our devops journey - an exercise in cultural change

OUR DEVOPS JOURNEY:An Exercise in Changing Culture

VICTORIA BLESSING➤ Operations Engineer, College of Architecture,

Texas A&M University➤ Graduated from Texas A&M in 2014 ➤ Recruited to DevOps bandwagon in 2013➤ Professional Yak Shaver

“YAK SHAVING”

https://www.flickr.com/photos/snapperwolf/6952219933/

“YAK SHAVING”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trXjZ70ab1Q

We have a culture problem?

“Developers need to understand infrastructure. Operations people need to understand code. People need to f**king work with each other and not just occupy space next to each other.

-John Vincent

http://blog.lusis.org/

DEVOPS CAN’T BE SUCCESSFUL

WITHOUT A CULTURE SHIFT

COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE

by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford

You need this book

THE PHOENIX PROJECT

➤Main Lessons 1.There are 4 types of work 2.Work-in-progress is the silent killer 3.Unplanned work accrues technical debt 4.Bottlenecks constrain work

THE PHOENIX PROJECT

➤The Four Types of Work 1.Business projects 2. Infrastructure projects 3.Changes 4.Unplanned work

THE PHOENIX PROJECT

➤The Three Ways 1.Systems thinking 2.Amplify feedback loops 3.Culture of continual experimentation

and learning

AFTER WE ESTABLISHED OUR DEVOPS CULTURE, THE REST WAS EASY(sort of)

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENTS ARE ADVERSE TO CHANGE

…not to mention one as rooted in tradition as Texas A&M (whoop!)

SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE

➤ Initial Evangelism

➤ Workshops, lots of emails

➤ Getting a bite, and putting together a team

➤ Closing a deal

ARE YOU READY TO MAKE A CULTURE CHANGE?

(and adopt Chef too)

VICTORIA BLESSING

@_vblessing

vblessing@arch.tamu.edu