How can you manage change and risk effectively in a DevOps and ITSM environment?

In my DevOps and ITSM experience, automation bridges gaps and enhances agility when managed with alignment, proactive risk management, and a culture of improvement. Aligning goals was crucial; we used frameworks like ITIL and DASA to integrate DevOps speed with ITSM’s service reliability focus. A hybrid change management model balanced CI/CD efficiency with necessary oversight. Automated risk assessments and a shared risk register allowed early issue identification, while retrospectives fostered continuous learning. The right tools, such as Ansible and version control systems, streamlined collaboration, and shared KPIs kept all teams aligned on quality, reliability, and efficiency.

Break Silos: Foster communication between Dev, Ops, and ITSM teams. Shared Risk Register: Maintain a central registry to identify, assess, and mitigate risks collaboratively.

Automated Testing: Integrate automated testing throughout the CI/CD pipeline to identify issues early. Standardized Change Management: Define clear change approval workflows with appropriate risk assessments.

Impact Assessments: Evaluate potential impacts of changes on infrastructure, applications, and users. Rollback Plans: Develop rollback strategies to minimize disruption in case of issues.

Post-Deployment Monitoring: Monitor performance and identify any unexpected behavior after deployments. Lessons Learned: Regularly review change processes and capture lessons learned for future improvements.

Configuration Management Tools: Ensure consistent infrastructure configurations across environments. Version Control Systems: Track code changes and enable rollbacks if necessary.

6. Risk Assessment and Management Risk Assessment Framework: Implement a risk assessment framework to evaluate the impact and likelihood of potential issues associated with changes. Mitigation Plans: Develop and maintain mitigation plans for identified risks, including contingency plans and rollback procedures.

1. Adopt a Change Management Framework ITIL Practices: Implement ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) change management practices to ensure changes are systematically managed. CAB (Change Advisory Board): Use a CAB to review and approve significant changes, balancing the need for speed with risk management. 2. Implement Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) Automated Testing: Use automated testing (unit, integration, functional, security) to catch issues early in the development pipeline. Continuous Monitoring: Implement continuous monitoring of applications and infrastructure to detect issues promptly.

I believe ITSM has broader coverage on risk such as security management including managing data breach, data access risks that could be beyond the scope for DevOps. Certainly there are common areas in terms of delivering and deploying safely and reliably. As this article suggests, one doesn't need to stick to any one of them, a combination of best of both can be a good approach.

3. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Version Control: Use version control systems (e.g., Git) for infrastructure code to track changes, facilitate rollbacks, and ensure reproducibility. Automated Provisioning: Automate the provisioning of infrastructure using tools like Terraform, Ansible, or Puppet to reduce human error. 4. Configuration Management Consistency and Compliance: Use configuration management tools (e.g., Chef, Puppet, Ansible) to maintain consistent and compliant environments across development, testing, and production.

5. Change Automation and Orchestration Self-Service Portals: Provide self-service portals for developers to request and implement changes within predefined parameters to streamline the process. Automated Workflows: Use orchestration tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI) to automate change deployment workflows, ensuring consistency and reducing manual intervention.