. highest ROI from Salesforce – have a COE in place. And as the complexity and strategic value of Salesforce increases, more of the pillars need to be in place.  The pillars are explained in this video.

 Plan for the honeymoon, not the divorce

We need more zany Org – DevOps relationships to work so that the whole ecosystem has a lower divorce rate and we all change faster together.  And long walks in the country with dogs.

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