We like to think that every organization can efficiently manage its different business units. However, the larger an organization gets and the more specialized work teams that it employs, the greater the chance that it will begin to experience fragmentation. This leads to many problems with efficiency. The obvious problem is that people get so caught up in their work teams’ activities that they have less communication with other teams. The organization as a whole becomes more of a lumbering giant in terms of exchanging information between teams. With that limited sharing of data, it’s hard to optimize operation to keep the bean counters happy. From an executive standpoint, this would make it very hard to manage costs, much less to get some standardization among the work that teams perform. whetherhttps://www.pagerduty.com/why-pagerduty/devops/
Look at the Enterprise
We like to think of a business as an enterprise, which consists of many business units. These units tend to operate as different entities within the larger organization. In the enterprise, there is a potential for a silo mentality to develop. This occurs when the entities are keeping to themselves and think that their work is most important. They tend to get guarded about sharing information and they want to protect the ways that they do things, also called their internal processes. They might also resist change and not volunteer to participate in organization-wide initiatives. Executives cringe when they face a silo mentality, which may only be in pockets of the enterprise.
Software Development as an Example
We can take the software development side of the organization as an example. This is where there are IT operations. There are different teams charged with supporting different business entities. For example, some teams may manage servers for sales or they may be developing new apps for consumers to download and use on their smart devices. These teams are so absorbed in their own work that they need tools for better information sharing and collaboration. They need to be directed by software that will help them prioritize the business needs of the entire enterprise, like at https://www.pagerduty.com/why-pagerduty/devops/.
Understanding the DevOps Culture
Companies can break down the silos that exist, or their IT teams being insular and not working with other teams, through a culture called DevOps. This is when the development and operations staff form a partnership. They want to keep all software running in the organization at optimal levels. They know that both sides of the organization must cooperate. With a pager system in place, there is a central platform that monitors all of the systems and prioritizes the work. People on one work team can see if their assistance is needed with high-priority tasks, such as incidents that amount to business emergencies and are normally handled by other work teams. Then, IT professionals working on both sides of the organization can stop their assigned tasks and handle high-priority tasks. They can ensure that all software incidents are managed so the enterprise works efficiently. They can prioritize lesser tasks to when they are not solving a crisis. They can get assistance from experts on any team, which means the organization solves IT problems faster.
