The Phoenix Project DevOps Simulation - Paul Wilkinson

Pink Elephant – Knowledge Translated Into Results

The Phoenix Project

DevOps business game

Paul Wilkinson Director

GamingWorks

The Phoenix Project – A Devops business simulation game © Pink Elephant, 2016. All Rights Reserved.

Why?

•  LACK of right CULTURE, lack of right COMPETENCES •  NEW FRAMEWORK •  Many vendors promote TOOLS as THE SOLUTION •  Many Training companies will be offering Certificates •  Fast implementation of DevOps

Most DevOps initiatives will fail...


DevOps needs special training!

“Cultural resistance will create significant

failure rates when starting with

DevOps”

“Organizational change issues are far more challenging”

“Enterprises are not ready for DevOps but

will not survive without it”

“DevOps cannot be obtained overnight with a simple check and a little training. It is a

transformational approach to core processes and it takes time, dedication and especially a team

that can implement DevOps practice.”


DevOps Foundation


Why a Simulation

•  Practice DevOps principles in safe and realistic environment (experiment, continuous learning, team development)

•  Better understand theory (from foundation) to apply it in day to day work (value from training investment)

•  Better insight into the consequences starting DevOps journey (People, Process, Technology)

•  Capture agreed improvements to take away


ü  Business role can be added to game to extend to Bus-Dev-Ops

ü  Focuses on core talent requirements that the business is demanding

ü  ü  Teams must use Process engineering tools (KanBan, Value Stream Mapping). ü 


The Phoenix Project simulation

KPI R1 R2 R3 R4

Numberofdeployments 3 4 6 8%successful 75% 79% 84% 96%#Errors 8 10 6 2% issuessolvedinsameround 50% 66% 87% 100%


The Phoenix Project Simulation

•  10-12 participants •  “The Phoenix Project” •  Business & IT roles •  Issues from the book •  Experiencing top 10 DevOps challenges •  Bringing real value to the business •  Reflection, experimenting, learning •  Finding solutions •  … and how to implement them in own work


Do you recognize this? “….too many business demands…IT says yes to all demands…”

“….taking resources off projects to work on other unexpected things…”

“….unclear who is working on what projects/issues and what has the highest priority…”

“….chasing around after the status of projects….”

….causing delays, rework, wasted effort, doing the wrong things, reduced business outcomes, increased business risk!


Which of these would help?

q  CAB q  Visual Management q  WIP q  Automation

This is what the team experiences. Lesson 1 The need for Visualization

ü 


Visualisation

© GamingWorks

Backlog To Do WIP 6 Doing Done Planned

Unplanned

Version 1.0

DevOps

60% - 40% - Reality? Where does unplanned come from? How to avoid? How to prioritize?


Do you recognize this? “….too much work you can’t always deliver the quality that is expected”..

“….allocating incidents and projects to the same person with unrealistic time demands’.

….causing delays, rework, wasted effort, doing the wrong things, reduced business outcomes, increased business risk!

“….you can’t meet your promise to customer because somebody doesn’t have time to meet their promise”.



q CAB q Visual Management q WIP q Automation

This is what the team experiences. Lesson 2 The need to understand constraints and WIP

ü 


FLOW

Backlog To Do DEV (WIP 4) OPS (WIP 3) CHANGE (6) Planned

Unplanned

q  X q  X

q  X q  X


Do you recognize this? “….Too little time to test. Solution must go live…”

“….a lot of rework as mistakes were made in final step of deployment”

….causing rework, wasted effort, mistakes going live causing more unplanned work!

“….deployment was later than planned – users unavailable for testing”



q  Value Stream Mapping q  Visual Management q  Integrated testing q  Continuous deployment

Lesson 3 The need for integrated testing. Build quality in up front.

ü 

Which of these would help prevent passing errors downstream and detect as early as possible to ‘fail fast’ and provide feedback?


FLOW – aspects

Version 1.0 © GamingWorks

•  Work must flow •  How much work CAN we deploy? •  How fast?

•  Avoid constraints •  Avoid errors down-stream •  Avoid sending work up-stream •  Pull vs Push •  Automate •  Build quality in •  Integrated testing


DevOps aspect – Continual Learning

StateofDevOpsfinding:Improvingqualityiseveryone’sjob.High-performingorganiza<onsspend22percentless<meonunplannedworkandrework.Asaresult,theyareabletospend29percentmore<meonnewwork,suchasnewfeaturesorcode.

‘…TheDevOpsmantraofcon<nuousimprovementisbothexci<ngandreal,pushingcompaniestobetheirbest,andleavingbehindthosewhodonotimprove’.


DevOps aspect – what do we see?







KPI R1 R2 R3 R4

Numberofdeployments 3 4 6 8%successful 75% 79% 84% 96%#Errors 8 10 6 2% issuessolvedinsameround 50% 66% 87% 100%


ü  Needtogettogether(Collabora8on)toanalyzeandimproveperformance–breakdownSILOs

ü  Importanceofse:ngandmanagingpriori8es/projectpor@olio–togetherwithbusiness

ü  NeedtoidenDfyandvisualizeresourcecapacity(ConstraintsandlimiDngWIP)

ü  Usevisualmanagement(KanbanBoard)–prioriDze&manageworkloadü  ImproveesDmaDonofITANDBizcapacityandWIPlimitsü  BusinessincludedinDevOpsdecisions(Bus-Dev-Ops)ü  Gettogethertoagreeandimproveend-to-endCommunica8onü  CrosstrainingtogetoutofthefuncDonal,silomentalityü  Organizethecon8nuousimprovementofbusinessandIT

Toptakeaways-teamshavingpar8cipatedinthesimula8on?

<Insert presentation title> © Pink Elephant, 2016. All Rights Reserved.

[email protected] www.gamingworks.nl

www.twitter.com/gamingpaul

Questions?