Feral devops…sounds like an oxymoron right? Devops describes a culture and philosophy where developers and operators closely collaborate for more efficient and effective system operations. Feral conjures images of lone wolves leaning on themselves alone to survive. It is a contradictory term but one that describes an organization’s first steps on their devops journey.

The misunderstanding that devops is a tool or team or role has tragically increased the gulf between developers and operators.If you have been unofficially on-call 24/7, toiled in turmoil, managed initiatives across multiple silos sans PM with a directive to “influence without authority”…surprise you have lived the contradiction that is feral devops! Consequences of letting this fester are: burn out, learned helplessness and missing out on the speed that happens when developers and operators communicate openly. Taming feral devops can start by gathering feedback on the status quo, iterating on onboarding and training and holistically examining on-call health.Whether you’re an IC, manager or leader you will find ideas to experiment with to “domesticate” devops in your organization.