Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I am a person working technology. That is my identity. Oh wait, maybe not. Yikes. Am I involved in management? Probably.

DevSecOps is the current buzzword among those of us who write computer programs. It is an abbreviation for combing development, security, and operations. It is all sorts of technical things that combine into a new way of doing something. There is much good in it—no kidding, there really is.

Is it technical or managerial? Well, persons with technical backgrounds are doing this. Backgrounds like computer science, computer engineering, security engineering, systems engineering, systems administration, computer operations, etc. This must be technical!

Is it technical or managerial? I am afraid it is managerial. “DevSecOps” differs from “DevOps” that differs from “agile” that differs from “waterfall” that differs from some buzzword that people used before they used “waterfall.” It is another method of organizing the work and leading the people involved in building something. DevSecOps uses some tools that we didn’t have when we did something else. Those are good tools, just like an electric circular saw is better than a hand saw in some situations.

“Let’s use this tool instead of that tool,” is a management decision—not a technical decision. Managers decide.

DevSecOps has plenty of technical tasks performed by persons with technical backgrounds. Deciding to do DevSecOps or something else, however, is a management task.

Aargh!