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?

The DevOps Diet (Getting Lean)

(Also posted on devops.com)

IT has gotten fat – fat silos, fat processes, fat procedures.  Adopting DevOps is a great opportunity to look at some of our unhealthy habits and identify where we can eliminate unproductive waste from our process diets.  DevOps will ultimately teach IT how to exercise more with less effort, trim the fat and get lean.

According to lean principles, the seven main areas of waste are:

• Defects –  variations from requirements that result in interruptions and re-work
• Overproduction – delivering something more or before it is required
• Inventory  –  carrying excess raw materials, work in progress (WIP) or finished goods
• Over-processing – doing more work than is required
• Motion – moving people or equipment more than is required
• Transportation – moving products from one location to another
• Waiting – doing nothing or moving slowly while waiting on a previous step

What are the greatest sources of waste in your IT organization?  Are defects being regularly passed downstream? Are ITSM processes overproducing through complexity and bureaucracy?  Are Agile teams  dealing with excessive work in progress and less finished product?  Are unresolved bottlenecks resulting in frequent delays while waiting for something to get done or someone to be available?  Could automation reduce "motion sickness" and make transportation nonstop? These questions will hopefully facilitate dialog between Dev and Ops about analyzing and streamlining existing workflows.

While waste is fattening, it is not necessarily ineffective.  Projects and other tasks are still getting done and therefore some areas of waste may be difficult to recognize.  To become leaner, start simple by identifying and eliminating one unhealthy habit from your IT diet.   Engage stakeholders from Dev, Ops, customers and suppliers (if appropriate).  Discuss ways to improve the work with healthier habits.  Agree on what to do next or what not to do anymore.

Every diet should be supported by recipes for success.  The upcoming DevOps Cookbook by Gene Kim, et al. will provide more tangible guidance and recipes for healthy IT habits.  More on that in future blogs.

Most of all,  identifying and eliminating waste through Lean DevOps is a great opportunity for collaboration.  After all,  it's always better to diet with a friend.