Six Papers for DevOps Transformation Leaders

Mythbusting DevOps in the Enterprise

Addressing Culture and Leadership Aspects during Transforming

The DevOps movement has been primarily driven by practitioners, which is why we’ve ended up with such success at the practice level. As success and awareness have risen, we’ve now seen new challenges and questions around the path to success and applicability for larger organizations. Some have done this very well, others are struggling, and others yet have no idea where to start.

This paper focuses on demolishing the myths and misconceptions of DevOps in the Enterprise. It lists the most common leadership and cultural traps, ultimately aiming to provide high-level reassurance and evidence that DevOps practices are generally applicable and plausibly successful in enterprise environments.
This paper makes it clear to technology leaders that transformation in enterprise environments is both feasible and desirable.

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Tactics for Leading Change

Evaluating What DevOps Patterns and Practices Would Work Best for Your Enterprise

Many organizations are adopting DevOps patterns and practices, and are enjoying the benefits that come from that adoption: More speed. More stability. More employee engagement. More value. However, these organizations often run up against barriers to adoption because the mindset of people within the organization doesn’t align with these new ways of working.

The case for adopting DevOps has never been stronger. In addition to all the benefits that come from a DevOps transformation, the risks associated with not changing are increasing. New technology has enabled customers to access information and services on demand. These changes in consumption patterns have disrupted decades-old businesses and business models, and created new opportunities for innovation. And the pace of change is accelerating. If an organization doesn’t adapt to new expectations, new opportunities, and the new reality, it’s at risk of losing ground and losing out in the market to someone who has.

If you are leading a DevOps transformation, a large part of your success will come from your ability to lead change at different levels in the organization. You’ll need to account for different perspectives and use a variety of tactics to achieve the mindset changes required and influence behavior and actions. Achieving these changes will be hard, time-consuming, and require persistence. These changes will also be worth it when your organization begins reaping the benefits from the transformation.

This paper addresses how to lead change in your organization to support the adoption of DevOps patterns and practices.This paper describes two perspectives you might encounter within the organization as you lead change: the executive and the middle manager. For each perspective, we identify what these individuals care about and what problems they typically encounter. This paper also covers the target mindset we want to create within the organization—a target mindset aligned with DevOps patterns and practices. Individuals in different roles will interpret and apply this mindset differently, so we also identify the different mindset shifts we want to affect. Finally, we identify tactics to use that could be effective at changing current mindsets to the target mindset.

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Expanding Pockets of Greatness

Spreading DevOps Horizontally In Your Organization

Here you are: There are a few pockets of DevOps in your organization, but you are a long way from achieving a total DevOps transformation. How do you build momentum and go from a few islands of DevOps goodness to a tipping point where the entire organization embraces common DevOps methods?

This paper is about the techniques others have used to build momentum to spread DevOps horizontally across an organization. The techniques fall in four categories: sharing, communicating, standardizing, and empowering new leaders. You’re not alone. DevOps is out there in your organization. We want to help you find it and scale it.

In this paper, we aim to provide guidance to leaders (change agents) who see DevOps activity in different teams, groups, or departments in their organization and are looking to build community and promote growth. We want to help you connect the pockets of DevOps goodness that may already exist within your organization and harness them to drive change. The strategies and tactics we describe rely on influence (rather than control) and “opt in” participation (rather than mandated adoption). It’s a “pull” approach to change rather than a “push.”

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The Cornerstone for Winning

How To Get Strategic Alignment

Most organizations have challenges with optimizing for the delivery of business outcomes. Technology delivery takes too long, costs too much and often ends up missing the mark when it finally makes it to production. Often it can be unclear why this is happening and blame is cast in all directions.

This paper provides guidance and a framework for organizations to use to determine the highest business priority and maximum allowable WIP (work in process) to improve speed to market, optimizing delivery of business outcomes and to create strategic alignment between business and technology.

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Individual Contributors

From Holdouts to Holdups

This paper identifies the individual(s) that could be considered critical to the organization and are the lone holdouts to the DevOps transformation. These holdouts are often longer term employees that have historically experienced false starts around transformational change. These failed attempts at driving toward a new framework or culture may have disenfranchised the individual contributors and caused them to withdraw from supporting the efforts.

This paper identifies practical approaches to categorizing the personalities of the resistant individuals and helps identify a clear path that will align them closer to the movement. Developing an understanding of the root cause of the behavior will be derived through the evaluation of incentives, drivers, fears, and the contextual knowledge of the employee. The approach must be lightweight, easy to implement, non-destructive/non-threatening, and provide value to transformation.

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Bold Moves You Can Make

Actions for Positive Transformation

Many large enterprises are experiencing a crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impacts. Companies are struggling to pivot strategies during a crisis that demands immediate digital delivery to survive. Remaining relevant and alive requires bold moves that accelerate digital, Agile, and DevOps transformation
efforts that may already be underway. Enterprise leaders can use the crisis to be bold and drive their transformation forward to position themselves for a successful future. Avoid the urge to revert back to traditional ways of working, which would temporarily disrupt or even fully derail your transformation.

This crisis can have either a positive or negative impact on existing transformation efforts. Our survey of twenty-one enterprise leaders shows that a crisis can be a catalyst for dramatic, sweeping change. Amid the current COVID-19 pandemic, the majority surveyed responded that the crisis of the pandemic is actually accelerating digital transformational change, as shown in Figure 1. In the current pandemic crisis, the demand for digital services has been unprecedented, as consumers are isolated to digital-only options to maintain their daily lives.

Leaders should assess the nature of the crisis to their business, define a transformation outcome, make the case for change, and then use the focus and sense of urgency generated by the crisis to drive specific, bold DevOps moves. For some companies, the pandemic crisis is a structural one that will change the nature of their business model. The crisis may be temporary or it may be permanent, and it may impact a company’s digital transformation directly or indirectly. Before adopting your bold move, as a leader you will need to connect the DevOps transformation
to the business imperative and explain how the benefits will help address the challenges at hand.

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- About The Authors

IT Revolution

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