Often the word DevOps connotes cloud infrastructure and a set of tools and hence existence of the DevOps teams in many organizations.  This categorisation and organization is the projection of understanding existing tools and practices to an emerging category and an attempt to co opt or assimilate new tools and ideas. This categorisation fails to take into account the basis of DevOps movement.

In this talk, I will be covering the motivations and incentives for DevOps movement and why it is successful when it is applied with a first principles approach.

If you look at any activity, there are subtle motivations and tradeoffs which direct our actions. The idea of transaction cost for a given transaction is such a subtle backdrop for many of our seeming irrational actions. From farmers going to a loan shark instead of banks to the rise of nfts and tokenization. Ronald Coase back in 1937 asked a fundamental question: If the markets are so efficient, why do companies exist? The essay is an excellent read on how organic organizations emerge nudged by intrinsic forces like transaction cost. What Coase found out was the trust between two individuals is the most costliest of the resources.

The lack of trust increases the transaction costs of business transactions and a structure where trust can be established more easily, brings down the transaction cost and hence subsequently the cost of goods and services.

So how does this apply to DevOps thinking? In my talk I will show how we can leverage this thinking to reduce batch sizes and thus increase flow and effectiveness of the teams.