Devops is a relatively new term in the professional software development domain. A devops team, is a team of developers that is responsible for the entire ‘value-chain’ - from development, test, deployment all the way through to supporting the customers. Devops brings development and operations together. Our Scheduling Safety team has employed a devops-approach for many years now, catering for both long and short-term needs of the customers throughout their supplier experience. We met up with Jonas Henriksson, who has been at the core of the development of our FRM-functionality for a few years now, to have a quick chat and hear a bit more.
How would you define your responsibilities towards the customers?
-If a customer posts a question or an issue to us, and it arrives on 'my desk’ - I own it. Customer attention, short and long-term problems that they may experience, take precedence over other things I’m currently working on. We aim to ‘turn around’ their enquiries within 24 hours, but often a lot faster than that - within hours or even minutes. My responsibility, and my team-mates as well, is to keep them happy, for sure.
But how does that rhyme with other work you are assigned, aimed at improving the products more long-term? I mean, you are a developer, right?
-I am. The fact that we keep support and development together, is what makes it work. I’m fully aware that I'm forced to face the consequences of any poor documentation or sub-par code - so I will need to make certain, from the very beginning, that things ‘just work’. It’s a very good incentive. Whatever current issues or questions the customer may have will override the long-term development ambitions we have. It forces us to do ‘things right’, early on.
But is it really superior to having a dedicated support department and, a different team doing the development? Does it really work?
-I definitely think so. And our customers seem to think so too. In our latest three customers surveys where we asked them to rate the Jeppesen FRM support, they have given us a rating on or above 4.7 ‘stars’ out of five. This while we launched new products and enhanced features in a higher pace than ever. I think that speaks for itself.
So is ‘devops’ here to stay and to be rolled out to all type of products?
-Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? If a product line becomes ‘too big’, or too complex, I’m not sure this way of working will necessarily be optimal. It’s all in the pie. This way of working has served us well for quite some time, but we remain open to the fact we may need to change it. Change is, as we all know, the only constant.
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