Adapted from the DevOps Enterprise Forum Guidance Paper Overcoming Inefficiencies in Multiple Work Management Systems by Scott Prugh, Dominica DeGrandis, Rosaline Radcliffe, Pat Birkeland, and Keanen Wold. Large enterprises are traditionally organized by function and managed to optimize vertically for specific outcomes. In IT, this often means organizations specialize in functions such as design, development, QA, and operations. Many decisions are made in the context of those functional … [Read more...]
DevOps Holdouts: Strategies and Tactics
Adapted from the DevOps Enterprise Forum Guidance Paper Individual Contributors by Pauly Comtois, Chris Hill, Scott Nasello, Avigail Ofer, and Anders Wallgren. Challenges around starting, driving, and building transformational change are, at the core, people challenges. Individuals are unique in their circumstances and their approaches to the world. This creates a challenge in discovering the “right” approach to re-engaging a disenfranchised employee. There is no single tactic that works … [Read more...]
DevOps Enterprise Summit London – Virtual: What to Expect, And Why I’m So Excited About It
Our first virtual DevOps Enterprise Summit is coming up in four weeks — and despite it being virtual, we are putting on a conference that is more than just a bunch of talks, and our goal is to keep you excited and engaged, just like we would at our physical events. INTRODUCTION Great physical conferences are magical. You learn from incredible talks, you’re exhilarated by being surrounded by the best in the game, you find fellow travelers who share similar goals and experience similar struggles … [Read more...]
The Problem with Org Charts
Adapted from Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais. Technology workers are in a constant state of action: creating and updating systems at an unbelievable rate, and combining different types of technology to create a compelling user experience. Mobile applications; cloud-based services; web applications; and embedded, wearable, or industrial IoT devices all need to interoperate effectively to achieve the desired business … [Read more...]
Gene Kim interviews Agile Conversations authors Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick
Gene: Are we really that bad at talking to one another, and why do you think that is? Squirrel & Jeffrey: Actually, we are really skillful at having conversations! We are proficient at concealing our real thoughts, saving face for ourselves and others, and avoiding awkward questions. Unfortunately this defensive approach undermines learning and cooperation, and so produces results quite different than what we intend. This combination of effortless behavior and the wrong outcomes is … [Read more...]
You Need More Conflict, Not Less
By Agile Conversations authors Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick. When teams first adopt Agile, Lean, or DevOps practices, they often think that they’ll have less conflict with the new methodology. “We’ll stop fighting over deadlines because we’ll estimate the work first,” they say, or “Work in Progress limits will mean we don’t get overloaded.” Surprise! The estimates and limits and tests usually lead to more clashes, not fewer—and this is a good thing, because the conflicts give us … [Read more...]
Love Letter to Conferences (And What Makes Some Truly Amazing)
TL;DR: I share everything I’ve learned about what makes my favorite conference experiences so great and meaningful, and try to understand which elements are universal, applying to both physical and virtual events, and which ones can be changed. I share the experiences of having run an incredible three-day virtual event for 50 people, and share why I’m now incredibly confident that we’ll be able to replicate the magic of the best conferences at the upcoming Virtual DevOps Enterprise Summit—our … [Read more...]
Strengthen Your Conversations Skills with Remote Work
BY AGILE CONVERSATIONS AUTHORS DOUGLAS SQUIRREL AND JEFFREY FREDRICK Collaboration is built on skills, and you can build those skills through deliberate practice. This growth mindset view is particularly useful in our world of suddenly enforced remote working. Remote collaboration is more demanding and unfamiliar to a lot of people who are experiencing it for the first time. Responding to these new challenges with a fixed mindset, taking the view that remote working is just hard and … [Read more...]
Announcing my new podcast, The Idealcast with Gene Kim
Hello, everyone — I’m so pleased to announce the launch of my podcast, The Idealcast! On The Idealcast, I interview people I admire and have learned the most from, on topics I’m most passionate about — and you can learn with me. Each episode is typically around 90 minutes, where I ask some of the best experts in our community things I’ve wondered about for years. I am currently on a quest to understand the relationship between leadership, how organizations work, and how they can either create … [Read more...]
Take The Slow Lane To Build Trust
By Agile Conversations authors Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick Congratulations—you’ve decided to improve trust with someone at work. It could be the project manager who sets deadlines without consulting you, or that customer who’s complaining endlessly that you don’t deliver sufficient quality, or the star salesperson who sells features the company can’t deliver. Whoever it is and whatever the symptoms of the lack of trust, the first rule is—SLOW DOWN. When we talk to clients about … [Read more...]
