Creating the conditions for an awesome DevEx

It's 2022, and software development and delivery is a fractious experience. Developers and teams struggle to get going.
The developer platforms organisations have built are not fit for purpose.
Cloud foundations do not evolve in line with the requirements of the development teams
This session will explore the conditions needed to facilitate developer autonomy and create an awesome DevEx. s
- What makes a good developer experience?
- What are the common stumbling blocks?
- How to architect to manage risk, governance and autonomy
- How to build modern team topologies that don't hinder progress and ensure long-term sustainability
- How to build a culture that is transparent and breaks down silos?

Transcript

1. Creating The Conditions For An
   Awesome Developer Experience
   Hibri Marzook • Software Practice Lead
   

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2. 2
   Hibri Marzook
   Software Practice Lead
   Help teams deliver fast and enjoy doing it
   @hibri
   www.hibri.net
   

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3. 3
   Prod Env
   Non - Prod Env
   GIT
   Cloud Provider
   Portal
   Developer
   Feedback
   Seconds - Minutes Feedback Loop is
   Broken
   Hours - Days
   Wall of
   Confusion
   Ops
   Raise a ticket
   The Wall of Confusion
   

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4. Can’t use existing knowledge
   Focus is lost
   Helplessness
   

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5. Impact of a poor DevEx
   Cochran, T. (2021)
   

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6. High-friction and low effective environments create
   the conditions for burn-out
   

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7. What is DevEx?
   Developer Experience is about creating an
   environment in which a developer can do their best
   work.
   

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8. How do developers feel about the processes,
   systems and services they use?
   

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9. The work we do should not cause negative
   emotions
   

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10. A good DevEx reduces Cognitive Load
    Intrinsic - the task at hand
    Germane - How do I solve x?
    Extraneous - How do I deploy FooBar again?
    

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11. Why is DevEx important?
    Developer productivity underpins the success of
    your organisation.
    

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12. Srivasta, S. et al. (2020)
    

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13. Hire expensive developers
    Make it hard to do their jobs
    .
    .
    .
    Profit?
    

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14. What does good DevEx look like?
    Heroku - do everything via the CLI and Git
    Monzo - CLI tools for devs to deploy, test and
    interact with services
    Netflix - evolving standard build tooling to
    developer tooling
    

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15. DevEx is contextual
    Developers exist in an environment that is unique
    to your organisation and environment
    ?
    

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16. A good developer experience is emergent
    

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17. Create boundaries for risk
    and responsibility
    

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19. Good fences make good neighbours
    

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20. Give Autonomy within boundaries
    

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21. Create a shared responsibility model
    

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22. Example of a Boundary : Pipeline as a Product
    ● A versioned library of pipeline steps
    ● Opinionated Pipeline
    ● Evolve pipeline with Governance needs
    

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23. Create Team Interactions
    for Fast Flow
    

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24. Conway’s Law
    24
    “Organisations which design
    systems are constrained to
    produce designs which are copies
    of the communication structures
    of these organisations”
    

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25. Conway’s Law affects the
    developer experience
    25
    

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26. Understand Team Interactions
    

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27. Adopt an Internal OSS
    Model
    

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28. Platform/Dev Tooling
    code is visible to
    everyone
    

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29. Anyone can send a PR, to improve
    developer tooling
    

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31. An internal OSS model removes barriers
    to collaboration
    

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32. Create Fast Feedback
    Loops
    

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33. The Simplest Feedback Loop is a Conversation
    33
    

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34. Optimize Feedback Loops, Not Pipelines
    34
    

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35. Get to Real Users Quicker. Only Prod Matters
    35
    https://twitter.com/copyconstruct/status/974530841190608897
    

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36. How do we measure
    DevEx?
    

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37. The SPACE Framework
    S - Satisfaction and Well-being
    P - Performance
    A - Activity
    C - Communication and Collaboration
    E - Efficiency and flow
    (Forsgren et al., 2021)
    

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38. Dispelling Developer Productivity Myths
    ● Productivity is only about individual
    performance
    ● One productivity metric can tell us everything
    ● Productivity is only about engineering systems
    and developer tools
    ● Productivity is all about developer activity
    

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39. The most important takeaway from
    exposing these myths is that productivity
    cannot be reduced to a single dimension (or
    metric!)
    (Forsgren et al., 2021)
    

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40. Key findings
    Finding flow is key, and interruptions are a drag. Minimal or no interruptions give
    developers an 82% chance of having a good day, but interruptions throughout the day
    decrease the chance of a good day to just 7%.
    Meetings are both awesome and terrible. Collaboration improves our work, but too
    many meetings can be a blocker; going from two to three meetings per day lowered the
    chances of developers making progress toward their goals by 60%.
    A two minute daily reflection can help developers improve their days
    

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41. Why?
    

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42. A good Developer Experience
    helps devs find flow and
    reduces interruptions
    

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43. A good Developer Experience
    reduces the cognitive load for a
    developer
    

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44. A good Developer Experience
    creates an environment of
    psychological safety
    

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45. Conditions for an Awesome DevEx to emerge;
    1. There are good boundaries for risk and
    responsibility
    2. Team interactions are optimized for fast
    flow
    3. Adopt an Internal OSS Model
    4. Focus on creating fast feedback loops
    

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46. Q&A
    46
    

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47. Atlanta
    atlanta@contino.io
    Thank You
    contino.io continohq contino
    London
    london@contino.io
    New York
    newyork@contino.io
    Melbourne
    melbourne@contino.io
    Sydney
    sydney@contino.io
    47
    Brisbane
    brisbane@contino.io
    

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48. References
    Cochran, T. (2021) Maximizing Developer Effectiveness. Available at:
    https://martinfowler.com/articles/developer-effectiveness.html (Accessed: January 11, 2021)
    Srivasta, S. et al. (2020) How software developers can drive business growth | McKinsey, www.mckinsey.com. Available
    at:
    https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/developer-velocity-how-s
    oftware-excellence-fuels-business-performance.
    Forsgren, N. et al. (2021) ‘The SPACE of Developer Productivity: There’s more to it than you think’, ACM Queue, 19, pp.
    1–29. Available at:
    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-space-of-developer-productivity-theres-more-to-it-than-you-t
    hink/.
    

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