From the creators of The European Software Testing Awards comes the DevOps Industry Awards! The new awards show is set to take the industry by storm, shining a light on both Dev and Ops teams who are bridging the gap between the two IT cultures. Entries are now open.
The glittering awards ceremony will take place in October, Central London.
Meet Paula Cope – our judge from TP ICAP
Paula Cope, Global Head of QA at TP ICAP, will be one of this year’s judges at the upcoming award ceremony.
What does your role at TP ICAP entail?
My role covers a variety of areas within the SDLC. As a custodian of quality, my goal is to release high-quality performant platforms quickly, meeting user requirements and Business goals. In order to achieve this, I work closely with Program Managers, Development, Environments and Support, QA and BAs, in short anyone who has a role in achieving the above aim.
Integrating quality at every stage of the SDLC has been a very important part of the agile transition I have led my company in, however, whilst working through Scrum and XP has helped us achieve fast and high-quality deliverables, it is through DevOps that we are able to deploy these platforms in a repeatable, automated and consistent way both pre and post production releases.
How far along is your company in its DevOps journey?
As a company, our DevOps journey has been a voyage of discovery. Importantly, whilst we are at the early stages for some platforms we are much further along for others, we have established best practices and tooling solutions which we are reusing across our estate.
There has been a general shift in culture towards continuous improvement and improved visibility and collaboration which has improved over time and has enabled us to really grasp the benefits of a new way of working as we have removed the road blocks.
I do not believe there is ever an end to a DevOps journey, the objective surely is to continue to make it an ever more enjoyable ride and one others will want to take part in.
What motivated you to become a judge?
There were a number of reasons for becoming involved in the DevOps Industry Awards.
Firstly, as a woman in IT I firmly believe it is important to be represented, often areas perceived as more technical become a male dominated arena.
Secondly, as a QA enthusiast I feel it is vitally important for others within IT to understand how important this role is and how integrated it should be to all areas of the SDLC, just because the name includes “Dev” and “Ops” should not mean it excludes “QA”, quite the reverse anything including these two disciplines should inherently include “QA”.
Finally, I find the way companies are transitioning fascinating, I feel IT has a very bright future and I greatly enjoy being part of that and recognising these achievements through award programmes such as this is a great way to celebrate the future and current pace of IT change.
What will you be looking for in entrants this year?
Very clear examples of what has been achieved through DevOps, in a range of ways. It is almost impossible to define what DevOps is as by doing so it would be immediately limiting, it is almost easier to say what DevOps isn’t!
With this in mind, it is the broad spectrum of its application I want to get a real feel for and for companies to show how they are evolving DevOps to their purpose. DevOps does not have a blue print, you cannot apply DevOps, so it is the detail of how it is built into the company’s methodologies that I am particularly interested in, how it works for them, what has and hasn’t worked, what benefits do they get and where will they take it next.
The DevOps Industry Awards are here to stay
Being launched this year, entries for the DevOps Industry Awards, which celebrates companies, individuals and teams who have accomplished significant achievements in the past year, are now open.
As a judge at this year’s DevOps Industry Awards, Cope said that awards ceremonies such as this one “are one way for us to take time out, think and really understand positive attainment and perhaps, more importantly, trigger new thinking for the next win.”
Entries need to be submitted by the 14th of July 2017, and the winners will be announced at the Gala Dinner in October 2017.
Written by Jordan Platt.
