One DevOps Please — Part 1

One DevOps Please — An Enterprise Journey to a DevOpsy-Cloud

“I’ll have one DevOps please.”

Over the last few years large organizations have been coming to consultants like myself to ask for help “Installing DevOps” into their organization. Some of them just want kubernetes clusters, while others are talking about true transformation.

In this two-part blog I want to take you on a DevOps transformation journey. I’m going to share with you my recipe for success and give you all the secrets to unlocking true business value through people and organizational change with a culture of learning at their core.

Because everyone’s definition of “DevOps” can be slightly different, I’m going to set the scene with a simple definition:

“DevOps is really about eliminating (most) Technical, Process and Cultural barriers to between Idea and Execution — using Software.” — Kishore Jalleda

My DevOps Journey

Before we get stuck into how people and companies transform the way they work, let me start by sharing the journey I took to get here and how it’s shaped my ways of thinking.

I started my career by learning. I strived for technical excellence and perfection through delivery. I poured my heart and soul into my craft which started out as web development but quickly grew into cloud and automation.

One thing I realized was that I loved teaching people new things. What took longer to learn was how impactful learning and transformation could be to both teams and companies.

Nowadays my value comes from enabling my teams and coaching my clients. Our team’s success depends on my ability to foster the right skills, remove the noise/blockers and leveraging my previous experience to set us up for success.

How People Learn

I mentioned earlier that some organizations want to “Install the DevOps”. Astute readers will know that DevOps isn’t a piece of software and so hiring consultants to “Do the DevOps for you” won’t give you long term results. The aim for your organization should be to empower your people by giving them opportunities to learn and grow (hint: that’s where the transformation happens).

So how does learning happen? Can you just send your employees on DevOps training and have them come back 1 week later ready to tackle the world’s problems? Unfortunately it’s not that easy, and here’s why. Learning typically follows the following 4 stages:

• Step 1: I don’t need to learn . I’m fine just the way I am.
• Step 2: I need to learn  — can you help me?
• Step 3: I know a little about now. I can start to contribute with some help and guidance, thanks!
• Step 4: I know now. I can contribute on my own, and I can teach others too now

This model is known as The Four Stages of Competence and it’s a critical part of any “DevOps/Transformation” journey. If you don’t understand how to take people from step one to step two all your efforts will fall on deaf ears. There’s also something called the Dunning Kruger effect — a cognitive bias in which people mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. Psychology can really work against us!

Now we know that unlocking the very best from your employees involves taking them on a learning journey, and unlocking the mind (steps 1–2).

The exciting part of the journey (Steps 2–4) involves knowledge transfer, which I’ll touch on briefly. Something I’m really proud of about Contino is how we help people on their personal journey through the dual-delivery model. This might sound fancy, but it’s just leveraging practical experience to pair-program with people. We also tend to spend plenty of time at the whiteboard teaching, but most importantly we establish trust and show empathy by working along side our clients and having shared goals.

Getting from Step 1 to Step 2

One of the hardest parts of transformation is getting past the very first step — so it deserves it’s own section.

Getting people to recognize that they need to learn something is the first hurdle. Getting them to be vulnerable in the workplace and admit that they need help is often the second one.

Getting individuals to open up and trust you can take time. My job as a consultant is to deliver, but also to fall in love with my customer. I’m not talking about butterflies in my stomach, I’m talking about caring about my team’s success and how happy they are each day. I’m lucky enough to love what I do and have the opportunity to work with teams I genuinely care about.

But sometimes there are other factors at play and empathy alone isn’t enough. It helps to have a trusted partner along with your for the ride, and the key is to get the most value out of them by leveraging their skills and experience to maximize your learning. Let’s have a look at common pitfalls that may hamper learning with your consulting partner:

• Hiring a consultancy and having them do all the work (no learning)
• Hiring a consultancy and telling them what to do (staff augmentation)
• Your team is “too busy” or you aren’t able to grow/hire within your team (you can’t learn if you’re not present)

Person vs Organizational Transformation

So can we transform a company one person or team at a time?

Well, sort of. It’s often easy to find inspired people in an organization who can be your champions. Investing your own time in someone can be very rewarding and the results can be seen relatively quickly within your teams or sphere of influence. The other benefit is that investing in people (or your team) doesn’t usually require CEO sign-off.

While helping people learn new skills and ways of thinking is a great starting point you won’t be able to achieve large scale transformation without a well thought-out (and properly executed) strategy for your organization. You’ll also need buy-in from your leadership.

So how do we achieve organizational transformation, what does it look like and what are the pitfalls? Find out in One DevOps Please — Part 2 where we’ll deep dive into what it looks like to transformation a company (ie Installing DevOps company-wide).