Inside DevOps with Dan Horrocks-Burgess from DDA Software

Dan Horrocks-Burgess, co-founder of DDA Software, discusses his journey and insights into DevOps in an interview as part of the Inside DevOps series. His DevOps journey began in 2013 in the healthcare sector, where he aimed to improve operational processes by writing PowerShell scripts to manage infrastructure and automate deployments. While some teams embraced the changes, others were resistant due to concerns about automation's impact on roles. Dan emphasizes that DevOps is not just a tool-centric approach but requires cultural shifts, collaboration across silos, and a focus on interactions and team dynamics. He notes that successful DevOps implementation involves balancing lightweight processes with professional discipline and warns against the challenges of cultural shifts within organizations, which can be more difficult than technical implementations. He advises starting small to build trust and incrementally improve processes, ensuring that both business and development stakeholders are engaged. Dan also highlights the importance of the human aspect in DevOps and the need for organizations to understand that DevOps extends beyond just integrating an operations team member into a development team.