Implementing DevOps has become a major focus, but the practice’s attempt to provide organizational support and streamline production systems simultaneously leaves developers with no clear hierarchical structure. We know we need DevOps and we know it helps, but we also know that without proper leadership or structure, it can be misunderstood and undervalued. To build a strong collaborative culture, DevOps leadership, like most other leadership roles, requires a different type of skillset—a skillset that isn’t always prioritized in software development. The ability to understand programming languages, to be versatile and be attentive to detail will take a developer far in their career, but once they’re in a management position, what is needed to be an effective DevOps leader?
First, what does an effective DevOps leader look like? To start, they need to lead. But to lead a DevOps team, it’s important to not only understand development—including reasonable goals and how to accomplish challenging tasks—but a DevOps leader needs to be able to create an environment that fosters collaboration between teams.
This is why a DevOps culture is a core value for any high-performing DevOps team. This is due to the cross-functional nature of the practice. The stages of the DevOps cycle (plan, build, test, deploy and manage) rely on different teams with different skill sets.
Build a Culture Of Ownership and Teamwork
To effectively collaborate, a strong cross-functional culture of ownership, teamwork, intensity and smart application is needed.
Clarity can transform a team, and it starts with ownership. Ownership is essential for cross-functional DevOps teams to understand their roles and what they are responsible for. In order for clarity to exist, leaders need to provide clear direction and guidance. It is a leader’s responsibility to set realistic goals and offer support. Group trust is built when a team has a common goal and clear roles and responsibilities are identified.
Ownership is the foundation of teamwork, and with it, team members can see their individual contributions to a project and can celebrate their successes together. This teamwork then breeds collaboration, improved performance and a cohesive dynamic within the team’s culture.
Lead With Strategic Intensity and Smart Application
A DevOps leader can empower their team through ownership and teamwork, but we can’t forget the value of knowing the right level of intensity for a project. Leaders need to understand a situation, the context and how to approach it strategically to avoid burnout and bitterness. They must know when to apply intense sprints and when to pull back and move resources—a leader must know how to play smart with the resources they have.
Use Soft Skills
People management skills can be overlooked in a lot of leadership positions. For example, we might see it when a startup chooses a CTO or an engineering lead position based on seniority or developer skills without regard for their ability to actually manage people or their desire to be in such a position. Often, the person in charge of a DevOps team is given this role because of their previous development accomplishments, but they lack the necessary soft skills of communication, conflict management and/or teamwork. Using the four principles above can help accelerate the foundation of culture as well as help compensate for a leader’s lack of soft skills
DevOps leaders need soft skills. Soft skills include the ability to think critically and project manage while having enough emotional intelligence to inspire, motivate and retain a team of smart engineers. Every leader needs to be able to see their team’s strengths and weaknesses, listen and influence and further develop their members to succeed. The challenge for this role is that, to be successful, it takes both technical expertise and soft skills and knowing how to balance the two.
Unfortunately, soft skills haven’t been prioritized in the training and career development of most software engineers. Only recently have soft skills been seen as a differentiator in the engineer hiring process or seen as a value-add to an organization. For years, technical skills took precedence and we ignored the areas that would take a software engineer to the next level – the soft skills that will lead to leadership. But it’s a bigger problem; employers say most college grads aren’t learning these soft skills in school.
Remember the Not-so-Secret Sauce
Soft skills empower a leader to thrive both within a DevOps team and in collaboration with other departments. The ability to work across teams can exponentially improve business operations. A strong DevOps leader can offer solutions and problem solve for internal issues and customer-facing problems. They are able to bring DevOps into new areas of the company in a strategic and effective way. Collaboration requires working with others, seeing the bigger problem, understanding the business goals and using soft skills to get things done.
It’s the not-so-secret sauce that makes all the difference when running a powerful DevOps team. A culture of collaboration starts with the leader. A leader’s relationship skills can increase the likelihood of bigger budgets, more tools and recognition. DevOps leaders can build a strong team by leveraging the soft skills within themselves and their team members, applying the right level of intensity and encouraging a culture of ownership, teamwork and collaboration. If these things are missing, whether DevOps or another team, the unit will fall apart.
This is why a DevOps leader needs to take personal ownership and responsibility for the success of their team and see motivating others, setting a standard of operational excellence and representing the DevOps team as an integral part of their role. Luckily, there are resources to learn and exercise these skills so every leader, newly appointed or veteran, can ensure their team can excel.
