An open, honest, and safe environment

Apart from sounding like something taken directly out of a management training manual, what does having an open, honest, and safe environment actually mean? In relation to CD and DevOps adoption, this means that anyone and everyone involved in your product-delivery process is willing, encouraged, and able to openly comment on and discuss ideas, issues, concerns, and problems, without the fear of ridicule or retribution—especially from those in leadership positions.

As you found during the elephant exposure stage, allowing for open discussions and honest appraisals of how things are done within the organization and the product-delivery process brings to the surface details and facts that otherwise would have been missed or stayed hidden. You need to persist the environment where the distinct lack of secrets culture and behavior is prevalent and maintained.

On the face of it, this all sounds like common sense, but unfortunately, this way of working is not encouraged, or worse still, is actively discouraged in some working environments—especially in corporate business. If you find yourself in this situation, then you have some additional challenges to overcome simply due to the fact that these edicts are normally defined and enforced through the HR and management guidelines, which in turn define the policies under which the business operates. You therefore can't simply break or bend these rules at will. We'll cover this in more detail later in the book, but suffice it to say that you need to tread very carefully and ensure you lead by example in terms of your behaviors.

Let's break down these concepts in more detail.