Description
Catch up on this webinar with Rob Cowell (DevOps Advocate at Gearset), as he shares some key insights on what it takes to become a leader in Salesforce DevOps. This webinar is designed to help those in, or aspiring to be in, a position where they’re responsible for DevOps implementation, optimization or management in their organization.
This webinar covers:
- DevOps fundamentals
- How to build and run a high performing Salesforce DevOps team
- Measurements and metrics
- DevOps governance
- Addressing DevOps adoption challenges
Learn more:
Transcript
So for those of you that don't know me yet, I'm Rob Powell. I'm the other DevOps advocate. You met Jack earlier, over here at Gearset.
And I work closely with the DevOps Launchpad team to help you, the Salesforce community, get some insights around what it takes to be a leader in Salesforce DevOps and really make yourself shine with some quality deliverables.
So to kick off this track, we're gonna briefly revisit some of the basics of DevOps, which will set the scene for a deeper dive into some of the specific topics later on. To do this, we're going to look at the key technical pillars of DevOps.
Firstly, culture, the most critical pillar, as Jack alluded to earlier.
There's several key elements to building a successful DevOps culture, encouraging collaboration between development and operations teams to break down the silos and improve communication, using metrics and feedback to track progress and continuously improve processes, getting support and buy in from your leadership to ensure that the organization is fully committed to the transition to a DevOps culture, and empowering teams to make decisions and solve problems on their own rather than just rely on centralized decision making.
It's important to note that it can take time to fully implement a DevOps culture, and it may require a significant shift in your organization's structure and processes.
It's also important to keep in mind that culture change is an ongoing process and requires a continuous level of investment that will help you continue to reap the rewards that DevOps provides.
However, DevOps research has consistently named culture as the most critical factor for DevOps success, so it's worth working as a team to continue to improve this.
Next is version control, a more technical aspect but equally as fundamental.
Version control improves change management for Salesforce in several ways.
It allows multiple developers to work on the same org or code base simultaneously, making it easier for them to collaborate and share their work.
Version control also keeps a change of all a history, sorry, of all changes that you've made to those code bases, allowing you to trace and revert to previous versions of that code.
Version control systems allow developers to create branches for different features or bug fixes and then later merge them back into that main branch when they are ready. And this makes it easier to work on multiple features or bug fixes in parallel without interfering with each other's work.
We've talked about backup earlier, and version controls do automatically keep a backup of all the versions of your code and config changes, which provides an additional safety net in case of data loss or corruption.
Finally, they provide detailed logs of who made what changes, when, and hopefully why, making it easy to audit the code base and track down bugs or performance issues.
So overall, version control is a critical tool for managing and maintaining your Salesforce projects by providing a centralized and organized way to handle those changes, improve collaboration, and maintain that traceability and accountability in the process.
Now automation plays a crucial role in supporting the process by streamlining and simplifying several of those key tasks and activities.
Some examples may include deployment automation, because automating the deployment process can reduce the time and effort it takes to deploy the changes overall in your Salesforce environment by automating some of those manual tasks such as package creation, testing, and validation.
Speaking of testing, those automated tests can improve the speed and accuracy with automation by reducing the need for all that manual testing and allowing for a more comprehensive test of all changes.
Automating your data management tasks, such as data backups and restores, can help ensure that data consistency and integrity across different environments.
And finally, automating the continuous integration process can improve the speed and reliability of those software releases by automating the build, test, and deployment of all those changes.
Now if things don't quite go to plan, then further automation of monitoring and notifications can improve the speed and accuracy of identifying and addressing issues if you automate the detection of issues and send notifications to relevant team members.
So I think we can see that throughout the Salesforce DevOps process, automation can help improve the speed, efficiency, reliability of the entire life cycle, and it allows teams to focus on more important tasks, such as feature development and bug fixing.
Now a big part of all of this is testing.
It in it helps ensure that code changes do not introduce bugs or negatively impact the performance of the application.
Some of the key ways that testing can fit into that process include continuous testing, where testing is integrated into that development process from the start, and it's performed continuously rather than as a separate one off step. This helps to capture fix issues early in the development process before they deploy to production.
As we saw earlier, automating the testing is used to test those changes quickly and accurately by automating a lot of repetitive tasks, which in turn can increase test coverage.
An advanced technique may be test driven development, where tests are actually written before the code is so that the code is developed in order to pass the tests.
And then mature teams will have multiple testing environments, such as development, staging, and production, and maybe even more, to ensure that those code changes are thoroughly tested and don't negatively impact the performance before it gets to production.
Test coverage is measured, and steps are taken to increase the percentage of code that is covered by tests to ensure that all the code changes are thoroughly tested, again, before they hit production where it becomes expensive.
Overall, testing is a critical role in Salesforce DevOps process. By ensuring that we don't introduce new bugs, we don't slow the system down.
By continually testing those changes along with automating them and integrating testing throughout the entire process, you're gonna improve your speed, your efficiency, and the reliability of your changes throughout that entire process.
Now, again, we talked about backups earlier because they are such an essential part of Salesforce DevOps.
They give you that safety net in case of data loss or corruption.
They protect against accidental deletion, data corruption, or any other type of data loss.
They are also crucial for disaster recovery in case the primary data source is lost or becomes unavailable.
But they can also be used to roll back to previous versions of data, which can be useful in a number of scenarios, not just disaster recovery emergencies.
Some industries have regulatory requirements for data backups. And by having a backup system in place, companies can ensure that they comply with those regulations.
Backups can also be used to create test copies of your production data in order to, for example, to test new code changes in a more realistic environment.
So, again, along with some of those other pillars, backups are an essential part of the Salesforce DevOps process because they provide many ways to protect against deletion, corruption, data loss. They give you that rollback capability, and they help you comply with the regulations.
It just gives peace of mind across the entire team.
So as we've seen from that recap of some of the fundamentals, Salesforce DevOps is a is a perfectly balanced blend of culture and technology, and it's important that you have both in place.
Version control remains the single most important aspect of all things DevOps.
So once you have a firm grasp of using it efficiently, you can then move on to automating some of those processes and reach even higher levels of DevOps performance.
So at this point, we're gonna take a pause. We're gonna have a quick knowledge check on some of the topics we've covered with the first of our quizzes.
Those quizzes will be in the links to today's sessions, and it will be just the first quiz that we need to do. We're gonna give you a few moments to do that and we shall continue in just a moment.
So just a note for people on the quizzes. I think there's a few people that say they can't see the quizzes. I've posted the link in the chat.
And then once you've joined that group, you just need to go to courses on the left hand side, and you'll be able to access the quiz.
Right.
Just a quick heads up for folks as well. As I'm presenting, I can't actually see the chat or the q and a, but, the team will be there to help if you're having trouble getting to the quizzes.
It looks like most people have been able to join that quiz group now, Rob. So I think, hopefully, people are making their way through just that first one.
Fantastic. Thank you.
Okay. We'll give it just another moment to, allow folks to get through that, and then we'll make start on the next section.
Okay. So we shall continue. If you haven't had a chance to get through the quiz, please don't panic. The the quizzes and and the certification tracks are going to be around long after this webinar is is done for this evening. So please the interest of time, we are going to continue onwards.
So as we embark on the journey from DevOps fundamentals over to mastery, we're gonna focus on fostering a high performing team characterized by enhanced efficiency, throughput, and delivery.
We'll explore how to ascend to the highest levels of DevOps maturity and what it takes to reach there.
High performing teams are built on a shared vision, defined roles, effective communication, trust, and an emphasis on continuous learning.
These characteristics drive alignment, improve efficiency, foster trust and accountability, and encourage innovation and adaptability.
Lots of long words for me there. The team has a shared understanding of their goals and objectives, which helps them align their efforts and work together effectively.
Each team member understands their role and responsibilities, reducing confusion and improving efficiency.
Team members in these high performing teams work closely with one another and communicate effectively to ensure seamless delivery, and they trust one another and hold each other accountable for their work and actions.
High performing teams encourage continuous learning and experimentation, which further drives innovation and helps the team adapt to changes in the market and to technology.
And I think we can probably all think of a major change in technology that's impacting Salesforce of late.
Taking a more granular approach to tasks and change requests, such as breaking down tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks, help support a DevOps process in a number of ways.
Smaller work items allows for better tracking and monitoring of progress, and it enables teams to quickly identify and address any roadblocks.
With these smaller work items, teams can receive feedback and make changes more quickly, leading to faster iteration and improved results.
Additionally, smaller work items could be integrated and tested more easily, reducing the risk of integration problems and allowing for faster identification and resolution of issues.
Monitoring is also a critical component of high performing Salesforce DevOps teams, providing real time insights, improving decision making, enabling faster resolution of problems, aligning with business goals, and ensuring reliability and scalability.
A lot of wins there.
When implemented well, monitoring provides real time insights into the performance and behavior of systems and applications, allowing teams to quickly identify and resolve any issues that may arise.
It can also help teams align their development and deployment processes with the business goals of the organization, ensuring that applications are deployed in a way that meets the needs of stakeholders.
High performing teams will benchmark and continually measure their performance, enabling them to continuously improve their processes and ensure that they're meeting their goals and delivering value to their stakeholders.
By measuring performance metrics such as lead time, mean time to recovery, and change failure rate, DevOps teams can identify areas for improvement, make data driven decisions, and prioritize investments in tools and processes that will have the greatest impact.
Continual measurement also helps teams to track their progress over time and make sure that they are continuously improving.
So high performing teams will combine all of those elements in order to work together effectively and bring maximum value to their organization.
In the next part of the course, we'll look at how you can coach and mentor team members and act as a DevOps champion in your organization.
But before that, let's check our learning so far with the next of our quizzes, and we will give you a few moments to do that.
Okay.
So from memory, I think that was a comparatively short quiz for that one. So just to make sure that we managed to get through everything, I am going to continue onwards. Again, anyone that's not managed to get through that, we can definitely make the courses available afterwards.
So with that, let's continue to see the next step.
So as mentioned, for our next topic, we're gonna look at the difference between coaching and mentoring and how to use them to develop your teams.
We'll also learn how to champion DevOps in your organization and get buy in from the relevant stakeholders.
To foster a productive DevOps team, it's essential that you understand the differences between coaching and mentoring.
Coaching is a directive process focusing on immediate goals and offering guidance across varied topics, And this technique tends to help drive short term outcomes, specific tasks.
In contrast, mentoring is more of a long term supportive relationship, nurturing deeper growth within specific areas of expertise. So bringing somebody up in a technique or an area of the business, for example.
And both have unique roles in shaping a team's development.
Cultivating a culture of continuous improvement requires active encouragement for team members to identify potential improvements.
Providing the necessary resources and support coupled with strategic investment in training will ensure your team's growth.
Regular assessment through metrics like KPIs will keep the teams informed of their progress and paves the way for further enhancements.
To promote DevOps within your organization, you need to highlight its tangible benefits, such as improved collaboration and increased efficiency.
And this will also help focus on the return of investment of a DevOps implementation as well so that you can strengthen your case.
Strive to lead by example. Guide those people that are unacquainted with these new practices, and be patient during the transition to DevOps. It can be a lengthy journey, but the benefits are worthwhile.
Clear regular communication is the cornerstone of effective stakeholder engagement.
Accentuating the benefits of DevOps backed by successful case studies and data can drive buy in.
Early engagement, addressing concerns proactively, and consistently updating stakeholders about their progress towards DevOps goals will enhance their involvement and support, and it's absolutely vital for any DevOps implementation.
So, okay, it is time for another quiz, this time on what we've just covered on how to get the best performance from your teams and for your business. So, again, another couple of minutes to have a look at the next quiz before we move on.
Okay. Let's continue the show and, move on to the next module. I really want folks to get to the end and get their certificates.
So measurement and metrics.
To continually improve your DevOps performance, it's crucial to understand and track these key metrics.
High performing teams will operate on a continuous cycle of measuring, improving, and remeasuring.
The industry standard set of measurements for DevOps success is called the DORA metrics in Google.
These include deployment frequency.
This one refers to how often the team releases to production.
High performing teams will make frequent releases, often daily, utilizing small manageable changes.
Next up is change lead time, and this measures how long it takes for a specific feature to reach production throughout the entire life cycle.
The goal is to reduce the lead time by automating deployments and breaking tasks into smaller chunks.
Next, we have the change failure rate. This one indicates the percentage of deployments that fail or cause errors in production.
Teams obviously want to aim for fewer failures and errors, and this is achieved through robust testing, good governance, and peer reviews.
Another key DORA metric is the mean time to recovery, and this is the time that it takes to recover from a production error or issue if they arise.
The aim is to recover quickly but thoughtfully to avoid exacerbating the problem.
Now these metrics, although somewhat generalized, can be adapted to fit specific contexts such as Salesforce.
So get a baseline set of these metrics before starting a DevOps transformation is vital.
By regularly reassessing these metrics after implementing new processes, teams can track their progress and improvements, calculate the return on investment from adopting DevOps, and demonstrate the benefits of the continuous investment in these processes.
So that was another nice short section there. Feel free to have a a quick sip of water or whatever you have to hand, but it is time for another quiz. So just checking that we've what we've covered is making sense, and I shall give another couple of minutes for the next of our little quizzes.
Okay. Short section, short quiz. Hopefully, folks are ready now. We shall move forward.
So here's a nice big one, DevOps governance.
So in creating a DevOps culture, maintaining a robust governance framework to manage business risk is of the utmost importance.
DevOps promotes swift change delivery, but this doesn't mean that it lacks restrictions.
Proper governance in DevOps aligns with the business or customer's own governance, ensuring consistent high quality delivery and preventing slow cumbersome releases and the potential for damaging system data or even reputation.
A robust governance frame framework will incorporate checks and balances throughout the whole life cycle from prioritizing work and deciding on initiatives to technical design and implementation considerations.
A key approach to ensuring governance is setting up a center of excellence or COE in your organization.
A COE oversees the business goals related to Salesforce, delivery methods, and technologies.
It's tasked with stakeholder communication, managing business risk, and ensuring that initiatives deliver value.
This can include a change management group responsible for approving and quality checking Salesforce Force changes, and a business led steering committee ensuring changes align with the business strategy, vision, and values.
An executive sponsor should usually be present to make decisions and unblock and resolve any business obstacles.
So whether that's part of a larger organization wide group or focus specifically on Salesforce changes, establishing a COE is a pivotal business change. It plays a crucial role in steering your governance and delivery model towards a high performing DevOps process.
So, yep, you guessed it. It is time for another quiz, and this time, it's on what we've learned about governance.
So I shall give you a couple of minutes on that one, and we shall see where we are from there.
Hey. We have just rolled over to half past. The end is in sight. I I hope folks are having as as much fun with the quizzes as I am going through it, and we shall move onwards.
So implementing DevOps, as we've seen, is a careful balance of people, process, and technology.
Start slow, plan your course through the journey, and understand that cultural shifts often precede the technology of adoption.
Your first step should be defining your process.
Understand what your ultimate goal is, whether it's a fully automated CICD process at the top end of the scale or simply just reducing your lead times for changes.
This clear vision will guide your efforts and minimize business disruption.
Next, identify everyone that's going to be affected by that new process. And remember that DevOps doesn't just impact technical roles, it brings together stakeholders across the whole organization from project management to business approval and beyond.
Evaluate your current delivery model and identify where chain changes need to be made.
Use a baseline set of metrics to measure your progress and improvements.
Consider the balance of benefits and risks.
DevOps can offer improved visibility, manageable workloads, faster delivery, robust testing, and predictable release cycles.
However, be sure to weigh these advantages against the risks of not adept adopting DevOps, such as potential competition, data loss, and team burnout.
To make the whole transition smoother, start small, such as aligning admins and developers on version control.
And this step can foster a DevOps culture by boosting communication and collaboration.
Don't forget, coaching and mentoring can can help break down those silos and upskill your teams.
So provide them with the necessary tools to aid their DevOps journey. They don't just have to be technical tools. They could be soft skill tools as well.
And finally, remember that you're not alone in this journey. The Salesforce community offers numerous resources from trailblazer community groups to social media and in person events.
Engaging with these resources not only aids your adoption process, but it also strengthens that collaborative spirit that is that's at the heart of everything that Salesforce and the ecosystem does.
Okay.
Well, you've done well following along with me on this track, and it's now time for the big moment, the final quiz to cross the finish line and get that DevOps leadership certification.
This time, the quiz is gonna cover all of the sections that we've covered today in this track, so it's gonna be a little bit of a bigger quiz. If everyone's ready, we shall get started.
I will give you a little bit more time for this one.
See, folks aren't finding things too tricky after having gone through everything.
As I said a moment ago, I can't see the chat while I'm presenting, but I will take a look shortly. So do share your successes with the the team. We always like to hear about those.
Okay. We should give it another minute, and then, we'll see how everybody's got on.
Okay. Well, hopefully, everyone managed to get through that without any technical hitches and, was able to get to the certification at the end. So we will continue. We're just wrapping up.
So, hopefully, at this point, you've all got through that final assessment successfully, but please, please, please don't worry if you haven't. The course and the quizzes are gonna be available on DevOps Launchpad for you to pick up at any time, whether you want to redo this course, whether you want to go back and do the fundamentals, or any combination of those. And we've also got some new certifications coming out soon, so do keep a close eye out for those ones as well.
In the meantime, I'd like to thank you for joining us today, and I wish you well on the next stage of your DevOps learning journey.
If anyone wants to rejoin the main room, they can do, but please be aware that because that course is in progress, you can certainly listen to the content, but, unfortunately, you can't join the the live course partway through. But, again, as I said, you can rejoin that, through the main DevOps Launchpad site at a later point. Recordings will be sent out with all of the content, and you should be able to see both this track and the other track and the main keynote and all that we've offered in today's summit.
So thank you everyone for listening along, and I wish you well with the DevOps journey.
Thank you.
