Explore greenfield and brownfield projects
The terms greenfield and brownfield have their origins in residential and industrial building projects.
A greenfield project is one done on a green field, undeveloped land. A brownfield project is done on the used ground for other purposes.
Because of the land use that has once occurred, there could be challenges reusing the land. Like existing buildings, some would be obvious but less obvious, like polluted soil.
Applied to software or DevOps Projects
The same terms are routinely applied to software projects and commonly describe DevOps Projects.
On the surface, it can seem that a greenfield DevOps project would be easier to manage and to achieve success.
- There was no existing codebase.
- No existing team dynamics of politics. Possibly no current, rigid processes.
A common misconception is that DevOps is only for greenfield projects and suits startups best. However, DevOps can also succeed with brownfield projects.
The beauty of these projects is that there's often a large gap between customer expectations and delivery.
The teams involved may well realize that the status quo needs to change. They've lived the challenges and the limitations associated with what they're currently doing.