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Building Industrial DevOps Stickiness

By Suzette Johnson, Robin Yeman, Harry Koehnemann, Jeffrey Shupack, Matt Aizcorbe, Adrian Cockcroft, Michael McKay, Hasan Yasar

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At an industrial scale, cyber-physical solutions (systems comprised of hardware, firmware, and software) experience many challenges as they embrace Lean and DevOps practices. These Industrial DevOps (IDO) transformations face significant complexities as they respond to critical safety regulations and the “continu-ish” integration and alignment across multiple suppliers and partners.

 

In this paper, we identify Principle #1 of Industrial DevOps (visualize and organize around the value stream)* as a common cross-industry barrier to IDO transformation stickiness. We use mental modeling, Wardley Mapping, and the Westrum Organization Topology model to identify misalignments and gain a shared understanding of IDO to sustain and scale IDO adoption. We then offer executive sponsors and leaders a set of approaches and insights to address each of the three identified barriers.

  • Publication Date 2021
  • Pages 35

Features

  • Debunks Myth

    This paper debunks the myth that DevOps-style rapid iteration and improved flow only apply to software systems, not software + hardware systems.

  • Expert Authors

    This paper is written by experienced practitioners who have worked developing modern cyber-physical systems.

  • Clear Guidance

    Provides eight recommendations (principles) to bring DevOps principles and practices into complex cyber-physical systems.

  • All Levels

    Change Agents can come from anywhere on the org chart. This paper directly provides guidance on how to lead change no matter your role or title.

About the Resource

At an industrial scale, cyber-physical solutions (systems comprised of hardware, firmware, and software) experience many challenges as they embrace Lean and DevOps practices. These Industrial DevOps (IDO) transformations face significant complexities as they respond to critical safety regulations and the “continu-ish” integration and alignment across multiple suppliers and partners.

 

In this paper, we identify Principle #1 of Industrial DevOps (visualize and organize around the value stream)* as a common cross-industry barrier to IDO transformation stickiness. We use mental modeling, Wardley Mapping, and the Westrum Organization Topology model to identify misalignments and gain a shared understanding of IDO to sustain and scale IDO adoption. We then offer executive sponsors and leaders a set of approaches and insights to address each of the three identified barriers.

Suzette Johnson
Robin Yeman
Harry Koehnemann
Jeffrey Shupack
Matt Aizcorbe
Adrian Cockcroft
Michael McKay
Hasan Yasar
Suzette Johnson

Suzette Johnson

Dr. Suzette Johnson is an award-winning author who has spent most of her career in the aerospace defense industry working for Northrop Grumman Corporation. Suzette was the enterprise Lean/Agile transformation lead. In this role, she launched the Northrop Grumman Agile Community of Practice and the Lean/Agile Center of Excellence. She has supported over a hundred enterprise, government, and DoD transitions to and the maturation of Lean-Agile principles and engineering development practices. She has also trained and coached over four thousand individuals on Lean/Agile principles and practices and delivered more than one hundred presentations on Lean/Agile at conferences both nationally and abroad. Her current role is as Northrop Grumman Fellow and Technical Fellow Emeritus, where she continues to actively drive the adoption of Lean/Agile principles with leadership at the portfolio levels and within cyber-physical solutions, specifically within the space sector. As a mentor, coach, and leader, she launched the Women in Computing, Johns Hopkins University Chapter; the Women in Leadership Development program; the Northrop Grumman Lean-Agile Center of Excellence; and the NDIA ADAPT (Agile Delivery for Agencies, Programs, and Teams) working group. She received a Doctorate of Management at the University of Maryland with a dissertation focused on investigating the impact of leadership styles on software project outcomes in traditional and Agile engineering environments. She am also a Certified Agile Enterprise Coach and Scaled Agile Program Consultant/SPCT

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Robin Yeman

Robin Yeman

Robin Yeman is an award-winning author who has spent twenty-six years working at Lockheed Martin in various roles leading up to senior technical fellow building large systems including everything from submarines to satellites. She led the Agile community of practice supporting a workforce of 120,000 people. Her initial experience with Lean practices began in the late ’90s. In 2002, she had the opportunity to lead my first Agile program with multiple Scrum teams. After just a couple months of experience, she was hooked and never turned back. She both led and supported Agile transformations for intelligence, federal, and Department of Defense organizations over the next two decades, and each one was more exciting and challenging than the last. In 2012, She had the opportunity to extend our Agile practices into DevOps, which added extensive automation and tightened our feedback loops, providing even larger results. Currently, she is the Carnegie Mellon Space Domain Lead at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon. She is also currently pursuing a PhD in Systems Engineering at Colorado State University, where she is working on my contribution to demonstrate empirical data of the benefits of implementing Agile and DevOps for safety-critical cyber-physical systems.

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Harry Koehnemann

Harry Koehnemann

SAFe Fellow and Principle Contributor Scaled Agile Inc.

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Jeffrey Shupack

Jeffrey Shupack

Digital Transformation | SAFe Fellow & SPCT

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Matt Aizcorbe

Matt Aizcorbe

Dev*Ops Strategy Lead at Northrop Grumman

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Adrian Cockcroft

Adrian Cockcroft

Technology and strategy advisor

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Michael McKay

Michael McKay

Executive Director - Leading SRE & Innovation at NCR Retail

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Hasan Yasar

Hasan Yasar

Technical Director, Adjunct Faculty Member at SEI, Carnegie Mellon University. Better Software Faster!

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