Who Owns Deployments - Dev or IT?

txpenguin asks: "I am IT manager for a small software company. We host several generations of our applications in a fairly complex environment. Our systems are very much inter-dependent (clustering, replication, heavily loaded, and so forth), and bad changes tend to have a domino effect. Additionally, it seems that there are always those who need to be 'in the loop', but aren't aware of changes which affect them. There is a constant battle between IT and Development regarding who should handle the deployment of new code releases and database schema changes to production systems. Dev doesn't understand the systems, and IT does not know the code well. How do you handle this at your company? What protocols seem to work best? Can there be a middle ground?"

Comments

Middle ground

[Southpaw018]

These kinds of things where there are two opposing sides always have the same answer. Unless one side is teh debil or something.

You have to compromise. That's it. Middle ground. There are no other solutions to or ways around this problem. As you describe it, each side has access to and knowledge of half the problem. Half plus half is whole!

So, meet with the guys in Dev. If you want to be beaureaucratic and official about it, create a "deployment team" consisting of an equal number of members from each side that will sit down, discuss, and supervise all necessary changes to production systems. Hell, send someone to a project management class if you need to.

Now, the obstacle you're likely to hit is office politics. People won't want to listen to others and/or won't want to give up their turf or allow others on it. Too bad. To place how serious this issue is in overcoming the political terms: everyone in both departments needs to be cooperating or unemployed.

So there you go. Just like any other relationship, business or otherwise: sit down and talk it over. Problems solved!