ChatOps

Chapter 7. Getting Started and Examples

While evaluating and choosing the right tools for your situation is an important early step, you must first ask yourself and your team: “What is it we are trying to accomplish?” ChatOps was born out of DevOps principles. Because of that, teams must realize that it’s important to use business objectives to prioritize efforts even with ChatOps.

Understand the “Why” of ChatOps

Before choosing a group chat tool, teams need to be informed of the “why” of ChatOps and its relationship to the company’s objectives.

The idea of continuous improvement should always be in the minds of those trying to implement change—particularly when it comes to cultural change, which is what ChatOps represents. Increasing collaboration and sharing of information and knowledge is not a top-down initiative. It is something that must evolve over time. Tools and processes can be put in place to facilitate change, but it doesn’t happen overnight.

There will be some within the team or organization who feel that a ChatOps effort is “just another project.” They may not initially see it as creating a new and valuable way of managing the codebase, infrastructure, and more if business objectives are not made the clear priority. This situation is even worse if the capabilities and benefits of a ChatOps approach aren’t made clear. Begin by understanding what is best for the company. Then communicate it clearly to the team and organization, and go from there.

Immediate benefits ...