DevOps Days Tel Aviv 2013: How not to do Devops: Confessions of a Thought Leader - Stephen Nelson...

How NOT to do Devops....

Confessions of a “thought leader”

Tuesday, 1 October 13

How NOT to do Devops....

Confessions of a “thought leader”

Your quest is to find the Warlock's treasure, hidden deep within a dungeon populated with a multitude of

terrifying monsters. You will need courage, determination and a fair amount of luck if you are to survive all the traps and battles, and reach your goal — the innermost chambers of the Warlock's domain.

Two dice, a pencil and an eraser are all you need to make your journey. YOU decide which route to

follow, which dangers to risk and which monsters to fight.

Your quest is to find the Warlock's treasure, hidden deep within a dungeon populated with a multitude of

terrifying monsters. You will need courage, determination and a fair amount of luck if you are to survive all the traps and battles, and reach your goal — the innermost chambers of the Warlock's domain.

Two dice, a pencil and an eraser are all you need to make your journey. YOU decide which route to

follow, which dangers to risk and which monsters to fight.

STEPHEN NELSON-SMITH

SysadminWriter

Automated Infrastructure ExpertBuddhist

ABANDON THE PATH TO QUALITY

Quality

Meeting or exceeding the expectations of the consumer or customer.

“Many so-called Agile adoptions, being merely the thinnest of veneers, rather

than a change of any substance, can lead to a situation where formal controls - i.e.

the conventional path to quality - is abandoned without the adoption of any

viable alternative path to quality.”

Bob Marshall

“Untested and unreviewed infrastructrure code is akin to running the nation’s railways on untested and

incompatible track, points and signals.”

Stephen Nelson-Smith

ANTIDOTE

Intrinsic motivationMastery

Non-violenceAutonomy

“What is at the heart of the transformation? It's the release of…

intrinsic motivation…By creating…happiness in work…pride in learning”

W. Edwards Deming

“Mastery resists definition yet can be instantly recognized. It comes in many varieties, yet follows certain unchanging laws. It brings rich rewards, yet

it is not really a goal but rather a journey.”Tuesday, 1 October 13

Instruction - find the right guide to take you on your journey

Practice -the joy of learning and improving through repetition

Surrender to Your Passion - love it or leave it

Intentionality - visualize the outcome

Go to the Edge - go a little bit further than we’ve gone before and maybe even further than anyone

else has gone

“If you want people to do a good job, give them a good job to do.”

Frederick Herzberg

"The greatest reward for a job well done is the opportunity to do more work."

Dr. Jonas Salk

Get what really matters without using guilt, humiliation, shame, blame, coercion, or threats.

1. Observation2. Feeling3. Needs

4. Request

EMPATHY

Henrick Knikberg, Culture > Process, Paris Scrum Gathering, 2013

Frederick HerzbergTuesday, 1 October 13

Practically:

PairTDD / BDDPeer review

THERE’S NO VALUE ON THE RIGHT

We have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Manifesto for Devops Ineptitude

We are uncovering better ways of misunderstanding and misusing “agile” principles by doing it wrong and helping others do it wrong.

Through this work we have come to conclude that we should have:

Manadatory devops tools to enforce individuals and interactions.Infrastructure as code, with little or no documentation.Naive trust supported by hand-wavey verbal agreements.No plan at all, because we’re “lean” and “agile” hipsters.

That is, while there is wisdom in the Agile Manifesto, we failed to understand its essence and implemented a botched mockery in its place.

ANTIDOTE:

BDD / TDDDocument why not how

Real optionsDeliberate discovery

IGNORE THE SIGNS OF BURNOUT

Karōshi (過労死)

Death by overwork

Extreme long hours that interfere with normal rest patterns

Night work that interferes with normal rest patterns

Working without holidays or breaks

High pressure work without breaks

Extremely demanding physical labor and continuously stressful work

Are you creating artificial relaxation and alertness?

Alcohol / Marijuana / SedativesCaffeine / Cocaine / Amphetamines

ANTIDOTE:

“Don't Do Anything That Isn't Play!”

Marshall B. Rosenberg

Watch out for signs of violence:

GuiltDuty

ShameFear

DisconnectSleep well (and enough)

Eat (often and healthily)Pray / Meditate

ExercisePlay

“It is a very good plan every now and then to go away and have a little

relaxation… When you come back to the work your judgement will be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose the power of judgement.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

FOCUS ON THE TOOLS

“Creating the label `lean` (what it is) leads naturally to the notion of tools

(how you do it), obscuring the importance of perspective (how to think about it)”

John Seddon

s/lean/devops/

“If the object of a change is to change the system, tools can, at best, be only an

aid.”

John Seddon

“before we jump to the conclusion that the tools will work ... we had best first

study the systems.”

John Seddon

Fuck tools!We need culture!

£$%& tools!We need culture!

WRONG!

“Culture alone is hollow posturing, tooling alone is fiddling in the dark.”

Adam Jacob

“Right behind `culture ! tools` is `great, any choices I make are good choices -

tools don’t matter`”

Adam Jacob

“The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.”

Edsger Dijkstra

“In a broken culture, with a desire to change, the tooling can often lead the

way to cultural changes.”

Adam Jacob

ANTIDOTE:

“Teach perspective - how to think - if the tools help, people will beat a path to the

cupboard door”

John Seddon

GROW your tools

GOAL - what are we trying to achieve?REALITY - where are we now?

OPTIONS - what could we do to bridge the gap?WILL - what will we do?

Start where you’re at!

Beware the argument from authority

(because I said so)

ALWAYS SAY YES

“People who can’t say no spend their very limited time and already taxed energy on other people’s priorities, while their own

priorities fall to the wayside.”

“If you think it looks like it’s going to be slow and expensive, it probably will be

slow and expensive, and someone has to pay. If you're not transparent about

that, the chances are you'll pay yourself, with lost profit, lost reputation, or lost

health. In my case: all three.”

Stephen Nelson-Smith

ANTIDOTE:

Practice saying no!

9 Practices to help you say “No”(Peter Bregman, Harvard Business Review)

1. Know your no2. Be appreciative

3. Say no to the request, not the person4. Explain why

5. Be as resolute as they are pushy6. Practice

7. Establish a pre-emptive no8. Be prepared to miss out

9. Gather your courageTuesday, 1 October 13

A trusted advisor walks away from money if there is no mutual benefit.

BUILD A DEVOPS TEAM

“The Devops movement addresses the dysfunction that results from

organizations composed of functional silos. Thus, creating another functional

silo that sits between dev and ops is clearly a poor (and ironic) way to try and

solve these problems.”

Jez Humble

“Functional silos allow people to ignore, or at least feel disconnected from, the

consequences of their actions.

Devops is a cultural change that encourages, exposes and rewards people taking responsibility for what they do

and what is expected of them.”

Ben KepesTuesday, 1 October 13

ANTIDOTE:

Create and collaborate

Cross functionalise

Get on the improvement ARC

AWARENESS (comprehend where we are right now)

RESPONSIBILITY(agree that we are the ones to make change)

COMMITMENT(decide to take action)

Take baby steps....

WRONG!

“Continuous improvement isn't nearly as important as discontinuous improvement.”

Russell Ackoff

If you lack executive sponsorship, forcing Devops will accelerate your own demise at best and your organisation’s

demise at worst.

“If you agree with me and your CEO doesn’t understand and you dont want to wait around to convince him: fucking quit because everyone is this room is hiring

and they do.”

Adam Jacob

FIX ALL THE THINGS

"We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the

wrong solution to the right problem."

Russell Ackoff

“We chase the latest ideas in software development without bothering with the scientific method.

We think it is a waste of time to understand the theory, create hypotheses, run experiments, gather data, and find out what really

works in our environment.

We fail to appreciate that “best practices” are somebody else’s solutions to their problems, not necessarily the right solutions to our

problems.

We adopt new development approaches with an unhealthy dose of wishful thinking, rather than determining the most appropriate

practices for our environment —

and then we are surprised at the disappointing results.”

Tom & Mary Poppendieck, Leading Lean Software Development

ANTIDOTE:

Beware shiny thingsAbandon technical purity

Exercise real options

ANTIDOTE:

Beware shiny thingsAbandon technical purity

Exercise real options

BE AFRAID OF BAD NEWS

"Studying the organization as a system will certainly reveal bad news."

John Seddon

“Fear takes a terrible toll. Where are the comptroller's figures on the losses from fear? They are enormous. Nobody

knows their magnitude. Getting people to express their ideas without fear of retribution requires fundamental

change."

W. Edwards Deming

ANTIDOTE:

No fear

“Lean downhill when skiing. That takes a certain amount of fearlessness, courage,

or aggressiveness. It turns out that leaning downhill gives you more control

than leaning back uphill. It is connected with `always try to keep going forward`”

Alistair Cockburn

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner

eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.”

Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear(From Frank Herbert's Dune Book Series)

Thank you.

#devopsdays TLV <3 @LordCope

Ask your questions... I am not afraid.Tuesday, 1 October 13

DevOps Days Tel Aviv 2013: How not to do Devops: Confessions of a Thought Leader - Stephen Nelson...

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