The Business Case:How to convince business stakeholders to invest in a devops culture and set yourself up for success in three months!

Ike Ellis@ike_ellisCrafting BytesWe’re hiring a Data Experts!Microsoft MVPChairperson of the San Diego TIGBook co-author – Developing Azure Solutions Upcoming course on Azure Databrickswww.craftingbytes.comwww.ikeellis.com

Today and Week 1Plan and Pitch

How do I convince a reluctant leader that we should go to devops for the database?

How do I fix a cowboy culture?

Convince a leader of the need of devops and change the culture?

This is very difficult!!!!

That’s a culture change that you are solely in charge of.

How was that? Those of you who were

successful, was it easy?

So how do you get someone else to change?

Enron had a nice-sounding value statement that was based on four values:

• Integrity• Communication• Respect• Excellence

Did that affect Enron’s culture?No. Netflix submits that only three things control culture:• Who we hire• Who we fire• Who we promote

You can’t hire, promote, or fire a reluctant boss

So what do we do?

Bad Consultants

Every boss (and in fact everyone) listens to the same

radio station

What’sInIt

ForMe

Every leader I’ve ever met has the same few things in

common•A lingering project•A lingering problem•A publicly embarrassing event

So tune in to the radio station and calm their fear

• We can deliver faster• We’ll deliver more frequently• We’ll have fewer bugs• We’ll have more success

How do we convince reluctant team members?

CHANGE IS HARD! DEVELOPING NEW HABITS ARE HARD!

Steps to developing new habits:Step 1: Focus on One New Habit at a timeStep 2: Form a new habit? Commit to 30 days per new habitStep 3: Anchor Your New Habit to an Established Habit. Step 4: Take Baby Steps. Don’t be too hard if you misstep or step backwards…stay determined to baby step forwardStep 5: Make a Plan for Obstacles. Step 6: Create Accountability for Your Habit. Step 7: Reward Important Milestones. Step 8: Build a New Identity.

People fear change

Phrases of Fear• We tried that and we failed• That will never work here• This is just the latest fad, our processes are tried and

true• Our company is always 10 years behind the industry• I have too much to do and this will slow me down• Just another kitchy program that will eat up all our

time

But we can address their fears and slowly introduce change so that they are comfortable with it

CULTURE TIP: Make Posters

Culture TIP: Throw a Pizza Party!

Culture TIP: $15 Tee Shirts!

CULTURE TIP: Fire someone

CULTURE TIP: Make a new logo!

LEARN ON THE LOO!

• Teach DevOps Best Practices• Teach how to use Source Control• Teach good testing techniques• Teach culture

Culture TIP: BATHROOM SIGNS!

Standardizing source code only

Pros• Provides audit trail of

development changes• Manages collaboration

of team members• Standardizes coding

practices

Cons• Manual database code

validation, testing, and deployments

• Requires a custom process to prevent environment drift

Elevator pitch template:“We are doing _____ so that _____.”

“We should standardize database code and automate deployments to reduce feature time to market.”

Rapidly refresh development databases with real-world datasets

Easily support dedicated environments that isolate changes made in branches and allow experimentation

Mask sensitive data upon image creation

SQL Provision adds speed & safety

Should monitoring be in your initial project?

Pros• Visibility into production

health• SQL Monitor shows when

deployments have occurred, making it easy to track customer impact (good and bad) of changes

Cons• If an external team in

your organization already controls monitoring, proposing a change may be tricky

Once scoped, kick off any required security assessments

First MonthInitiate Changes in a Proof of

Concept (POC)

Crafting executive summary

Industry standards for success criteria

Sample schedules & help keeping the team on track

In a supported POC, ask for guidance from Redgate

• Executive Summary• Business Need• Solution to be Proven• Success Criteria and Long

Term Gains

• Prerequisites• Schedule• Team• Other Resources• Risks

Elements of a technical project pitch

Keeps your team moving in syncHelps key stakeholders understand• Target project duration• Key milestones• Proof of concept schedule and core meetings

Project schedule

Who might this project resonate with in your organization?

• C-Level• Executive & Senior Managers• Department Heads

Identify and approach potential sponsors

Help build a coalition of managers and peers

Be visible to employees throughout the project

Communicate the ‘why’ of the change to employees

Key actions for a sponsor

https://www.prosci.com/resources/articles/change-sponsor-checklist

Engage with employees with face-to-face messaging• Video and recordings work when in-person isn’t possible,

these are more effective than emails aloneAnswer questions about the business issues

• “Why is this change happening?” • “What is the risk of not changing?”

Messages from sponsors

https://www.prosci.com/resources/articles/change-management-communication-checklist

The goal of a Proof of Concept is demonstrating that the tools achieve your

success criteria

This team will:• Explore methodologies to standardize database code and

choose the best approach for your teams• Set up a proof of concept (POC), safely outside of production• Explore and test automation for provisioning, builds (code

validation) and change deployment

Choose your technical champions

It must be safe for the team to make a big mess during the process

It must be safe to fail and start over and try again

A rule for any POC

Causes of failed proof-of-conceptsNot a joint ventureKey stakeholders not involvedThink it will be more labor intensive than it isDevelopers leading without manager buy-inToo much focus on tech benefit vs business benefitBiting off too much at a time

Avoid these anti-patterns

Months 2-3Map Process Changes and

Land Your POC

The two-three month timeline applies if:• Your internal point team has other duties• You only get a few hours of their time each week

Dedicated resource teams have completed Standardize, Automate & Protect POCs in two weeks

A POC doesn’t take 2 months of sustained work

What happens when a build fails, and how do we

respond?

When will the risk of changes be assessed? Pull requests? Release

artifacts?

How often will deployments to

databases be done?

Can security assessments be moved

into checklists?

How many changes should be shipped in a

single deployment?

What approval processes are best for

deployments?

SDLC process changes to map

What team on-call rotations are needed?

How to avoid single-points of failure in the team?

How/when to escalate to subject matter experts?

Support practices to map

Shifting change review and approval to earlier in the development cycle speeds you up

First steps: can standard (pre-approved) changes help get you started?

Sponsorship: this is one place where a sponsor who can help you build a coalition will help

Shifting change approval left

• Collate results from POC and implementation plan• Finalize licensing• Set target implementation date and schedule first call and

support session• Internal presentations about business benefits

Completing your Proof of Concept

When an executive sponsor has been involved from the start, POC sign-off and completion

goes very smoothly

Ike Ellis@ike_ellisCrafting BytesWe’re hiring a Data Experts!Microsoft MVPChairperson of the San Diego TIGBook co-author – Developing Azure Solutions Upcoming course on Azure Databrickswww.craftingbytes.comwww.ikeellis.com