HM Heath Solutions delivers new business applications in the healthcare industry to 35 million customers.  In order to embark on their DevOps journey to improve software delivery, Valerie Scott, their Manager of Shared Services Division, had to show senior management an ROI on a successful project, before they would invest fully. On June 2, Val Scott along with Rick Slade of IBM joined Alan Shimel of staging-devopsy.kinsta.cloud in a webcast to discuss this interesting client case study.  During their discussion, they illustrated in vivid detail how HM Health Solutions showed success in DevOps to their senior executives, for them to buy in and sponsor the project.

Val and Rick’s webinar parallels many similar discussions I’ve had with senior executives.  To net it out, the bottom line is, as it was so clearly and unequivocally articulated in this amusing clip from the movie Jerry Maguire: “Show Me The Money!”

Step 1 of 7

14%

Which of the following best describes how you currently monitor and manage systems across your hybrid cloud environment?(Required)

Multiple separate tools for different environments

Multiple separate tools for different monitoring and management functions

Single consolidated dashboard

Custom built monitoring and management solution

No full monitoring and management solution

Don’t know

How valuable would it be for your monitoring and management solution to incorporate predictive analytics to help you identify and address system issues that are critical and not waste time or effort working through all the data and “noise” that is not critical?(Required)

Extremely valuable

Moderately valuable

Somewhat valuable

Slightly valuable

Not valuable

How do you most typically address potential system issues BEFORE they impact your operations?(Required)

Automated workflows and playbooks to remediate potential issues as soon as they are detected

An orchestrated response process that leverages automation, AI, and human expertise to rapidly respond to potential issues

Advanced monitoring tools such as predictive analytics and anomaly detection to proactively identify and address potential issues

Respond to issues as they arise, using manual processes and troubleshooting techniques

A combination of automated remediation, orchestrated response, and/or proactive monitoring to address potential system issues

Don’t know

Other

What methods does your organization use to control and monitor cloud/IT spending?(Required)

Centralized procurement processes

Pre-approved budget thresholds

Automated cost monitoring tools

Department-level spending controls

Regular cost audits and reviews

Cloud cost optimization platform

Approval workflows for resource provisioning

Native financial operations tools provided by the cloud provider

No formal controls in place

Don’t know

Other

Please specify:

Which methods do you rely on most to detect security vulnerabilities in your systems?(Required)

Automated scanning tools

Manual assessments

Vendor notifications

Threat modeling (for early detection)

None of these

Don’t know

Other

Please specify:

What are the TWO most common ways you prioritize vulnerabilities to address within your environment?(Required)

Based on potential impact

Based on exploitability

Regulatory compliance requirements

Based on CVSS scores

Risk-based analysis of multiple factors

First-in-first-out approach

No formal prioritization process

Don’t know

How do you typically handle system updates and security patches?(Required)

Automated updates and patches

Manually review and apply updates and patches on a regular schedule

A combination of automation and manual review

Apply updates and patches on an as-needed basis.

Outsourced update and patch management

No defined process

Don’t know

Other

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When I meet with senior LOB, Finance or IT executives — they shout a similar refrain:

“All I want to do is buy a business outcome.  I want to invest in an IT project, and have it pay back.  Unfortunately for many application development (or other types of enterprise IT) projects, that pay back is illusory, and ROI difficult to measure.”

— Jane or John Executive, representing nearly every IT executive or CFO I have ever met

Unfortunately, many struggle to quantify, monetize and demonstrate the financial return on investing in IT projects.  Yet as described in this blog, it is the primary responsibility and outcome of management; leading the economic performance of their department or unit.  Show me the money!  Fortunately, many clients experience positive returns, both operationally and economically.  Ten (with links to more) client case studies with returns are highlighted in this blog, and summarized on this page.

As you undoubtedly have experienced yourself, senior executives respond to clear business value and benefits articulated as financial returns, as ROI.  But how do you do that for DevOps, a set of technical practices and associated culture change?  As Val and Rick described during their informative webcast, comparing productivity, time-to-market, speed of delivery, and quality, both before and after a DevOps pilot, are crucial.  These operational metrics will be improved by adopting DevOps.  However, to win the hearts and minds of senior executives, you have to monetize the results, in other words – show them the money!  Technical techniques and practices such as those Val and Rick described to Alan, shifting left, test driven development, and automating application build, deployment, and test are absolutely necessary, but they are insufficient to win the argument with senior executives.  The gains they produce are necessary, and impressive.  The operational results have been stellar thus far at HM Health Solutions, per Val:

• a 67% reduction in resource demands on the release team & process,
• a 75% reduction in relative hours to repair defects per environment,
• an 82% reduction in application deployment time.

Yet as impressive as these operational results are, they are insufficient.  As Val described, arguments about business value, technical value, or improvements to developer or operations staff productivity, alone did not persuade the management.  The magic word is an economic and financial one: “investment”.  Making a strategic investment to improve delivery speed and quality of business applications was the key to winning the hearts and minds of the senior executives.

In addition to the technical practices described above, Alan asked Val to describe the tools HM Health Solutions adopted.  A continuous delivery solution with application release automation software from IBM UrbanCode was implemented, including application build, deploy, and release.

As a way of summarizing the webcast for the audience, Alan asked Rick and Val for their two key takeaways; the two most important messages and things to remember.  Rick’s:

1. Knowing which metrics are critical to your organization.  There are many benefits to adopting DevOps, and many potential hard numbers that are straightforward to capture and measure.  Deciding which metrics have the most impact and are most persuasive to your stakeholders is critical to making the case to invest in DevOps.
2. Implementing tools and automation: automated testing, and linking that to build and deployment processes and automation.

Val’s:  Rick’s two takeaways of course!   And one more…

3. DevOps is new in the industry, and is not yet well understood or common practice in enterprise IT or among its leaders.  Understand your audience, and become good at explaining it in straightforward and clear business and financial terms to senior executives.  Especially persuasive are other client proof points, and the results of pilots in your own enterprise IT environment.  Make sure pilot results show that the solution works and delivers timely business value, and that the related facts and metrics clearly quantify the results.

Read this blog to know more and Check out other customer proof points/ case studies

This was a very informative, fast paced, and information rich webcast.  I hope that you find the replay useful in continuing your DevOps adoption journey.

If you’d like to explore more about management responsibilities and know-how for establishing an ROI for DevOps and app release & deployment automation, see this ROI web page, and read this ROI blog for additional resources on method, approach, making the case, and calculating the ROI.  And please don’t hesitate to reach out to me on twitter: @paspung.

I look forward to hearing your success stories in making the ROI case to senior executives, and delivering DevOps value to your organization!

Peter Spung, DevOps Deploy and UrbanCode Integration Executuve, IBM Cloud, @paspung