The DevOps Culture Cocktail

(also posted on www.devops.com)

As I have written in previous posts, I believe that IT has accumulated decades of cultural debt that is now due.  We are a young  industry that grew up in silo neighborhoods, each with it’s proprietary practices, language and population of like-skilled specialists.  Left unchecked, the resulting “framework culture” contributed to IT’s cultural debt and is partially the motivation behind DevOps.

The goal of DevOps is not to undervalue or replace the frameworks that are in place.  On it’s own, DevOps is not a framework – in fact,  successful DevOps relies on combined effect of best practices such as Agile, Lean and ITSM.   By recognizing and adapting the best of each, IT can formulate a potent recipe for enhancing performance and increasing customer satisfaction.

So let’s belly up to the bar and mix ourselves a DevOps Culture Cocktail by taking the best guidance from the top shelf of each of the frameworks and practices.  

Ingredient 1:  'Git R Done' Scrum

Scrum is the most prominent of the Agile frameworks and with good reason:  it focuses on getting work “done” in manageable increments while reducing work in progress. 

Pair it with a Kanban Board

While deceptively simple, Kanban is a powerful method for visualizing workflow, identifying constraints and keeping a team focused.

Ingredient 2: Automation

There is a lot of debate around the balance of automation use in DevOps, but there is no dispute that automation and metrics play a key role in successful DevOps. 

Ingredient 3: IT Service Management

ITSM is the deployment's "ever after".  Agile and repeatable service management processes lead the way to stable continuous delivery and increased flow.

 Ingredient 4: Lean

Let’s make it a skinny by creating more value for customers with fewer resources and less waste.

Ingredient 5: People

The most important ingredient.   DevOps relies on the way people think, behave, interact and trust their colleagues.   According to Lloyd Taylor,  "You can’t directly change culture. But you can change behavior, and behavior becomes culture.” 

Finally, add a splash of common vocabulary and a shot of the alcohol of your choice and you now have a DevOps Culture Cocktail!  Serve it daily, share it with your neighbors or sip it while reading a good book like The Phoenix Project.   It does get more potent with age.

I recently had the opportunity to present the DevOps Culture Cocktail Party at Fruition Partner’s FruDevCon Conference.  One of the attendees, a hobby mixologist,  formulated her vision for a signature DevOps Culture Cocktail during my presentation.  We asked the hotel bartender to mix it up, passed it around and a new cocktail was born. Here goes:

The DevOps Culture Cocktail
1 part pear vodka
1 part St. Germain
1 part Chardonnay
2 parts simple syrup or 7 up

Top with a spear of pineapple and a cherry.

Improvement recommendations are of course welcome.  Could this become a staple at all future DevOps events?

Me and My Kanban

(also posted on www.devops.com)

There has been a trending interest in Kanban Boards, a tool that helps teams visualize their workflows, limit work in progress and get more “done”.   Kanban Boards are mostly associated with Agile Scrum teams as a collaborative means of seeing the burndown of a sprint.   In fact, Scrum and Kanban are considered to be so interdependent that a new framework called Scrumban is starting to emerge.   However, Kanban is not limited to Agile.  A Kanban board can be very useful for any project or scope of work that would benefit from visualization. 

The premise behind the Kanban is almost deceptively simple.  A board is built with three columns:  “To Do”, “In Progress” and “Done”.   At the start of each sprint, all of the work that needs to be completed is captured on individual sticky notes and placed in the “To Do” column.  When the task or work is actually being undertaken, the note moves into the “In Progress” column.  Upon completion, it is moved to the “Done” column.   If the team has successfully completed the work that was planned for a sprint, all of the cards that began in the “To Do” column will end in the “Done” column.  Any other result opens the opportunity for questions about impediments, team velocity (the ability to absorb work) and sprint planning.

You will often see team kanban boards built on whiteboards and peppered with multi-colored sticky notes.  There is also a great online tool (www.leankit.com) that offers a virtual team Kanban board with many of the same characteristics (including virtual sticky notes.  If the three columns are too basic, you can certainly add more columns because of the nature of the project.   The only caution is that it is easy to inadvertently make deceptively simple into overly complex.  Beware!

I have recently started to use a personal Kanban board to manage my own workload.  While not perfect, I have seen a significant improvement in my ability to get things done.   It also helps to keep me organized and focused.   I like moving the sticky notes around.

To begin, I created a backlog column with a colored note for each of my outstanding tasks.  The list is never-ending so notes are added to the backlog just about every day.  At the start of each week, I re-prioritize the backlog to ensure that deadlines and other considerations are addressed.  I then take a reasonable chunk of tasks off the top and add each note to the “To Do” column.  These are my goals for the week.  When I start to work on a particular task, I move its note into the “In Progress” column.  Upon completion, the note is moved to “Done”.   At the end of the week, I celebrate what I have accomplished and analyze what was left behind.   

If a note stays in the “In Progress” column for too long or moves back to “To Do”, I have to question why.  Did I overestimate my velocity or time it would take to complete a task?  Have I been faced with extensive interruptions or unplanned work?  Was I waiting on someone else?   The visualization of the Kanban board helps me understand my own patterns of work and recognize how I contribute to or impact the results of my team.  

I highly recommend that everyone to set up a personal Kanban, whether for work tasks or home tasks.  You can use the whiteboard in your office or set up a free basic online board through LeanKit  (www.leankit.com).   The results were be very interesting.