Effective DevOps

Chapter 14. Scaling: Inflection Points

This chapter is aimed at examining and overcoming the obstacles within our organizations at various important points throughout their lifecycles. It might be tempting to simplify this idea to “devops in the enterprise,” as many people tend to do when thinking about devops outside of smaller, startup environments. However, this is an oversimplification—while there are certainly enterprise-specific concerns, many of which we will address in this chapter, it is more complete and more valuable to describe how companies change over time, whether that be a startup growing in size or an enterprise organization splitting in two. Scaling is about the evolution, growth, and advancement of the organization as a whole throughout its entire lifecycle.

Understanding Scaling

In a team, department, or organization, it’s not always easy to know when a change is needed or in which direction. Although receiving advice on these transitions in advance can be helpful, the change can still feel incredibly counterintuitive.

When we view our progress as part of the evolving landscape that can help or hinder our future endeavors, it can help us to plan, execute, and adjust position with deliberate intention based on our current state—whether the moves are slow and controlled, or dynamic leaps. Through experience we learn when and how to change directions, and to approach different environments with different strategies.

In this chapter, we will take a look ...