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Culteral impediments to DevOps
The document discusses common cultural impediments ("elephants") that can prevent effective collaboration between development (Dev) and operations (Ops) teams when adopting a DevOps approach. It identifies eight such elephants: 1) Dev and Ops teams don't communicate; 2) teams are separated rather than integrated; 3) senior leadership priorities aren't aligned; 4) DevOps is seen as replacing Ops rather than collaboration; 5) DevOps is equated only with tools; 6) teams resist change; 7) teams hide behind regulations; and 8) teams try to change too many things at once. For each elephant, it provides ideas for how to address the issue, with a focus on improving communication, collaboration, knowledge sharing and adopting a
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Culteral impediments to DevOps
- 1. A Collection ofDevOps Elephants Common Cultural Impediments to DevOps Clem Pickering Infinity Works Consulting @clem_pickering
- 2. Clem Pickering, PrincipalConsultant https://www.infinityworks.com/
- 3. What do wemean by Dev? Anyone involved in the process of creating a software application (BAs, Dev, Testers, Architects, Product Owners...) What do we mean by Ops? Anyone involved in the process of operating and supporting a software application (Service, DBA, Infrastructure teams, Network teams, Security…)
- 4. What Problem arewe trying to Solve? - Dev are incentivised to increase change - more deployments, more features, faster! - Ops are incentivised to resist change - maintain service, uptime, SLAs - How do we bridge this gap?
- 5. So what isDevOps? Put simply it’s about Dev and Ops working together
- 6. And what DevOpsisn’t - A team - A role - A set of tools - A methodology - A silver bullet - Clearly defined - Easy to implement!
- 7. … and ideas forhunting them DevOps Elephants
- 8. #1 Dev andOps don’t Talk
- 9. #1 Set upa DevOps Community - Get people talking at every opportunity - Start with an off-site day - Find the evangelists (and the saboteurs) - Ensure both Dev and Ops are involved (!) - Make joint decisions
- 10. #2 “They” arenot in Teams
- 11. #2 Look atOrg Structure - Change the structure to blur the areas and focus on what you want to achieve - E.g. assign Ops representatives to squads - Form a catalyst team
- 12. #3 Senior levelobjectives aren’t aligned
- 13. #3 Look forthe common ground - Dig down below objectives to why - What risk are you trying to mitigate? - Agree on some common principles - Example: Fear of uncontrolled change to production - Align objectives where you can
- 14. #4 DevOps !=No Operations
- 15. #4 Aim toshare knowledge - Pair on tasks on both sides - Ops coach Dev - Dev coach Ops - One role spec, not a separate role
- 16. #5 DevOps isTools
- 17. #5 Adopt abalanced approach - Share tools – avoid “Dev tools” and “Ops tools” - Associate tools with product pipelines - Avoid one tool syndrome… - …but equally don’t chase shiny - Get good at changing tools
- 18. #6 Change isScary
- 19. #6 Small stepstowards a Vision - Acknowledge where we are now - Paint a picture of where we’re going - Celebrate all the small steps - Acknowledge everything won’t be successful - Get senior support on the vision
- 20. #7 Hiding behindRegulations
- 21. #7 Respect Serviceand Audit - We can’t ignore the regulations - See #3, look at what underlying risk is trying to be mitigated - Start with the existing mechanisms but: - Smaller - More frequently - Improve - Highlight the benefits (auditable, repeatability, less manual involvement)
- 22. #8 Too ManyThings
- 23. #8 Don’t doEverything at Once - Allocate time and budget - See #6, start with small steps and grow from there - However make some clear change; if you do what you always do…
- 24. How to huntElephants* - DevOps is principally a people challenge - Consider everything from the point of view as to whether it widens or narrows the Dev Ops gap - Invest thought and effort into DevOps as culture * No actual elephants were hurt in the making of this talk
Editor's Notes
- #2 A talk and series of slides exploring some common cultural impediments to adopting DevOps, observed through experience to date
- #3 Infinity Works: Agile Delivery Consultancy, specialising in helping large organisations get better at delivering IT DevOps and agile a key area of focus Clem: Headed up DevOps transformation at Callcredit Worked with several clients via Infinity Works on what DevOps is and beginning to establish DevOps culture
- #5 In a traditional model, very different incentives Pulling in different directions How do we establish True North? We need to achieve both things for a successful modern business
- #6 An approach, a culture, a way of thinking A way of bridging the Dev Ops gap... Read The Phoenix Project!
- #8 Sounds simple, just bring Dev and Ops closer together However there are lot of elephants in the room at a lot of organisations, impediments that make the cultural challenge very difficult Aim is to call out some of the ones I’ve seen in recent experience, and some ideas as to how to work with them
- #9 Dev and operations are traditionally different roles. Often the social and professional networks in the org mean people don’t often talk Don’t think about the world in the same way
- #10 Also daily involvement at stand-ups
- #11 Organisation structure challenges – silos. Not conducive to a new collaborative way of working Product teams usually don’t include ops – agile has brought together dev, test, BA, maybe business but Ops is often still left out
- #12 Assign Ops to work closely with Dev teams Get Devs to rotate into Ops Catalyst teams such as App support, platform teams, pipeline teams
- #13 Often at the exec level, DevOps is misunderstood Despite the DevOps initiative or desire: Ops have service and ITIL related objectives Development have delivery related objectives Bonuses are riding on this…
- #14 Trad Ops response: heavy change control, resist the change Trad Dev response: Give us the keys Actual aim: mitigate the risk of breaking service (either now or in future) Alternative response: Automated deployments/immutable infrastructure. Ultimate control, less risk, fast and repeatable change
- #15 A real fear that operations is being cut out – and often some truth in it DevOps must not be a Dev takeover It does not mean admin or root access for Devs in prod It does not mean Ops have no value
- #16 Acknowledge the value of operations Acknowledge and celebrate the specialist knowledge on both sides Try and share that knowledge – t-shaped people Help both areas realise they have new skills to learn Modify both role specs, or maybe even merge them. Interview accordingly
- #17 So many tools Too many tools Tools can divide culture - ”Dev tools” and “Ops tools” Tools are the football scarves of the two sides Fixation on one tool
- #19 People don’t like change Ops don’t like change DevOps is change if it’s not there already, and it’s advocating even more change Plus it itself will change as you do it
- #20 Good leaders give support and give a purpose Break things down small Examples: DevOps poster, DevOps weekly, Small changes
- #21 Yes, PCI, FCA, ISO etc make it harder But DevOps is not saying be reckless Underlying goals of regulation and DevOps are surely getting at the same thing
- #22 Example – deployment pipelines automating deploys but still going via change management, eventually reclassified as standard change
- #23 Final elephant – people are incredibly busy So many things - it’s not as if the people who will be involved in DevOps have lots of time A move to DevOps should not be side of desk. Requires time, focus and effort
- #24 Example – take some people out and form a separate team with a space and remit to drive change
- #25 Questions for the audience Do you recognise these elephants? What other elephants are there? What other ideas do we have to help address them?