When I wrote about
The Perfect Team, I summarized it as one to do it, write it down, and think ahead. We now have a historical perspective and definitions for the
status dashboards and the
Engineering SLO. Next, let’s talk about how “write it down” can be expressed as various forms of communication in DevOps cultures.
DevCommsOps is best described as a purposeful insertion of change management communications within a DevOps culture and conspicuously expressing change management communications. To unpack that neologism a bit, imagine things we want (need?) to know relating to change that is planned, achieved, deferred, failed, and resulting in an outcome.
Recall that
Error Budgets, Uptime, and SLO are simply a way to describe the operational objectives to stay up and running balanced with the innovation demands for developing new features, functionality, and availability for services. As such, DevCommsOps provides a consistent and conspicuous account for the changes planned, taking place, and completed that draw against Error Budgets.
Is DevCommsOps a word soup for Changelog, Release Notes, and Error Budget tracking? Perhaps! In practice, much like the growing depth of status dashboards, a single Changelog is more symbolic than practical as a single page to follow all change.
Is DevCommsOps a word soup for a post-ChatOps world within the context of Error Budgets economic policy? Perhaps! However, ChatOps definitions are likely going to vary from
vendor to
vendor to
practitioner pioneers.
Luckily, there’s always a cat meme ready to help us better understand.
Vive La ChatOps!
