They hear:

• Now we’re going to be paged for the sysadmins failing infrastructure.
• No more sysadmins.  We’ve got to do server configuration.
• Deploying to the cloud.
• Only for web sites / web operations.

What they should be hearing:

• Getting to know the operations staff.
• Identifying features to support operations.
• Making it easier to get changes into production

DevOps has become quite a loaded term, filled with strong feelings on a number of sides.   When you hear “DevOps”, take a breath read this post or this one or this one.

 Another great resource is the latest Arrested DevOps podcast about DevOps mythbusting.