what does devops culture look like and how do we get there?
TRANSCRIPT
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DevOpstastic
What Does DevOps Culture Look Like and How Do We Get
There?
Helen Beal@helenranger4
Daniel Breston@danielbreston
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“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Peter Drucker
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Practice Culture Automation Lean Measurement Sharing
Level 5: Nirvana
The organisation’s evolutionary purpose
or ‘why’ is led by customer need and understood by all.
Technology support business processes with
minimal IT effort. Innovation & support value
streams automated.
Customer focus, problem-solving as norm, management
coaching, continuous learning
Measure to customer value
Effective knowledge sharing and individual
empowerment
Level 4: Adopted
Ability to adapt to changing customer
needs is now a strategy with goals and defined metrics
that matter.
Automation supports business
goals and processes, not just
technology processes
Customer focus is norm. Staff engaged to support innovation and
continuous improvement.
Monitoring from customer focus back to value stream with appropriate
feedback and improvement loops
Communication leads to cooperation &
improvement based on aligned indicators
and goals
Level 3: Fundamental
Desired future state identified with
support for change at all levels and a plan formulated.
Central automated processes across the value stream
lifecycle. Technology
mapped to silo’d business areas or
processes
Customer focus begins. Staff empowered to try and learn in no-blame
environment.
Monitoring of resources (people, processes, tools,
suppliers) linked to indicators of key
performance. Some alerting & escalation.
Collaboration, shared decision making and accountability begins
& is reviewed for ways to improve
Level 2: Started
Aware of aspects in culture that may
help or hinder customer focused
value. Has appetite to change.
Automation silo’d or process
enabling with minimal
integration or cross value
stream communication
Top down typical org chart being questioned.
Consideration of changing to value or
product focus org structure
Measurements are project focused.
Decisions are reactionary or do
not alert soon enough when
decisions should be made
Visual management begins but not
integrated to allow for cross value
stream knowledge or decision sharing
Level 1: Not started
Technology strategy is not led by
business values and customer needs.
Lack of KPIs.
No automation or several similar tools which are not integrated
Reactive problem solving approach,
Little/no direct management involvement,
Ad-hoc learning,
Vanity measures used, non reactive & simply reporting,
measures not guiding
development, change or
improvement
Poor, ad-hoc communication and coordination. Many
meetings and unread reports.
DevOps Values Matrix
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What isYour Why?
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WHAT?
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WHAT DOES GOOD LOOK
LIKE?
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DevOps NirvanaCIO
Customer Innovation Management
Product A Product B Product C Product D
IT IS the business. Everyone is on board with the DevOps way of thinking.
Product F Product G Product H Product I
Product E
Product J
The Board
The
Busin
ess
Dashboards and automation alignment
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Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
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HOW?
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Organisational EvolutionStage Typified by Current
ExamplesKey
BreakthroughsGuiding
Metaphor
REDConstant exercise of power by chief to keep troops in line. Fear is the glue of the organisation. Highly reactive, short-term focus. Thrives in chaotic environments.
• Mafia• Street Gangs• Tribal militia
• Division of labour• Command
authority
Wolf pack
AMBERHighly formal roles within a hierarchical pyramid. Top-down command and control (what and how). Stability valued above all through rigorous processes. Future is repetition of past.
• Catholic church• Military• Most government
agencies• Public school
systems
• Formal roles (stable and scalable hierachies)
• Processes (long-term perspectives)
Army
ORANGEGoal is to beat competition, achieve profit and growth. Innovation is key to staying ahead. Management by objectives (command and control on what; freedom on the how).
• Multinational companies
• Charter schools
• Innovation• Accountability• Meritocracy
Machine
GREENWithin the classic pyramid structure, focus on culture and empowerment to achieve extraordinary employee motivation.
• Culture driven organisations (e.g. Southwest Airlines, Ben & Jerry’s…)
• Empowerment• Values-driven
culture• Stakeholder
models
Family
TEALSelf-organising and self-managed teams with coaches when needed. Coaches do not have P&L responsibility or managerial authority.
• Spotify, FAVI, Morning Star, Waterstones
• Trusting those doing the job
• Autonomy, mastery and purpose
SystemFrom ‘Reinventing Organisations’ by Frederic Laloux
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StructureOrange Practices Teal Practices
1. Organisation Structure Hierarchical pyramid - Self-organising teams- When needed, coaches (no P&L
responsibility, no management authority) cover several teams
2. Coordination Coordination through fixed meetings at every level (from executive team downward), often leading to meeting overload
- No executive team meetings- Coordination and meetings mostly ad
hoc when needs arise
3. Projects Heavy machinery (program & project managers, Gantt charts, plans, budgets, etc.) to try and control complexity and prioritise resources
- Radically simplified project management
- No project managers, people self-staff projects
- Minimum (or no) plans and budgets, organic prioritisation
4. Staff Functions Plethora of central staff functions for HR, IT, purchasing, finance, controlling, quality, safety, risk management, etc.
- Most functions performed by teams themselves, or by voluntary task forces
- Few staff remaining have only advisory role
From ‘Reinventing Organisations’ by Frederic Laloux
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Human ResourcesOrange Practices Teal Practices
1. Recruitment Interviews by trained HR personnel, focus is on fit with job description - Interviews by future colleagues, focus is on fit with organisation and with purpose
2. Onboarding (Mostly administrative onboarding process) - Significant training in relational skills and in company culture- Rotation programs to immerse oneself in the organisation
3. Training - Training trajectories designed by HR- Mostly skill and management training
- Personal freedom and responsibility for training- Critical importance of common training that everybody attends
4. Job Titles and Job Descriptions
Every job has job title and job description - No job titles- Fluid and granular roles instead of fixed job descriptions
5. Individual purpose (It’s not the organisation’s role to help employees identify their personal calling)
- Recruitment, training, and appraisals used to explore juncture of individual calling and organisational purpose
6. Flexibility and time commitment
- Honest discussion about individual time commitment to work vs. other meaningful commitments in life
- High degree of flexibility in working hours, as long as commitments are upheld
7. Performance Management - Focus on individual performance- Appraisals established by hierarchical superior- Appraisal discussion aims for objective snapshot of past
performance
- Focus on team performance- Peer-based processes for individual appraisals- Appraisal discussion turned into personal inquiry into one’s learning journey
and calling
8. Compensation - Decision made by hierarchical superior- Individual incentives- Meritocratic principles can lead to large salary differences
- Self-set salaries with peer calibration for base pay- No bonuses, but equal profit sharing- Narrower salary differences
9. Appointment and promotions
- Intense jockeying for scarce promotion leads to politics and dysfunctional behaviour
- Silos – every manager is king of his castle
- No promotions, but fluid rearrangement of roles based on peer agreement- Responsibility to speak up about issues outside of one’s scope of authority
10. Dismissal - Boss has authority (with JR approval) to dismiss a subordinate- Dismissal mostly a legal and financial process
- Dismissal last step in mediated conflict resolution mechanism- In practice very rare- Caring support to turn dismissal into a learning opportunity
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Daily LifeOrange Practices Teal Practices
1. Office Spaces - Standardised, soulless professional buildings- Abundant status markers
- Self-decorated, warm spaces, open to children, animals, nature- No status markers
2. Meetings (Many meetings but few meeting practices) - Specific meeting practices to keep ego in check and ensure everybody’s voice is heard
3. Decision-making - High up in the pyramid- Any decision can be invalidated by hierarchical superior
- Fully decentralised based on advice process (or on holacratic decision-making mechanisms)
4. Conflicts (Conflict often glossed over, no conflict resolution practices) - Regular time devoted to bring to light and address conflicts- Multi-step conflict resolution process- Everyone trained in conflict management- Culture restricts conflict to the conflicting parties and mediators; outsiders are
not dragged in
5. Information Flow - Information is power and is released on a need-to-know basis- Secrecy toward the outside world is the default position
- - All information available in real-time to all, including about company financials and compensation
- Total transparency invites outsiders to make suggestions to better bring about purpose
6. Values (Values often only a plaque on the wall) - Clear values translated into explicit ground rules of (un)acceptable behaviours to foster safe environment
- Practices to cultivate discussions about values and ground rules
7. Reflective Spaces - Quiet room- Group meditation and silence practices- Large group reflection practices- Team supervision and peer coaching
8. Mood Management - Conscious sensing of what mood would serve the organisation’s purpose
9. Community Building - Storytelling practices to support self-disclosure and build community
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Major Organisational Processes
Orange Practices Teal Practices1. Purpose (No practices to list to the purpose; self-preservation against
competition is the key driver of decision-making)- Organisation is seen as a living entity with its own evolutionary purpose- The concept of competition is irrelevant; “competitors” are embraced to pursue
purpose- Practices to listen into the organisation’s purpose
- Everyone’s a sensor- Large group processes- Meditations, guided visualisations etc- Responding to outside prompting
2. Strategy Strategy course charted by top leadership - Strategy courses organically from the collective intelligence of self-managing employees
3. Innovation and Product Development
- Outside in: customer surveys and segmentation define the offer- Client needs are created if necessary
- Inside out: offer is defined by purpose- Guided by intuition and beauty
4. Supplier Management Suppliers chosen based on price and quality - Suppliers chosen also by fit and purpose
5. Purchasing and Investments
- Authorisation limits linked to level in hierarchy- Investment budgets steered by top management
- Anybody can spend any amount provided advice process is respected- Peer based challenging of team’s investment budget
6. Sales and marketing - Brands positioned to fit consumer segmentation (outside in)- Sales force driven by targets and incentives
- Marketing as a simple proposition: this is our offer to the world (inside out)- No sales targets
7. Planning, Budgeting and Controlling
- Based on “predict and control”- Painful cycles of mid-term planning, yearly and monthly budgets- Stick to the plan is the rule, deviations must be explained and gaps
closed- Ambitious targets to motivate employees
- Based on “sense and respond”- No or radically simplified budgets, no tracking of variance- Workable solutions and fast iterations instead of searching for “perfect”
answers- Constant sensing of what’s needed- No targets
8. Environmental and Social Initiatives
- Money as extrinsic yardstick: Only if it doesn’t cost too much initiate- Only the very top can begin initiatives with financial consequences
- Integrity as intrinsic yardstick: What is the right thing to do?- Distributed initiative taking, everyone senses the right thing to do
9. Change Management - Whole arsenal of change management tools to get organisation from A to B
- (“Change” no longer a relevant topic because organisation constantly adapts from within)
10. Crisis Management - Small group of advisors meet confidentially to support CEO in top-down decision making
- Communication only when decision is made
- Everyone involved to let the best response emerge from the collective intelligence
- If advice process needs to be suspended, scope and time of suspension is defined
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What Are the Steps for Making Cultural Change?
1. Baseline2. Gain a deep understanding– Of your organisation’s why– Of your value streams
3. Articulate your desired future state4. Identify the things you need to change5. Document a plan6. Change7. Make it normal
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Ranger4 Making Cultural ChangeOffering DeliverableDevOps LiftOff Workshop
In one day:- Everyone on the same page- High-level roadmap
DevOps Discovery- Maturity
Assessment- Readiness
Assessment
Impartial, 3rd party view on:- Current state- Best practice improvements
Value Stream Mapping High-level, Lean, visualisation exercise:- Shared journey- Shared accountability- Shared outcome
DevOps Mastery - Recognising capability and knowledge- Spreading the knowledge
Coaching - Focus and momentum- Mentoring- A sounding board
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