If anyone is interested in the origin story of the catch phrase, keep reading.
The first time I said the phrase was at a customer site. I was sent there with two other PMs from the VSTS team along with a VSTS Partner to prove VSTS could build their customer-facing site. The site was a Java application built with a Gradle script. Many are still unaware that VSTS is agnostic and can run on Mac, PC or Linux. So, we flew in to help them see the power of VSTS.
While we were working through their process and identifying all the pain points they had, I made the comment that we were going to “rub a little DevOps on it and make it better.” Everyone in the room started laughing at the thought of DevOps being a pain reliever. But when you think about it, it really is.
We got such a kick out of it I used my horrible Photoshop skills and created this image.
The phrase really became a thing when I used it in my DevOps demo during the //Build Keynote in 2016. Once I got off stage, Twitter was having a field day with the phrase. So, I turned it into a hashtag: #RubDevOpsOnIt.
There was a period where people were missing the original intent of the phrase, so I created a comic strip to better illustrate and clear up any innuendo.
So, if there is a portion of your software delivery that hurts… Rub a little DevOps on it and make it better.