Life at REA Group - Lessons from 7 years of DevOps - Trent Hornibrook

REA Group is the parent company of one of the most popular Australian websites - http://www.realestate.com.au/.

Over the past 7 years REA Group has scaled from a 30 odd IT workforce to 200 across multiple locations.

From Waterfall to Agile. From archaic to an employer of choice.

Over my 7 years at REA we have lessons which I’d love to share on

- Hiring Operations and Developers
- Getting Operations and Developers to collaborate
- Optimising teams to be more effective
- Overcoming cultural differences in a distributed team - particularly Asian and Western cultures
- How to knowledge share technical information across the entire company

Transcript

1. 7 Y E A R S O F D E V O P S D E V O P S
2. P I C K A N U M B E R B E T W E E N 1 A N D 1 0 0 . T H E W I N N E R W I L L B E T H E P E R S O N O R P E O P L E T H AT I S T H E C L O S E S T T O 2 / 3 O F T H E AV E R A G E A T E S T A N D A P R I Z E H T T P : / / T I N Y U R L . C O M / D O D S I N G A P O R E
3. T R E N T H O R N I B R O O K R E A G R O U P @ M Y S Q L D B A H E L P
4. D E V O P S M O V E M E N T
5. F I R S T D E V O P S D AY S C O N F E R E N C E S I N G A P O R E
6. W H AT I S D E V O P S ?
8. D E V O P S I S A VA L U E S T R E A M O P T I M I S AT I O N T H R O U G H A C U LT U R E O F C O L L A B O R AT I O N W I T H C O M M O N T O O L S A N D A C O M M O N P U R P O S E
9. D E V O P S I S A VA L U E S T R E A M O P T I M I S AT I O N T H R O U G H A C U LT U R E O F C O L L A B O R AT I O N W I T H C O M M O N T O O L S A N D A C O M M O N P U R P O S E
10. U N PA C K I N G VA L U E S T E A M
14. G E N E R A L F L O W O F W O R K VA L U E S T R E A M M A P
15. G E N E R A L F L O W O F W O R K VA L U E S T R E A M M A P
19. G E N E R A L F L O W O F W O R K VA L U E S T R E A M M A P
21. D E V O P S I S A VA L U E S T R E A M O P T I M I S AT I O N T H R O U G H A C U LT U R E O F C O L L A B O R AT I O N W I T H C O M M O N T O O L S A N D A C O M M O N P U R P O S E
22. VA L U E S T R E A M O P T I M I S AT I O N VA L U E S T R E A M M A P
23. VA L U E S T R E A M O P T I M I S AT I O N VA L U E S T R E A M M A P
25. D E V O P S I S A VA L U E S T R E A M O P T I M I S AT I O N T H R O U G H A C U LT U R E O F C O L L A B O R AT I O N W I T H C O M M O N T O O L S A N D A C O M M O N P U R P O S E
26. M A K I N G A C U LT U R E O F C O L L A B O R AT I O N
27. C U LT U R E O F C O L L A B O R AT I O N • Hiring the ‘right’ people • Structuring our teams that make sense • Encouraging events that force collaboration
28. H I R I N G T H E R I G H T P E O P L E
30. F I N D I N G T H E R I G H T P E O P L E • Testing technical • Testing culture
31. T E S T I N G T E C H N I C A L VA L U E S T R E A M M A P
32. T E S T I N G C U LT U R E VA L U E S T R E A M M A P
33. F I N D I N G T H E R I G H T P E O P L E • Our interview process • Technical filtering • Cultural filtering • Technical “real world” • Cultural interview • Shared ownership on hiring
36. F I N D I N G T H E R I G H T P E O P L E • The Face To Face • Hands on break fix / technical interview • Technical interview • Cultural interview
40. F I N D I N G T H E R I G H T P E O P L E E N T I R E P R O C E S S
41. F I N D I N G T H E R I G H T P E O P L E • Who is doing the interview • Your peers • Your manager • All in all ~10 people • Review the interview
44. T E S T I N G T E C H N I C A L VA L U E S T R E A M M A P
45. T E S T I N G C U LT U R E VA L U E S T R E A M M A P
46. P I C K A N U M B E R B E T W E E N 1 A N D 1 0 0 . T H E W I N N E R W I L L B E T H E P E R S O N O R P E O P L E T H AT I S T H E C L O S E S T T O 2 / 3 O F T H E AV E R A G E A T E S T A N D A P R I Z E R E S U LT S
47. P I C K A N U M B E R B E T W E E N 1 A N D 1 0 0 . T H E W I N N E R W I L L B E T H E P E R S O N O R P E O P L E T H AT I S T H E C L O S E S T T O 2 / 3 O F T H E AV E R A G E A T E S T A N D A P R I Z E - O N E M O R E T I M E H T T P : / / T I N Y U R L . C O M / D O D S I N G A P O R E 2
48. C U LT U R E O F C O L L A B O R AT I O N • Hiring the ‘right’ people • Structuring our teams that make sense • Encouraging events that force collaboration
49. S T R U C T U R I N G O U R T E A M S
53. S T R U C T U R I N G O U R T E A M S • Over the past 7 years • Moved away silo’ed developers + operations • Moved away from silo’ed product development • Pushed the responsibility + accountability to the coalface
55. S T R U C T U R I N G O U R T E A M S • Delivery Focus • Tooling Focus • Infrastructure Focus
58. O P E N S PA C E I D E A • BAU vs Delivery work • What are the best ways to manage lights-on work and delivery work?
59. S C A L I N G O U R T E A M S • What do you do when you cannot hire?
62. S C A L I N G O U R T E A M S • Two team structures • Delivery Focus in Xi’an, China • Mix of Melbourne, Australia and Xi’an, China
65. S C A L I N G O U R T E A M S • Hofstede cultural dimensions theory
66. H O F S T E D E C H I N A + A U S T R A L I A
67. K E E P TA L K I N G • Word exchange • Show and tell
71. S C A L I N G O U R T E A M S • People in different countries are strange! • Hofstede may be a starting point?
72. E V E N T S T O F O R C E C O L L A B O R AT I O N
73. H A C K D AY S • Two days to build / create something against a theme • Present in a science fair format
76. G U I L D S + S I G S • Self managed and self organised • Mostly focused around craftsmanship
78. W H AT I S D E V O P S ?
79. D E V O P S I S A VA L U E S T R E A M O P T I M I S AT I O N T H R O U G H A C U LT U R E O F C O L L A B O R AT I O N W I T H C O M M O N T O O L S A N D A C O M M O N P U R P O S E
80. T H E T O O L S W E U S E
88. O P E N S PA C E I D E A • What tools to use? • How do you be progressive with technology and still ‘keep-the-lights-on’?
89. W H AT I S D E V O P S ?
90. D E V O P S I S A VA L U E S T R E A M O P T I M I S AT I O N T H R O U G H A C U LT U R E O F C O L L A B O R AT I O N W I T H C O M M O N T O O L S A N D A C O M M O N P U R P O S E
91. P U R P O S E • The three stone cutters @littleidea Devops downunder 2013
95. P U R P O S E • “To build the best property app”
96. P I C K A N U M B E R B E T W E E N 1 A N D 1 0 0 . T H E W I N N E R W I L L B E T H E P E R S O N O R P E O P L E T H AT I S T H E C L O S E S T T O 2 / 3 O F T H E AV E R A G E A T E S T A N D A P R I Z E R E S U LT S
97. C O M M O N P U R P O S E • Its critical to be heading in the same direction
98. W H AT I S D E V O P S ?
99. D E V O P S I S A VA L U E S T R E A M O P T I M I S AT I O N T H R O U G H A C U LT U R E O F C O L L A B O R AT I O N W I T H C O M M O N T O O L S A N D A C O M M O N P U R P O S E
101. O P E N S PA C E I D E A S • BAU vs Delivery work? • Keeping tools up to date? • Ways to do distributed development / operations? • Who goes on pager?
103. I M A G E S • http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WTVmajFWJA0/TiB1dMGnhVI/AAAAAAAAFW4/xfjJh8y3Zf0/s1600/Robot_unicorn_rider__Batman_by_Rosewine.jpg • http://www.sbs.com.au/news/sites/sbs.com.au.news/files/images/2/1/21Oct_Bikies_800x600.jpg • http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/228391/file-745508197-jpg/blog-files/devopsevil.jpg • https://makewealthhistory.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/toyota_i_road.jpg • http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/4712333723_9e138efd42.jpg • http://toyotaplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Toyota-Hybrid-Cars-2015-Prius-main.jpg • http://oam.ph/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/businessman-jumping-over-hurdle-race.jpg • http://www.momsguidetosandiego.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/cathedral.jpg • https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DAES14WHlUQ/maxresdefault.jpg • https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/01/30/4d/01304d9d36c0b76cf28110528f6b7f40.jpg • http://www.brasilvip.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Modelo-de-visto-chin%C3%AAs-300x190.jpg • http://muskokasplitrock.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/cutting-stone-for-lintels1.jpg • http://i.imgur.com/46YyskH.jpg • https://wallpaperscraft.com/image/kitten_crying_face_beautiful_89399_3840x2400.jpg • http://1wallpaper.net/cat-face-fear-fright-eyes-wallpaper.html • https://lucychurchill.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/scw-sept-13.jpg?w=300&h=224 • http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Pf5LaBRU-90/TDmXT6ErVrI/AAAAAAAAAKI/qZMqZvx394w/s1600/Swedish-Chef-002.jpg • http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HxhNTIWL0HE/TuO6LXxP7xI/AAAAAAAAAEg/2eicLkgpsNk/s1600/bert.jpg