DevOpsdays Austin 2015

Dominica DeGrandis @dominicad

Staying focused when inflicted with conflic3ng priori3es


Saturday Mornings -‐ before


Saturday Mornings -‐ a9er

Parkinson’s Law

“Work expands to fill the 2me available for its comple2on.” Cyril Parkinson

Dominica’s Hypothesis “Demand increases in propor2on to the ability to meet the demand.”



Poll results from 500+ people across 55 countries:“How does context switching impact your team?”


Poll results from 500+ people across 55 countries:“What is main cause of conflicting priorities for your team?”

Puppet Labs 2014 Devops Report

“While we suspected job sa2sfac2on impacted organiza2onal performance, we were surprised to see that job sa2sfac2on was the #1 predictor of organiza2onal performance.”

hKps://puppetlabs.com/sites/default/files/2014-‐state-‐of-‐devops-‐report.pdf

Organizational performance is dependent on the alignment of teams.

Clear priori3es drive coopera3on

Let’s not forget that the intent of DevOps is to improve the system as a whole. #KaizenDevOps

•  Company performance (economic, health, sustainability)•  Job satisfaction•  Levels of trust and cooperation•  Tolerance for experimentation

Organizational Health Defined

A healthy organiza<on increases the happiness factor and job sa<sfac<on at work.

“Organiza2onal health will one day surpass all other disciplines in business as the greatest opportunity for improvement.” Patrick Lencioni

If everything is a priority one, nothing is a priority One

Every request cannot be the top priority.

Hence the need to limit your wip

kan·ban

känbän/かんばん(看板) noun, “signal card”

A kanban signal card is a visual indicator of availability. “The aim of kanban is to make troubles come to the surface.”

-Taiichi Ohno

When a problem occurred, the board on the assembly line lit up, work halted, and the issue was immediately addressed by a supervisor at the source.

“Let the flow manage the processes, and not let management manage the flow.”

Taiichi Ohno

C

B

Portfolio Program done design ready to

deliver feedback

7

In work

Delayed [idle for n days]

Blk PZ

D

E

A

B A

F

build deliver

Displaced an item now delayed

D

WZ

Project 1

Project 2

Project 3

E

12

JG

PB

B

C D WZ

JG

Project 5

C

MN

committed

Project 4

C

B

B A


ABribu<on to BernadeBe Dairo – Canadian Govt agency in Toronto


Operations team work flow

Validate Deliver Closed Design

Fires

Maintenance

Projects

Implement

3

9

2

Improve

CODB

Fire

Project

Improvement

Investigate


Unplanned

Unplanned

Exercise to try: 30 days Priori3za3on Policy?:

Removing project work allows team to focus on maintenance and improvements


Fires

Maintenance

Projects

Items in backlog remain uncommitted and un-prioritized until there is capacity to absorb them.

Implement

Backlog

3

9

2

Improvement

CODB

Fire

Project

Improvement

Investigate


Removing project work allows team to focus on maintenance and improvements


Fires

Maintenance

Projects

Items in backlog remain uncommitted and un-prioritized until there is capacity to absorb them.

Implement

Backlog

3

9

2

Improvement

CODB

Fire

Project

Improvement

Investigate


Embed Opera3onal work upstream or insist that product development teams deliver and support their product?.


Product development team board

Let’s not forget support work Autonomy w/o authority is a messy business.


Product development team board.

Consider impacts to others.

When people cooperate, they need less meetings, less rules, less resources.


Ops team board

Enterprise Portfolio BoardActive

Projects

B

C

D

M

A

H

K

Work-item types

F 52

F

13

13

26

C B A

Operations Finance SB Infrastructure

26 54

4

6 4

25

next backlog

F

N

D

E

63

Too big! G 32

PorXolio Program

Opera3ons team

Product Dev team


Risks & Issues board – a 3rd type of Kanban


Risks & Issues board – Looking at cost of delay

Risks & Issues board with measure of Org health

Trust & Cooperation

Kiwi Dial

Risks & Issues board with measure of Org health

Trust & Cooperation

Kiwi Dial

sflvnsYnvfnvdnvjdnvj

Improve collaboratively using models



To Do Doing Done

A short prioritized list of things to do is a beautiful thing.


To Do Doing Done

How will your organization prioritize a short list of things to do? What is the one metric that matters most?

Value of Lean Flow approach: clear priorities fewer interruptions


Staying focused when inflicted with conflic3ng priori3es

DevOpsdays Austin 2015

Technology