Given the importance of taking an optimal approach for the type of work, it is important to understand what agile, lean, DevOps, and waterfall are and their history. People, historically, have spent very little time thinking about or improving how they do what they do. This is the fourth in a series of posts adapted from the book Sooner Safer Happier addressing these different frameworks. Approaching Work Based on the Domain of Work As we’ve seen, product development, unique change, is … [Read more...]
Waterfall: A Primer for the Business Leader
Given the importance of taking an optimal approach for the type of work, it is important to understand what agile, lean, DevOps, and waterfall are and their history. People, historically, have spent very little time thinking about or improving how they do what they do. This is the third in a series of posts adapted from the book Sooner Safer Happier addressing these different frameworks. What is Waterfall Most large, old, traditional organizations either used to take, or still take, a waterfall … [Read more...]
DevOps: A Primer for the Business Leader
Given the importance of taking an optimal approach for the type of work, it is important to understand what agile, lean, DevOps, and waterfall are and their history. People, historically, have spent very little time thinking about or improving how they do what they do. This is the second in a series of posts adapted from the book Sooner Safer Happier addressing these different frameworks. What Is DevOps? DevOps is a portmanteau that combines Development and Operations. DevOps focuses on breaking … [Read more...]
Agile and Lean: A Primer for the Business Leader
Looking for DevOps: A Primer for the Business Leader in our Ways of Working series? Click the link above. In our last post we discussed the ways of working from manufacturing that brought us to where are are today. Given the importance of taking an optimal approach for the type of work, it is important to understand what agile, lean, DevOps, and waterfall are and their history. People, historically, have spent very little time thinking about or improving how they do what they do. This is the … [Read more...]
Making Bureaucracy Lean, Learning and Enabling
This post is a transcript of Mark Schwartz's DevOps Enterprise Summit- London 2020 presentation. Hi everyone. My name is Mark Schwartz. I'm an enterprise strategist with Amazon Web Services. I think I've spoken at every one of these DevOps Enterprise Summits since 2014, so I hope you're not getting tired of me yet. I think some of you might also have read one or more of my books. There's The Art of Business Value, A Seat at the Table, and War and Peace and IT. And the exciting … [Read more...]
Three Innovative Funding Models to Enhance DevOps
Adapted from War and Peace and IT: Business Leadership, Technology, and Success in the Digital Age by Mark Schwartz. The traditional project plan tries to manage risks by itemizing them in a register and proposing a mitigation plan for each one. Risks are mitigated to the extent necessary to bring the plan back into line—in other words, to adjust the initiative so the initial business case and plan are maintained. But the uncertainties in the IT domain go deeper—it might be that … [Read more...]
Quick Guide to DevOps for the Non-IT Business Leader
Adapted from War and Peace and IT: Business Leadership, Technology, and Success in the Digital Age by Mark Schwartz. What is DevOps 1) Small Teams of T-Shaped People DevOps is practiced in small teams, say five to nine people. Small teams can communicate among themselves face-to-face, thereby avoiding the overhead of passing around and perfecting documents. Each team is cross-functional, with skills in software development, testing, infrastructure engineering, operations, and … [Read more...]
Fear: The Original Sin of Unproductive Conversations
This post was adapted from episode 123 of the Troubleshooting Agile podcast with Jeffrey Fredrick and Douglas Squirrel. We’re continuing with our tour through Agile Conversations and we’re up to the fear conversation. That’s when I remember enjoying writing some of the stories. And fear is really important because it’s so foundational. I consider this the original sin of unproductive conversations, in a sense. It’s kind of the root of why our conversations so often go astray. In the … [Read more...]
Unlock Your Enterprise’s Digital Transformation by Changing Your Relationship with Technologists
Adapted from War and Peace and IT: Business Leadership, Technology, and Success in the Digital Age by Mark Schwartz. Leaders of digital transformations often look around their organizations and see heads nodding. Everyone seems to agree that change is needed to survive in the digital age. Everyone understands that it’s urgent and that there is a risk of being disrupted if the company doesn’t transform quickly enough. Capital markets are demanding growth and innovation, while the board … [Read more...]
Software Factory to Feature Factory
This post was adapted from Episode 120 of the Troubleshooting Agile Podcast. The Taylorist Mindset and its Outcomes In the Taylorist mindset, management is there to debug the machine of the company. The workers are interchangeable parts. And the job of management is to fine tune the machine and monitor all of the parts to make sure they’re compliant and doing what they’re told. There is a role for motivation here. But the only motivation is negative. Just make sure that people know … [Read more...]
