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    DevOps
    Way of Working

    DevOps practices for the entire delivery lifecycle

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    Start from a symptom

    If you do not know where to start, pick what hurts today and get recommended Execution Kits and Templates matched to your symptom.

    Search symptoms

    Search by symptom title, signals, or DORA metric (LT, DF, MTTR, CFR).

    56 symptoms found

    "It works on my machine" syndrome
    works-on-my-machine

    Environment inconsistencies cause bugs that only appear in production.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    MTTR
    Signals
    • Bugs that can't be reproduced locally
    • Manual environment setup taking hours/days
    • Production configurations differ from development
    Recommended kits
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Standardize build and deploy environments.
    Infrastructure & Operations Baseline - Use containers for environment parity.
    Recommended templates
    Service README - Document environment setup and dependencies.

    Access permissions are sprawled
    access-sprawl

    Too many people have too much access; no audit trail.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    Signals
    • Everyone has admin/prod access
    • No access reviews conducted
    • Former employees still have access
    Recommended kits
    Secure Code & Advanced Review - Implement access controls and audit.

    Alert fatigue
    alert-fatigue

    Too many alerts, most are noise, real issues get missed.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    Signals
    • Hundreds of alerts per day
    • On-call ignores most alerts
    • Critical issues missed in the noise
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Implement alert hygiene.
    SLO-Driven Observability & Error Budgets - Alert on SLO burn rate, not symptoms.

    API versioning nightmare
    api-versioning-nightmare

    Breaking changes and version conflicts plague integrations.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    LT
    Signals
    • Consumers break when APIs change
    • Multiple API versions in production
    • No deprecation policy
    Recommended kits
    Code Quality & Review Standards - Implement API versioning strategy.
    Recommended templates
    Architecture Decision Record (ADR) - Document versioning decisions.

    Architecture is unknown
    architecture-unknown

    No one has a clear picture of how systems connect.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    CFR
    Signals
    • No up-to-date architecture diagrams
    • Surprise dependencies discovered during incidents
    • Cannot answer "what depends on this?"
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Build service catalog and dependencies.
    Recommended templates
    Architecture Decision Record (ADR) - Document architecture decisions.

    Audit and compliance is painful
    audit-and-compliance-pain

    Evidence collection is manual and late; controls are bolted on.

    DORA impact
    LT
    DF
    Signals
    • Evidence is collected at the end of a project
    • Approvals are email/meetings instead of automated gates
    • Security/compliance work is a "separate stream"
    Recommended kits
    Continuous Planning & Compliance Integration - Bring compliance into refinement and DoD.
    Self-Optimizing Build & Policy Governance - Fail fast on policy/security with automated governance.
    Progressive Delivery & Advanced Deployment - Policy-driven approvals for high-risk changes.
    Recommended templates
    Definition of Done (DoD) - Make controls explicit and repeatable in delivery.
    Service README - Document ownership, runbooks, and dependencies for audits.

    Change aversion
    change-aversion

    Fear of change leads to infrequent, risky releases.

    DORA impact
    DF
    CFR
    Signals
    • Quarterly or less frequent releases
    • "If it is not broke, do not fix it" culture
    • Resistance to trying new approaches
    Recommended kits
    Progressive Delivery & Advanced Deployment - Enable safe experimentation.
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Build confidence to change.

    CI pipeline is too slow
    slow-ci

    Build and test times discourage frequent integration.

    DORA impact
    LT
    DF
    Signals
    • CI takes 30+ minutes
    • Developers batch changes to avoid CI waits
    • Feedback loop is too long
    Recommended kits
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Optimize CI for speed.
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Parallelize and optimize tests.

    Cloud costs are a surprise
    cloud-cost-surprise

    Unexpected bills; no visibility into what's driving costs.

    Signals
    • Bill shocks at end of month
    • Orphaned resources accumulating
    • No cost allocation by team/service
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Implement cloud cost visibility.

    Compliance evidence is manual
    compliance-manual

    Collecting audit evidence requires manual work before reviews.

    DORA impact
    LT
    Signals
    • Screenshot evidence collection
    • Manual spreadsheet tracking
    • Last-minute scramble before audits
    Recommended kits
    Continuous Planning & Compliance Integration - Automate evidence collection.
    Self-Optimizing Build & Policy Governance - Build compliance into CI/CD.

    Database migrations are scary
    database-migrations-scary

    Schema changes are risky and require downtime.

    DORA impact
    DF
    CFR
    Signals
    • Database changes require maintenance windows
    • No rollback plan for migrations
    • Schema changes block releases
    Recommended kits
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Automate and test migrations.

    Dependency vulnerabilities piling up
    dependency-vulnerabilities

    Known vulnerabilities in dependencies are not addressed.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    Signals
    • Hundreds of unfixed CVEs
    • No process for updating dependencies
    • Vulnerabilities discovered in production
    Recommended kits
    Secure & Performant Build Pipelines - Implement dependency management.
    Secure Code & Advanced Review - Review and remediate vulnerable dependencies.

    Deployment queue / bottleneck
    deployment-queue

    Releases wait in queue because only certain people can deploy.

    DORA impact
    LT
    DF
    Signals
    • Only a few people know how to deploy
    • Deployments scheduled days/weeks in advance
    • Code sits waiting after approval
    Recommended kits
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Automate deployments so anyone can trigger them.
    Deployment Automation Foundations - Build unified deployment automation.
    Recommended templates
    Definition of Done (DoD) - Clarify what "ready to deploy" means.

    Deployments feel scary
    deployments-feel-scary

    Releases are high-stress, manual, and hard to roll back.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    MTTR
    DF
    Signals
    • Deploys require a "war room" or heroics
    • Rollback is painful or unreliable
    • You avoid shipping on Fridays / before holidays
    Recommended kits
    Release Management Foundations - Standardize release hygiene and rollback paths.
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Create a predictable build + deploy baseline.
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Catch regressions before they ship.
    Progressive Delivery & Advanced Deployment - Reduce blast radius with safe rollout patterns.
    Recommended templates
    Definition of Done (DoD) - Make quality and operability explicit before merge.
    Incident Runbook - Standardize how you respond when things go wrong.

    Disaster recovery is untested
    no-disaster-recovery

    Backups exist but recovery has never been tested.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    Signals
    • No DR drills conducted
    • RTO/RPO not defined or not met
    • Backup restore never validated
    Recommended kits
    Resilient Operations & Chaos Engineering - Implement and test DR procedures.
    Recommended templates
    Incident Runbook - Document DR procedures.

    Documentation is outdated
    outdated-docs

    Docs exist but don't reflect reality; developers don't trust them.

    DORA impact
    LT
    MTTR
    Signals
    • Docs contradict current behavior
    • No one updates docs after changes
    • Developers bypass docs, ask directly
    Recommended templates
    Service README - Keep living documentation.
    Architecture Decision Record (ADR) - Document decisions when made.

    Drowning in operational toil
    toil-overload

    Manual, repetitive work consumes engineering time.

    DORA impact
    DF
    MTTR
    Signals
    • Same manual tasks done weekly/daily
    • On-call is constant firefighting
    • No time for improvements, just keeping lights on
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Identify and automate toil.
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Automate repetitive deployment tasks.
    Recommended templates
    Incident Runbook - Standardize incident response.

    End-to-end tests are painful
    e2e-test-pain

    E2E tests are slow, flaky, and hard to maintain.

    DORA impact
    LT
    CFR
    Signals
    • E2E suite takes hours to run
    • Tests break with UI changes
    • Nobody wants to write or fix E2E tests
    Recommended kits
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Implement testing pyramid strategy.

    Environment drift
    environment-drift

    Dev, staging, and prod are all different; surprises in prod.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    MTTR
    Signals
    • Features work in staging, break in prod
    • Manual configuration changes in prod
    • No one knows exact prod configuration
    Recommended kits
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Implement infrastructure as code.
    Infrastructure & Operations Baseline - Ensure environment parity.

    Estimates are always wrong
    estimation-inaccurate

    Work takes 3x longer than estimated, planning is unreliable.

    DORA impact
    LT
    DF
    Signals
    • Commitments regularly missed
    • Surprise complexity discovered mid-work
    • No historical data for estimation
    Recommended kits
    Backlog Quality & Planning Enablement - Use flow metrics instead of estimates.

    Feature flags are out of control
    feature-flags-chaos

    Old flags accumulate, nobody knows what's active.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    LT
    Signals
    • Hundreds of flags, most never cleaned up
    • No documentation on what flags do
    • Bugs caused by unexpected flag combinations
    Recommended kits
    Progressive Delivery & Advanced Deployment - Implement feature flag lifecycle management.
    Recommended templates
    Feature Flag Lifecycle - Define flag lifecycle and cleanup process.

    Flaky tests erode trust
    flaky-tests

    Unreliable tests are ignored, defeating their purpose.

    DORA impact
    LT
    CFR
    Signals
    • Tests fail randomly, require re-runs
    • Team ignores test failures ("it's just flaky")
    • CI builds take forever due to retries
    Recommended kits
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Implement test reliability practices.

    Flying blind in production
    no-observability

    Can't tell if things are working until users complain.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    CFR
    Signals
    • Find out about issues from customer support
    • No dashboards or metrics for services
    • Log diving is the only way to debug
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Build observability foundation.
    SLO-Driven Observability & Error Budgets - Define what "working" means with SLOs.
    Recommended templates
    Service README - Document how to monitor each service.

    Handoff hell between teams
    handoff-hell

    Work passes through multiple teams, each adding delay.

    DORA impact
    LT
    Signals
    • Tickets move through 5+ queues
    • Each handoff adds days of wait time
    • Information lost between handoffs
    Recommended kits
    Backlog Quality & Planning Enablement - Map and optimize value stream.
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Reduce dependencies with standardized paths.

    Hero culture
    hero-culture

    Success depends on individual heroes, not sustainable systems.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    CFR
    Signals
    • Same people always save the day
    • Hero stories celebrated, systemic fixes ignored
    • Burnout among top performers
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Build reliable systems, not hero dependencies.

    Hotfixes bypass the process
    hotfixes-bypass-process

    Emergency fixes skip CI/CD, creating technical debt and risk.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    DF
    Signals
    • Direct commits to main/production branches
    • Hotfixes not tested before deployment
    • Different process for emergencies vs. normal releases
    Recommended kits
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Fast CI makes normal process fast enough for hotfixes.
    Progressive Delivery & Advanced Deployment - Enable safe fast rollouts.
    Recommended templates
    Incident Runbook - Define a safe hotfix process.

    Incidents keep happening
    incidents-keep-happening

    Reliability issues recur; the same failure modes repeat.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    CFR
    Signals
    • Paging/alerts are noisy or low-signal
    • Runbooks are missing or outdated
    • Post-incident actions don't get executed
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Baseline observability, runbooks, and ownership.
    Resilient Operations & Chaos Engineering - Mature incident response + DR drills and automation.
    SLO-Driven Observability & Error Budgets - Add SLOs, error budgets, and DORA dashboards.
    Recommended templates
    Incident Runbook - Start with a consistent incident process.
    Service README - Make ownership, deploy, and run links obvious.

    Lead time is too long
    lead-time-too-long

    Work gets stuck in queues; integration and testing happen late.

    DORA impact
    LT
    DF
    Signals
    • PRs sit unreviewed or are massive
    • Integration happens at the end (big-bang merges)
    • Testing is mostly manual or happens after "done"
    Recommended kits
    Backlog Quality & Planning Enablement - Clarify priorities, acceptance criteria, and flow.
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Automate the path from commit to deploy.
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Shift test left with fast automated feedback.
    Recommended templates
    Definition of Done (DoD) - Align on what "done" means across roles.
    Service README - Reduce tribal knowledge that slows delivery.

    Legacy system nobody understands
    legacy-system-fear

    Critical system with no documentation or original authors.

    DORA impact
    LT
    CFR
    MTTR
    Signals
    • Original developers left the company
    • No documentation or tests
    • Fear of touching the code
    Recommended kits
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Add characterization tests.
    Recommended templates
    Architecture Decision Record (ADR) - Document discoveries and decisions.
    Service README - Capture operational knowledge.

    Low bus factor
    bus-factor

    If one person leaves, critical knowledge is lost.

    DORA impact
    LT
    MTTR
    Signals
    • Single person who knows the system
    • No knowledge sharing practices
    • Key person risk identified
    Recommended templates
    Service README - Document critical knowledge.
    Architecture Decision Record (ADR) - Capture decision context.

    Metrics collected but not used
    metrics-not-used

    Dashboards exist but don't drive decisions.

    Signals
    • Dashboards nobody looks at
    • Data not discussed in planning
    • Decisions made on gut feel, not data
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Make metrics actionable.
    SLO-Driven Observability & Error Budgets - Use SLOs to drive decisions.

    Microservices chaos
    microservices-chaos

    Too many services; hard to debug across boundaries.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    CFR
    Signals
    • Requests fail and no one knows why
    • Tracing across services is impossible
    • Each service has different patterns
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Implement distributed tracing.
    Code Quality & Review Standards - Standardize service patterns.
    Recommended templates
    Service README - Document service interactions.

    Monolith is slowing us down
    monolith-pain

    Large codebase makes changes risky and slow.

    DORA impact
    LT
    CFR
    DF
    Signals
    • Small changes require full regression testing
    • Deployments affect unrelated features
    • Multiple teams blocked by same codebase
    Recommended kits
    Code Quality & Review Standards - Improve code structure and boundaries.
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Build confidence for incremental changes.
    Recommended templates
    Architecture Decision Record (ADR) - Document decomposition decisions.

    No confidence in changes
    no-test-coverage

    Low test coverage means changes feel risky.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    LT
    Signals
    • Test coverage below 50%
    • No tests for critical paths
    • Afraid to refactor due to breakage risk
    Recommended kits
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Build test coverage systematically.
    Recommended templates
    Definition of Done (DoD) - Require tests for new code.

    No continuous improvement
    no-retrospectives

    Same problems persist; no learning from mistakes.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    MTTR
    Signals
    • No retrospectives or postmortems
    • Improvement items never actioned
    • Repeating the same mistakes
    Recommended kits
    Backlog Quality & Planning Enablement - Establish improvement cadence.
    Resilient Operations & Chaos Engineering - Implement blameless postmortems.
    Recommended templates
    Incident Runbook - Include postmortem process.

    No SLOs defined
    no-slos

    No agreed-upon reliability targets; everything is equally important.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    MTTR
    Signals
    • No error budgets
    • All incidents treated with same urgency
    • No reliability vs. velocity trade-off discussions
    Recommended kits
    SLO-Driven Observability & Error Budgets - Define and implement SLOs.
    Recommended templates
    SLO / SLI Template - Document SLO targets.

    On-call burnout
    on-call-burnout

    On-call rotation is exhausting and unsustainable.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    Signals
    • Frequent pages during off-hours
    • Same people always on-call
    • On-call dreaded by the team
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Reduce toil and improve reliability.
    SLO-Driven Observability & Error Budgets - Use error budgets to prioritize reliability work.

    Onboarding takes too long
    onboarding-slow

    New team members need months to become productive.

    DORA impact
    LT
    Signals
    • No onboarding documentation
    • Setup takes days of tribal knowledge
    • New hires shadow for weeks
    Recommended templates
    Service README - Document setup and context.

    Post-mortems produce no action
    post-mortems-ignored

    Incident reviews happen but follow-up items are never completed.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    MTTR
    Signals
    • Same root causes appear repeatedly
    • Action items from reviews never done
    • Blameful culture around incidents
    Recommended kits
    Resilient Operations & Chaos Engineering - Implement blameless postmortem process.
    Recommended templates
    Incident Runbook - Include postmortem template.

    PR reviews are a bottleneck
    pr-review-bottleneck

    Pull requests sit unreviewed for days or get rubber-stamped.

    DORA impact
    LT
    Signals
    • PRs waiting 2+ days for review
    • Reviews are perfunctory ("LGTM")
    • Large PRs that are hard to review
    Recommended kits
    Code Quality & Review Standards - Establish PR size and review guidelines.
    Recommended templates
    Definition of Done (DoD) - Define review expectations.

    Regressions escape to production
    regression-escapes

    Old bugs keep coming back; fixes break other things.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    Signals
    • Same bugs fixed multiple times
    • Fixes introduce new bugs
    • No regression test suite
    Recommended kits
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Build regression test automation.

    Release train chaos
    release-train-chaos

    Coordinating releases across teams is painful and error-prone.

    DORA impact
    LT
    DF
    Signals
    • Multiple teams must coordinate deployments
    • One team blocks another's release
    • Release calendar is overbooked
    Recommended kits
    Release Management Foundations - Enable independent deployments.
    Progressive Delivery & Advanced Deployment - Decouple release from deployment.
    Recommended templates
    Release Checklist - Standardize release coordination.

    Rollback has never been tested
    rollback-untested

    Rollback procedures exist but are never practiced.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    CFR
    Signals
    • No rollback drills conducted
    • Rollback scripts are outdated
    • Database rollback is manual and scary
    Recommended kits
    Release Management Foundations - Implement and practice rollback procedures.
    Resilient Operations & Chaos Engineering - Include rollback in DR drills.
    Recommended templates
    Incident Runbook - Document rollback procedures.

    Scaling is manual
    scaling-is-manual

    Capacity planning and scaling require human intervention.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    Signals
    • Performance degrades during traffic spikes
    • Manual server provisioning
    • Over-provisioning to avoid scaling issues
    Recommended kits
    Infrastructure & Operations Baseline - Implement auto-scaling.

    Secrets in code
    secrets-in-code

    Credentials, API keys, or tokens found in repositories.

    DORA impact
    CFR
    Signals
    • Secrets committed to git history
    • Shared credentials in config files
    • No secret rotation process
    Recommended kits
    Secure Code & Advanced Review - Implement proper secrets management.
    Secure & Performant Build Pipelines - Scan for secrets in CI.

    Security is an afterthought
    security-as-afterthought

    Security reviews happen late, blocking releases.

    DORA impact
    LT
    CFR
    Signals
    • Security review at end of project
    • Vulnerabilities found after release
    • Security team is a bottleneck
    Recommended kits
    Self-Optimizing Build & Policy Governance - Enforce security policy automatically as the pipeline matures.
    Secure Code & Advanced Review - Secure secrets from the start.
    Secure & Performant Build Pipelines - Catch vulnerabilities early.
    Recommended templates
    Definition of Done (DoD) - Include security checks in DoD.

    Silos between teams
    silos-between-teams

    Dev, Ops, Security don't collaborate; us vs. them mentality.

    DORA impact
    LT
    MTTR
    Signals
    • "Throwing over the wall" behavior
    • Blame games when things go wrong
    • Teams optimize locally, not globally
    Recommended kits
    Backlog Quality & Planning Enablement - Establish cross-functional collaboration.

    Snowflake servers
    snowflake-servers

    Each server is uniquely configured; replacement is risky.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    CFR
    Signals
    • Manual SSH changes to production
    • Documentation doesn't match reality
    • Fear of replacing servers
    Recommended kits
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Implement infrastructure as code.
    Infrastructure & Operations Baseline - Standardize with containers.

    Tech debt is crushing velocity
    tech-debt-crushing

    Accumulated shortcuts making every change harder.

    DORA impact
    LT
    CFR
    Signals
    • Simple changes take weeks
    • "Do not touch that code" areas
    • Workarounds on top of workarounds
    Recommended kits
    Code Quality & Review Standards - Implement tech debt management.
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Build safety net for refactoring.
    Recommended templates
    Architecture Decision Record (ADR) - Document debt and remediation decisions.

    Testing is a bottleneck
    testing-bottleneck

    Manual testing or QA handoffs slow down delivery.

    DORA impact
    LT
    CFR
    Signals
    • Dedicated QA phase adds days/weeks
    • Most testing is manual
    • Bugs found late in the cycle
    Recommended kits
    Testing Strategy & Quality Gates - Automate testing and shift left.
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Integrate tests into CI pipeline.
    Recommended templates
    Definition of Done (DoD) - Include test coverage in DoD.

    Too many meetings
    meeting-overload

    Engineers spend more time in meetings than coding.

    DORA impact
    LT
    Signals
    • Calendar full of syncs and standups
    • Fragmented focus time
    • Important decisions made outside meetings anyway
    Recommended kits
    Backlog Quality & Planning Enablement - Optimize collaboration patterns.

    Too much work in progress
    work-in-progress-overload

    Teams juggle many items, nothing gets finished.

    DORA impact
    LT
    DF
    Signals
    • Constant context switching
    • Items started but not completed for weeks
    • Everyone is "busy" but little ships
    Recommended kits
    Backlog Quality & Planning Enablement - Implement WIP limits and flow metrics.

    Tool sprawl / integration chaos
    too-many-tools

    Too many disconnected tools creating friction.

    DORA impact
    LT
    Signals
    • Context switching between 10+ tools daily
    • Data lives in silos, manual copying between systems
    • No single source of truth for project status
    Recommended kits
    CI/CD & Build Automation - Consolidate around golden paths.

    Tribal knowledge dependency
    tribal-knowledge

    Critical knowledge exists only in people's heads, not documented.

    DORA impact
    LT
    MTTR
    Signals
    • Cannot deploy if "the person" is on vacation
    • New team members take months to ramp up
    • Same questions asked repeatedly
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Document runbooks and operational knowledge.
    Recommended templates
    Service README - Capture essential service knowledge.
    Incident Runbook - Document how to respond to issues.
    Architecture Decision Record (ADR) - Record architectural decisions and context.

    Unclear priorities
    unclear-priorities

    Everything is "high priority," so nothing is.

    DORA impact
    LT
    DF
    Signals
    • Frequent priority changes mid-sprint
    • Multiple stakeholders with conflicting demands
    • No clear way to say "no" to requests
    Recommended kits
    Backlog Quality & Planning Enablement - Establish prioritization framework.

    Unclear service ownership
    unclear-ownership

    Nobody knows who owns what, causing delays and finger-pointing.

    DORA impact
    MTTR
    LT
    Signals
    • "Who owns this?" asked frequently
    • Incidents get bounced between teams
    • Services have no clear maintainer
    Recommended kits
    Observability & Monitoring Foundations - Establish ownership and accountability.
    Recommended templates
    Service README - Document ownership clearly.
    Tip: Run the assessment first if you want a prioritized plan; use this page when you need a quick starting point.