From DevOps to GoalOps

By now you are probably tired of all the different ways how we may call Software Operations. ITIL, Agile, DevOps, DevSecOps – and then quite a few more recent ones like NoOps, AllOps, AIOps, MLOps, GitOps, DataOps… I know I missed a few.

So why on earth we need “GoalOps”?

Surprisingly, modern software development deviated quite a bit from the spirit of “The Goal” written by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. Yes, we have whole DevOps movement in technology popularized by Gene Kim’s “The Phoenix Project” and most recently “The Unicorn Project”. And on the other side – business side – we have Agile and its various methodologies.

However, it turned out that DevOps appeared to be too geeky, while Agile appeared to look too much like some marketing trick. Key problem here is the huge rift between technical people and business people – the fact that they don’t understand each. To they point they tend to use different terms for the same thing.

I recently heard quite a bit from product marketing people that they don’t really understand their tech teams, and it is like they go in different directions. I frequently heard even stronger words towards “business people” coming from the tech teams. As a result we get poor products and broken organizations.

The time has now come to do things differently. It is time to show to both business and technical people that they are part of the same organization and they need to work towards a common Goal.

For this to happen – their optics must be aligned, their culture must be aligned, their perception of success must be aligned and The Common Goal must be defined clearly.

That is why we need GoalOps – a process of business and technology parts of organization working together towards The Common Goal. A new prospective that can finally be understood and agreed by both sides.

Software development, Robotics, HealthTech, AI – all those are just too important to let the old rift between Technology and Business continue. That is why starting from the Goal, then applying it to modern realities and joining forces across whole organization is so important. That is why GoalOps is the future.