CALMS Framework: The Key to Successful DevOps Transformation

CALMS: A Principle-Based DevOps Framework

September 23, 2019
By Ember DeBoer

5 minute read time

In this article series, we're discussing the following three principle-based DevOps frameworks. The first DevOps framework was The Three Ways as described in The Phoenix Project and The DevOps Handbook. The second was Accelerate's Technical and Management Practices of High-Performing DevOps Teams.

Today we'll look at the CALMS DevOps framework.

DevOps Framework #3: CALMS (Culture, Automation, Lean, Measurement, Sharing)

Created by Jez Humble, co-author of The DevOps Handbook and Accelerate, the CALMS framework is used to assess whether an organization is ready to adopt DevOps processes, or how an organization is progressing in their DevOps transformation.

It is based on the following five pillars:

So, What Do These DevOps Best Practices Have in Common?

As you looked at the different frameworks in this article, I'm sure you noticed several recurring DevOps best practices, themes, and common elements among them. In this section, I want to distill three key DevOps practices that help promote a virtuous cycle — positive outcomes that continue to be reinforced and strengthened as they are iterated on — as you mature DevOps in your organization.

They are the 3Cs:

Culture

Once again, culture is a broad term that can mean different things to different people. But as we discussed in our DevOps definition article, DevOps culture change is one of the foundational aspects of DevOps that other technical and management practices must build upon to succeed.

As Accelerate authors discuss, Ron Westrum's culture typologies for organizations can range from pathological (power-oriented) to bureaucratic (rule-oriented) to generative (performance-oriented). A generative culture is one in which bridging between teams is encouraged, risks are shared, and failure leads to inquiry, rather than finger-pointing. Working toward these cultural paradigm shifts — and giving them time to take hold through practice — is an important first step.

Collaboration

Once the groundwork of a generative culture is laid — one in which everyone feels safe enough to "put themselves out there," experiment, admit failures, and try again without fear of punishment or shame — greater collaboration can begin to be unlocked within and among teams.

Empowered employees are more open to sharing and receiving feedback, and the more actions are witnessed, the more others on the team will begin to emulate similar behaviors. Performance and shared goals begin to be prioritized over protecting oneself or one's silo.

Continuous Improvement

Finally, once the teams are collaborating well, with everyone taking personal responsibility for performance, the continuous improvement piece begins to take care of itself. Here is where leadership can continue to reinforce a learning culture, one where taking time outside of the usual job responsibilities to work on personal and organizational improvements is key to keeping this virtuous cycle's momentum going.

Every organization will implement these DevOps practices differently. For example, some may choose Kanban over Scrum as a means of collaboration; others may prefer Travis over Jenkins for CI/CD. What's important to realize is that, regardless of implementation details, decisions should be guided by and also reinforce the concepts of Culture, Collaboration, and Continuous Improvement.

Sources

Written by Ember DeBoer

Ember is Senior Tech Content Developer at Sonatype.