How to convince management to get onboard with DevOps — although we don't recommend you call it that with them. For more info, read the full white paper: http://info.puppetlabs.com/devops-guide-for-it-managers.html

1. Get executive backing for
DevOps
How to convince management to get onboard with DevOps.

2. Any big change requires buy-
in from management, and
DevOps is no different. You
need to give your manager
(and others) reasons for
supporting DevOps that they
can understand.
Management support

3. Make sure management
knows DevOps is a business
change, not just a technology
change. It’s a new way of
working, not just a new set of
tools. Set expectations: Sure,
DevOps will help you deploy
better software, more reliably,
but it will also make the
company more creative,
productive and efficient.
Management support

4. Management can be turned off
by buzzwords if they're not
back up by substance. Talk
about solutions to problems
and practical benefits of
DevOps.
Don’t say DevOps

5. Management can understand
business benefits like these:
Better monitoring. Find problems
before customers do, and improve
recovery times.
Smaller, more frequent deployments.
Reduce risk and get faster feedback
from your customers.
Infrastructure as code. Roll out
changes faster, with less manual
work, and reduce handoff overheads.
DevOps benefits

6. Sometimes management fears that
collaboration means no one can be
held accountable. Help them
understand that practices like
sharing metrics, pairing, blameless
postmortems and self-service for
developers help IT operations
become more efficient. And….
Collaboration

7. Let upper management know you're
the one who's accountable for the
results of this shift to DevOps. Yes,
this can be scary, and comes with a
degree of risk. But taking
responsibility makes space for your
team to embrace and get comfortable
with DevOps practices — and with
risk comes the reward of
demonstrable success.
Responsibility

8. Remember, you don’t need to change
everything at once. Talk with
managers and team members early
and often. Keep everyone informed
during the change. It’ll go a long way
toward helping smooth the transition
to a fully functional DevOps
organization.
One step at a time

9. For practical tips on getting DevOps buy-in from your
operations team, the development team and executives,
check out the DevOps Guide for IT Managers.
More in the DevOps for IT
managers series:
DevOps Principles for IT Managers
Why Your Team Needs DevOps
Bringing Dev and Ops Together