Do you know what means DevOps culture and why it is so relevant? What are the benefits of adopting this philosophy in the company when creating a digital solution?  

In IT, it is difficult to combine such different areas as Operation and Development. While the first one is related to ensuring the stability of the environment or the infrastructure, the second one aims at delivering value with new features and improvements in the enterprise software. The massification of Agile Methodology, which promotes an iterative, incremental development format, highlighted this separation and demanded a new form of communication. 

What is DevOps?

We can say that DevOps is a set of practices aiming at strengthening the relationships between Developers (Dev) and Operation (Ops), allowing them to work in a unified and collaborative manner to deliver value to the user. Although the need to integrate teams has long been discussed, the term was coined only in 2009 during the Velocity Conference by O’Reilly. Patrick Debois, one of the attendees of this conference, is the creator of the DevOpsDay Event. 

It is possible to say that the DevOps embryo is called Agile infrastructure. To adopt this culture, it is possible to have tools that will allow this constant integration between teams. In this sense, it is worth highlighting that none of this will be effective if the employees are not willing to create this collaboration environment. For this reason, it is necessary to change the team’s mindset to an Agile Culture, giving maximum contribution to joint work. 

DevOps Practices

For the benefits of implementing a DevOps culture to be perceived by the organization, it is important to use practices from this philosophy consistently. The key guidance is the one we commented above: communication and collaboration, two of the four pillars of DevOps culture. In addition to them, we also have measurement (assessment) and automation. 

The first refers to measuring and analyzing as many items as possible, from performance to processes, because we will be able to propose enhancements from this analysis. The latter has the goal of automating all possible processes, reducing time loss and the risk of human faults. We have some disseminated practices in automation, such as: 

Infrastructure As A Code: to manage and provision resources automatically, instead of making a feature available manually. This practice increases speed and reliability when installing the software in a new environment, for example. 

This occurs because we have guarantee that all items were executed in the same manner. Additionally, this application maintenance also becomes effective.  Here, we can use some technologies, such as: Ansible, Chef, Puppet, Vagrant, Docker, Kubernertes. 

Continuous Integration: in this practice, we use a version control enterprise software such as Git, for example. The source code must be integrated as quickly as possible, several times a day, in a branch shared among project developers. 

This process allows them to have the updated code, avoiding possible conflicts both in the code and in business rules. In continuous integration, for each code sent to the repository a compilation is made and automated/unit tests are conducted. This ensures that it is ready for deployment. 

Continuous Delivery: the enterprise software deployment is offered in an automated, fast and safe manner. When we use continuous delivery, we must make sure that the main branch of the repository is in stable state, so we can deploy the software at any time. Usually, automated pipelines that compile, test and deploy are used. 

Benefits of Adopting DevOps Culture

From the definition we have seen previously, it is possible to see a series of benefits that adopting this practice promotes. One of them is the reliability of what is being delivered, whether new features or changes in infrastructure. Operation security is also benefited from the automation of compliance policies and other management techniques. 

Speed and ability to adapt to changes also increase. With the DevOps culture, it is possible to correct bugs and launch new features with more agility and lower risk of downtimes, for example. Additionally, the application scalability becomes more fluid and secure from automated processes and shared responsibility. This way, with areas working in an integrated manner, it is possible to make even better deliveries. 

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The Product Owner (PO) has already worked in this area and shared some of her knowledge with other employees. Customer Success is when your customers achieve their Desired Outcome through their interactions with your company (Lincoln Murphy).

The role of Customer Success  

According to Bruna, the person who works with Customer Success acts on four main points, aiming at ensuring that the customer has a satisfactory experience and, consequently, also promoting benefits for the organization. 

• Retention: for the company, acquiring a new customer can be up to seven times more expensive than keeping one; 
• Enchantment: support and ensure that the customer knows and makes the most of the products and services offered; 
• Value delivery: the customer receives what he expects, following from the negotiation to the delivery of what was agreed, aligning expectations; 
• Expansion: support in renewing contracts or contracting additional services. Monitor the client’s health and identify new needs, proposing new services to be offered. 

Customer Success and the Customer Journey

Several corporates, mainly in the technology area, are investing in teams responsible for this follow-up. With that in mind, Bruna highlighted the importance of distinguishing Customer Success from sectors such as Support and Service. These fronts act reactively, focusing on solving specific problems and managing crises. The CS person works proactively, guiding the client throughout their relationship with the company, being data-driven and implementing a follow-up plan. 

However, Bruna clarified that the responsibility for delivering success is not just of one person or one sector, it must be shared. Everyone is responsible, as everyone interacts in some way with the customer. It’s not just people from the Commercial or Customer Success areas who act as points of contact.  

There are also those involved in running the project, all this impacts on the experience. That is why Customer Success must also be part of the company’s organizational culture, ensuring that service is qualified throughout the customer’s journey, as shown in the figure below.

Customer Success x Customer Experience

Bruna also reinforced the difference between the role of Customer Success and Customer Experience (CX). Even if they have common goals, the CX person is responsible for defining the identity of the experience and ensuring that the entire organization is aware of it. It is only after this stage that the figure of CS appears, ensuring that the experience will be delivered continuously, acting as an interlocutor between the areas. 

This reinforces the idea that customer success should be seen as company value. If that assumption is part of the organizational culture, it will be possible to provide the same experience at all points of contact. 

Bruna concluded her presentation by reinforcing that we always deliver success, in every interaction that the customer has with the company. If this is not clear, each area will have its individual metrics and objectives, without this common goal – so it is necessary to work together to prevent this from happening.

*SoftDrops is a knowledge exchange event that takes place every Wednesday at SoftDesign. Each week, an employee is willing to expose to colleagues some topic of interest that is related to the three pillars of our business: design, agility and technology. The mini lecture lasts around thirty minutes and is followed by a chat between the participants. 

O post Customer Success in Organizational Culture  apareceu primeiro em SoftDesign.