Transforming Medidata with DevOps and simplicity

Medidata, a U.S. organization focused on digital transformation in Life Sciences, sought to enhance the efficiency and culture of its development teams by adopting DevOps practices. Senior Director of Software Engineering Erik Johs detailed the challenges of operating within a heavily regulated industry, where infrequent releases created a high-pressure environment due to the complexity and perfectionism required in their processes. By collaborating with the technology provider Unleash, Medidata aimed to shift towards smaller, more frequent releases akin to a startup's approach, ensuring data security and fostering a two-way collaborative relationship for tailored solutions. This partnership facilitated a cultural change within Medidata, allowing them to safely experiment and iterate quickly, while encouraging a mindset of learning from small failures. Ultimately, the goal was to balance the reliability expected of a mature organization with the agility and speed of a startup, gradually transforming the development culture to embrace change and innovation.