Since the term was first coined in 2009, “DevOps” has rapidly taken the world by storm. And while the DevOps
movement initially took root among and the view that it will be replaced with a new trend, the last few years
have seen widespread use of DevOps methodologies among more traditional enterprise organizations for whom
technology is critical to maintaining competitive advantage.

Despite the increasing enterprise interest in DevOps, it has taken some time for the ITSM community to fully
embrace the DevOps philosophy, along with the modern development approaches it draws from. In fact,
DevOps has often been viewed as yet another IT management “fad” that will come and go, with IT
Operations teams remaining largely unaffected.

Although “DevOps” refers to the joining of Dev(elopment) and Op(eration)s, the movement has been
very much led by the Development community, with minimal IT Operations participation, and even less
involvement from the ITSM practitioner community. But it’s no wonder ITSM practitioners on the whole haven’t
jumped on the DevOps bandwagon, given the wealth of “DevOps Will Kill ITSM (and ITIL)” articles and the view
that it will be replaced with a new trend.

It is evident, however, that DevOps is here to stay, as it has been shown to significantly improve the IT
value chain. As key participants in the IT value chain, ITSM practitioners are ideally already involved in their
own organizations’ DevOps ambitions; but if they aren’t, it’s time to bring them into the fold. DevOps and ITSM
are complementary, serving the same business purposes and outcomes—better business through better IT. It’s
time for ITSM to step up to the DevOps plate.