DevOps

Adopting DevOps: The 5 Steps to Success

By Holly Bracewell

The bigger a project is, the more daunting it can be to get started because it’s tough to work out where to begin. When it comes to implementing Salesforce DevOps, uncertainty about where to start is a common theme across teams. 

But don’t worry, as these five steps can help any team to build a robust roadmap to achieve digital transformation through Salesforce DevOps.

1. Understand Your Requirements

Instead of diving blindly into DevOps, it’s best to assess your current process. Start by considering the strengths and weaknesses in how you currently work. For example, do your current tools mean deployments can get out quickly, but a lack of visibility is leading to overwritten code? Or maybe you have a great incident detection plan to help you spot data loss in your orgs, but you don’t have a reliable backup to restore lost data from?

Once you’ve pinpointed what’s working well and what needs improvement, you can begin to identify the best resources and support you’ll need to help you achieve DevOps success that focus on your pain points.

2. Start Small and Ramp Up

There may be a temptation to implement everything all at once when it comes to Salesforce DevOps. But a big bang approach has actually been found to lead to less successful implementation and lower levels of DevOps maturity. Instead, teams who get a solid foundation in place (i.e. quick, reliably successful deployments and version control) before building their DevOps processes gradually, have seen much greater success than those who try to introduce everything in one burst.

There are Salesforce-specific DevOps platforms available that can accommodate the nuances of the Salesforce platform and make DevOps accessible to everyone, regardless of role or experience.

3. Build a DevOps Culture

Successful DevOps is about more than just tools and processes. Creating a DevOps culture is what enables teams to reach the highest levels of DevOps maturity. 

A strong DevOps culture centers around:

  • Collaboration
  • Continuous improvement 
  • Buy-in

Getting the whole team involved in DevOps training and development is the best way to help a DevOps culture thrive, as you’ll be giving the team the skills and motivation to make these new ways of working a success.

4. Iterate and Optimize

Learning from, iterating on, and optimizing how you work is a DevOps approach to DevOps! As a team continues to learn and becomes more familiar with new systems, they’re going to identify ways to optimize existing processes and have ideas on how to iterate. Having a DevOps culture in place is what ensures that members of the team feel comfortable coming forward with these ideas and suggestions.

5. Measure Success

Teams implement DevOps to improve their Salesforce ROI and ways of working – measuring and reviewing your DevOps adoption regularly helps ensure you’re working towards your goals and seeing the benefits you aimed for. But don’t be discouraged if your stats aren’t looking how you want them to right away; take it as a learning opportunity to identify areas of improvement, which will get you even closer to the results you do want. 

Google’s DORA metrics are specifically designed to help teams assess the velocity (speed) and resilience (security) of their DevOps workflow. They provide a great way to review how you’re doing – not just at the start of your adoption journey, but throughout it too.

Getting Started With DevOps

Hopefully these five steps have helped to demystify DevOps adoption and given you key areas to consider as you begin to explore these new ways of working. DevOps can be daunting, but with this guidance you’ll be well on your way to approaching implementation with the knowledge and support you need to be successful. 

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The Author

Holly Bracewell

Holly is a Technical Author for Gearset, the leading DevOps solution for Salesforce.

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