A Hitchhiker's Guide To Setting Up A Successful Devops Journey Franchesco Romero @elchesco Staff SRE & DevOps Practice Lead

@elchesco My name is Franchesco, and I “sell” DevOps for a living...

@elchesco But often find out there are a lot of misconceptions...

But, first… DevOps Motivations and Barriers ● Organizations are constantly looking to differentiate themselves from competitors ○ Value-prop, cheaper, faster, customer-oriented ● There are many obstacles to DevOps adoption ● People, clients, partners, organizations will often try to ○ “Just get it right”

@elchesco DevOps is a journey, not a destination

@elchesco ● Where do you want to go? ○ Vision ● How do you plan to get there? ○ Approach

Make Tomorrow Better Than Today ● There is no single way but multiple ways to implement DevOps ○ There are many different paths to success ■ Be patient, the process is rarely linear ● Focus on what you can control ○ Practices, guidelines and culture

Make Tomorrow Better Than Today ● Everyone moving in the same direction will help make the radical impact

Think What Is It That Devops Can Deliver To You ● Define ideal/target state. ○ Inspire a culture of innovation, ○ deliver better and reliable software, etc ● Provide a common ground for starting the transformation

Think What Is It That Devops Can Deliver To You ● Identify tech/cultural aspects that might help or hinder your progress ○ VSM ○ Roadmap ○ Lead by example

What are we losing by not adopting DevOps? ● Accelerated time-to-market ● Building the right product ● Quality Improvements ● Reliability ● Talent ● Customer Satisfaction

Communicate Norms And Roll-out Quick Wins ● People are the main ingredient in a successful DevOps initiative. ● Communicate early, often with consistency. Be transparent

Communicate Norms And Roll-out Quick Wins ● Leaders should be enablers and help refine/implement new cultural and technical goals ● Transformational Leadership ○ Vision ○ Inspiration ○ Support ○ Recognition

Communicate Norms And Roll-out Quick Wins Set your teams for success ● Use Team Topologies effectively ○ Stream aligned, Enabling, Complicated subsystem, Platform ○ Organize teams for fast flow

Communicate Norms And Roll-out Quick Wins ● Create self-sufficient teams ○ Constantly mentor your teams to become comfortable with DevOps

Communicate Norms And Roll-out Quick Wins ● Roll-out your own framework ○ Set of principles ○ Best-practices ○ Again, there is no one-size-fits-all

Leverage Tooling and Automation ● From The Site Reliability Workbook: ○ Doing operations well is a software problem ○ Use software engineering approaches to solve that problem

Leverage Tooling and Automation ● Automation value: ○ Consistency ○ Faster repairs ○ Faster actions ○ Time saving

Leverage Tooling and Automation ● Success is not only about technology, is about people as well ● Performance-oriented (Generative) ○ Understand big picture and goals ○ Efficient collaboration ○ Opportunities for improvements ○ New ideas are more than welcomed

Accept Failure as Normal ● Create a psychologically safe and blameless workplace ○ Encourage taking risks. ○ Responsibility and mistakes fall on systems and processes not people ● Mistakes are learning opportunities.

Accept Failure as Normal ● Plan for how to work within your existing org, keep an eye on long-term goals

Track Progress And Refine Practices ● Use measurements for unbiased decision-making ○ Value ○ Visibility ○ Lead Time, Deployment freq, MTTR, Change Failure Rate ● Avoid metrics that encourage undesirable behaviors.

Track Progress And Refine Practices ● Be flexible ● Provide valuable and timely feedback ● Measure!

Implement Gradual Change ● Allow teams to focus on tasks that add value rather than keep executing operational and manual work: identify and reduce toil ● Constantly identify and remove constraints: Flow

Implement Gradual Change ● Validate that you are moving on the right direction ○ Skills and behaviours ● Start small ● Remind people why ○ There will be disagreements

Implement Gradual Change ● Build a culture of innovation with broader organization in mind ○ Increased open-minded collaboration ■ Procedures, traditions, rituals, risk-taking ● Learn, try, adopt and use tech that can help you achieve your ideal state

Implement Gradual Change ● Be supportive ○ Leadership + Collaboration + Capabilities + Engagement ■ Provide guidance, be specific ■ Be a source of positive motivator ● Celebrate success ● Fine-tune & Iterate ○ Find balance: Fast vs slow

DevOps requires both cultural and tools changes in our tech practices and architecture. - The DevOps Handbook

Resources: ● Accelerate ● DevOps Handbook ● Effective DevOps ● Site Reliability Engineering ● Site Reliability Workbook ● Team Topologies | Organize teams for fast flow ● Dilbert!!! ● Successful Digital Transformation Isn't About Technology, It's About People ● Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams ● Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Work & Flow

Resources: ● How F*cked Up Is Your Management?: An uncomfortable conversation about modern leadership ● The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable ● Tribal Unity: Getting from Teams to Tribes by Creating a One Team Culture ● Workplace Feedback: Tis Better to Receive Than to Give ● HIGH-PERFORMANCE TEAMS: UNDERSTANDING TEAM COHESIVENESS ● Eradicating Micromanagement: Four Steps to Building a Culture of Autonomy ● A Seat at the Table: IT Leadership in the Age of Agility ● Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition

Thank you. Franchesco Romero @elchesco Staff SRE & DevOps practice Lead