DevOps is not an end state; it is a constant cycle of improvement. The entities that we would call “successful” are still improving, still learning, still failing.
Netflix still experiences outages and incidents. Etsy still experiences outages and incidents. Capital One still experiences breaches and vulnerabilities. The difference is that they are still building, and they built up the system and the culture to acknowledge these problems and deal with them in a graceful way.
True success is not about removing problems, it is about structuring the organization to be resilient when problems come up.
Most of the time DevOps “transformations” fail not because the technical approaches are wrong, but because organizations have unrealistic expectations for immediate, permanent state change. Successful organizations recognize that it is a commitment to change the way they operate, not just an ‘immediate impact solution’ for their existing problems.
I’ve witnessed DevOps transformations that worked (and plenty that didn’t). If you’re thinking about starting this adventure, I would love to discuss what actually matters versus what looks good in a deck.