Inspire, develop, and guide a winning organization.
Create visible workflows to achieve well-architected software.
Understand and use meaningful data to measure success.
Integrate and automate quality, security, and compliance into daily work.
Understand the unique values and behaviors of a successful organization.
Explore our extensive library of experience reports.
An on-demand learning experience from the people who brought you The Phoenix Project, Team Topologies, Accelerate, and more.
Learn how making work visible, value stream management, and flow metrics can affect change in your organization.
Clarify team interactions for fast flow using simple sense-making approaches and tools.
Multiple award-winning CTO, researcher, and bestselling author Gene Kim hosts enterprise technology and business leaders.
In the first part of this two-part episode of The Idealcast, Gene Kim speaks with Dr. Ron Westrum, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University.
In the first episode of Season 2 of The Idealcast, Gene Kim speaks with Admiral John Richardson, who served as Chief of Naval Operations for four years.
Venue: Fontainebleau — Helping leaders succeed and organizations thrive (formerly DevOps Enterprise Summit).
DevOps best practices, case studies, organizational change, ways of working, and the latest thinking affecting business and technology leadership.
Is slowify a real word?
Could right fit help talent discover more meaning and satisfaction at work and help companies find lost productivity?
The values and philosophies that frame the processes, procedures, and practices of DevOps.
This post presents the four key metrics to measure software delivery performance.
February 8, 2024
As leaders of large enterprises, we often implement shared services teams to drive efficiency and enable innovation across business units. However, these centralized groups frequently struggle to provide real value and earn the trust of the teams they aim to support.
According to Jason Cox, Director of Platforms and SRE at The Walt Disney Company and coauthor of Investments Unlimited, listening is key. By understanding each business’s mission, challenges, and needs, shared services can transform from unwelcome overseers to true partners in driving outcomes. Cox and his colleague Amy McCain shared three vital lessons from revolutionizing Disney’s shared services:
The number one complaint Cox hears about shared services groups is that they don’t comprehend each business’s unique objectives and pain points. As a result, the “help” they attempt to provide is misguided or irrelevant.
Cox stresses this begins by building personal relationships, earning trust, and embedding with teams to observe their actual workflow. As Nick Cannon, Head of Technology for Walt Disney Animation Studios, told Cox, “Shared services teams need to support and amplify the value of the teams they partner with.” Listening is the starting point to understanding how to provide that value-add.
Too often, shared services come across as overlords rather than collaborators there to streamline operations. The mindset shift required is from doing work “for someone” to “with someone” across organizational boundaries.
As Cox put it, it’s moving to the same side of the table via “proximity-powered empathy engineering.” His teams strive to share daily challenges and wins by being on location to co-create solutions. This earns goodwill and allows for more creative problem-solving tailored to users’ needs.
Earning trust and empathy matters little if a shared services team fails to move the needle on outcomes. As Amy McCain relayed, their assistance in integrating neglected infrastructure recently allowed a business unit to meet a critical application launch deadline. By jumping into the trenches alongside engineers, they broke down knowledge gaps and barriers to cut migration time from months to hours.
As Cox summed up, aim to “build trust, build community, build the magic together.” Shared services works when the focus stays on amplifying capacities across the businesses you support. This requires not just understanding and collaborating with users but quantifying how you further their goals.
By embracing these three pillars—deep listening, true partnership, and driving shared outcomes—Disney’s shared services organization has wholly transformed its reputation and impact. Leaders across the company now describe Cox’s team as “innovative,” “creative,” and “awesome partners” in shipping products and experiences. They appreciate how embedded SREs identify friction and toil to handle or automate, unlocking more time for quality and innovation.
As your enterprise looks to scale new solutions, take Cox’s advice to heart: “If they don’t look forward to seeing you—in fact, if they avoid you—you may not be helping.” Shared services works when the focus stays squarely on enabling business outcomes through joint success. This comes down to listening, collaborating, and driving value—not edicts. When your centralized teams can say they helped cut months into hours or opened new doors, you’ll earn the trust and appreciation every leader craves.
To watch the full presentation, head over to the IT Revolution Video Library here: https://videos.itrevolution.com/watch/872731201
Director, Global SRE @ Disney | Speaker | Co-Author of Investments Unlimited
Articles created by summarizing a piece of original content from the author (with the help of AI).
Technology leaders are constantly seeking innovative ways to drive digital transformation and stay ahead…
We are thrilled to announce the launch of the Enterprise Technology Leadership Journal, formerly…
This post is adapted from the upcoming book Flow Engineering: From Value Stream Mapping…
In the wake of Devin's groundbreaking revelation, the world of software engineering finds itself…