- Scoping - Define a clear scope of what you intend to put under the DevOps services umbrella. Also which applications would you want to start with at the outset. A phased approach with a smaller non business critical application is the way to go about it as opposed to the Big Bang approach.
- Human Resource - You may want to start with your star performer of course but make sure that he has these three most important skills : scalable and flexible, promptness and process orientation. Also, the most ideal candidate for your DevOps core team would be a system admin with good scripting/automation skills or the agile-admin as they are more popularly called today.
- Process framework - Whether you want to start with ITIL first and then integrate agile/scrum into the process or vice-versa. This is very important so as to prioritize from the inception so that right processes can be tweaked based on ITIL principles or agile methodology.
- Defining KPI's - Changing the KPI's like MTTR and MTBF has to be revisited and new metrics should be defined, implemented and measured. .This measurement is key to understanding the business and operations benefits that the company achieves with DevOps implementation.
- Automate - Automation through tools and scripts is one of the key tenets of DevOps. The sole objective of DevOps is to achieve Quality @ the speed of delivery which requires processes to be automated and applying lean methodology by eliminating redundant processes.
It is very imperative that the team is educated of the culture of continuous testing, integration and delivery which is built into the process to achieve the expected efficiency from DevOps implementation.
