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Design thinking & IaC automation: achieving impact faster with a clear focus
How Design Thinking turns strategic guidelines into tangible added value in the productive environment.
Design Thinking supports automation with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), iteratively, user-centric and with clear prioritization. Rapid added value is created through early results and close integration with CI/CD for seamless implementation in productive systems.
Why design thinking makes the difference in IaC initiatives
Many organizations today are under pressure to automate their infrastructure processes. The desire for as much automation as possible is understandable. After all, such projects promise greater efficiency, scalability and relief from repetitive tasks. However, attempts are often made to implement as many requirements as possible at the same time. This often leads to overloaded projects, stalled implementations or even terminations. The result is complexity, high costs and benefits that are difficult to measure.
Clear, proven methods are needed to prevent this from happening in the first place. Especially in a SAFe® environment, in which DevOps is firmly anchored, design thinking is an obvious choice. It is now also officially established as a component of Agile Product Delivery within SAFe.
Design thinking offers an effective counterpoint here. Instead of taking an actionist approach, it supports a structured approach. This allows strategic objectives, such as the reduction of manual processes, to be translated step by step into tangible MVPs. The focus is not only on the what, but above all on the why and for whom, with an approach that makes priorities visible, focuses on user and domain needs and quickly brings initial results into the productive environment. The following model shows what this approach looks like in concrete terms. It visualizes the phases of design thinking along the typical arc of tension between diversity of ideas and targeted focus.
The individual phases of design thinking follow an interplay between divergent and convergent thinking: while "Research" and "Ideate" open up the solution space in a targeted manner, "Synthesize" and "Evaluate" help to focus it again. This structure ensures creative freedom while maintaining a clear focus on feasible, relevant solutions.
What are the benefits of design thinking for automation and IaC?
Design thinking helps to break down complex automation and IaC projects into realistic, feasible sub-steps. It is divided into five phases:
- Research: Identification of pain points, e.g. analysis of automation potential and user needs.
- Synthesize: Consolidate findings and prioritize according to cost-benefit ratio with a view to achieving the greatest possible leverage.
- Ideate: Development of concrete implementation ideas and comparison with business and architectural goals.
- Prototype & Evaluate: Development of prototypes or MVPs, evaluation through early feedback.
The goal remains constant: simple, effective and achievable with reasonable effort. The synthesize phase in particular shows how important a sound evaluation of standardization is. Because only what is sufficiently standardized is usually worthwhile for automation.
How we implement design thinking together with you
Design thinking thrives on the early involvement of all participants. For IaC initiatives in particular, but also for automation projects, it is crucial that users are involved right from the start. User stories, story maps and iterative loops create a shared understanding of the path and goal. The commitment of the decision-makers can also be anchored early on and a common basis for continuous control, clear clarification of the order and targeted prioritization of requirements is created.
The small-scale implementation quickly produces initial results in the productive environment. Early results create transparency, enable controllability and increase acceptance.
We also recommend our article on CI/CD and IaC. There we show how continuous integration and delivery help to deliver to production in an iterative, secure and controlled manner, which is a central principle of any successful automation.
Blog
CI/CD and IaC
from Thomas Somogyi
Domain-Driven & Customer-Centeric Design - also for software and platform logic
Design thinking is fundamentally geared towards the needs of users (CCD - customer-centric design). This is essential for infrastructure as code and platform development, but is usually not enough on its own. This is because it is not just about people, but also about systems, interfaces and processes.
Domain-Driven Design (DDD) complements this approach and offers a structuring aid for the architecture, whether for IaC platforms, service-oriented solutions or software development in the narrower sense. Domains can represent technical clusters, peripheral systems, process groups or even internal IT teams. In IaC scenarios in particular, peripheral systems often act as independent user groups. Their integration into the design is crucial.
This applies not only to the architecture, but also to ongoing operations: with platform-based automation solutions in particular, it is important not only to build processes efficiently, but also to operate them intelligently. You can find out how this can be achieved with AI-supported AIOps approaches in the blog "AIOps and AI automation"
Blog
AIOps and AI automation
from Thomas Somogyi
The combination of Customer CCD and DDD creates a resilient basis for sustainable, scalable and customer-oriented solutions, whether for platform logic, software architecture or technical automation components.
In a nutshell: The effectiveness of design thinking does not end with ideation. In order for prioritized requirements to actually result in automatable, sustainable solutions, a clear technical anchoring is required. The following simplified architecture overview, also known as the layered architecture model, shows how technical layers such as presentation, service, business and persistence logic can be clearly separated from one another.
The layer model supports the structured mapping of value streams along user and domain requirements. For example, domain-specific processes in the form of API-controlled services, repositories or adapters can be transferred directly into the business logic of an IaC platform or central automation software. This applies to both classic infrastructure components and modern platform architectures. The model is supplemented by cross-cutting topics such as security, observability (logging, metrics & tracing), error handling and workflow engines.
Further methodological and technical background, such as how structured solutions are created using a multi-layered IaC platform architecture with presentation, orchestration and integration components, can be found in the article "Efficiency through automation". Our automation blog also highlights layered architecture approaches and shows how these can be combined with platform and service logic.
Impulses from practice
In reality, it often turns out that not all automation has to go as deep as possible. It is more important that the project is clearly prioritized, sensibly standardized and gradually brought into production. Design thinking supports precisely this. By focusing on value contribution, product marketing, platform acceptance and governance, a well thought-out, viable implementation is created.
The approaches presented in this blog are based on experience from various IaC and platform projects in which we have methodically developed Design Thinking and combined it with architecture principles such as DDD, CI/CD and service-oriented automation.
Conclusion and invitation to dialog
Design thinking brings structure, clarity and customer focus to complex projects - whether in platform development, infrastructure automation or software design. Especially in IaC projects, where technical depth meets strategic objectives, design thinking offers a concrete methodological framework.
With manageable effort, initial results can be achieved quickly and fragmented strategies can be turned into jointly implementable progress.
Would you like to find out more about how design thinking can transform your digital strategy into tangible MVPs?
We look forward to the exchange.
