The document discusses challenges with staying focused when faced with conflicting priorities and how organizational performance is dependent on alignment between teams. It presents Parkinson's Law which states work expands to fill available time and proposes Dominica's Hypothesis that demand increases with ability to meet demand. It discusses how context switching impacts teams and surveys found conflicting priorities as a main cause. It defines organizational health in terms of job satisfaction, cooperation and experimentation tolerance impacting company performance.

1. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Staying
focused
when
inflicted
with
conflic3ng
priori3es

2. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Saturday
Mornings
-­‐
before

3. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Saturday
Mornings
-­‐
a9er

4. Parkinson’s
Law
“Work
expands
to
fill
the
2me
available
for
its
comple2on.”
Cyril
Parkinson

5. Dominica’s
Hypothesis
“Demand
increases
in
propor2on
to
the
ability
to
meet
the
demand.”
Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad

6. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Poll results from 500+ people across 55 countries:
“How does context switching impact your team?”

7. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Poll results from 500+ people across 55 countries:
“What is main cause of conflicting priorities for
your team?”

9. Puppet
Labs
2014
Devops
Report
“While
we
suspected
job
sa2sfac2on
impacted
organiza2onal
performance,
we
were
surprised
to
see
that
job
sa2sfac2on
was
the
#1
predictor
of
organiza2onal
performance.”
hKps://puppetlabs.com/sites/default/files/2014-­‐state-­‐of-­‐devops-­‐report.pdf

10. Organizational performance is dependent
on the alignment of teams.
Clear
priori3es
drive
coopera3on
Let’s
not
forget
that
the
intent
of
DevOps
is
to
improve
the
system
as
a
whole.
#KaizenDevOps

11. • Company performance (economic, health, sustainability)
• Job satisfaction
• Levels of trust and cooperation
• Tolerance for experimentation
Organizational Health Defined
A
healthy
organiza<on
increases
the
happiness
factor
and
job
sa<sfac<on
at
work.

12. “Organiza2onal
health
will
one
day
surpass
all
other
disciplines
in
business
as
the
greatest
opportunity
for
improvement.”
Patrick
Lencioni

13. If everything is a priority one, nothing is a priority One
Every request cannot
be the top priority.
Hence the need to
limit your wip

14. kan·ban
känbän/かんばん(看板)
noun, “signal card”
A kanban signal card is a
visual indicator of availability.
“The aim of kanban is to
make troubles come to the
surface.”
-Taiichi Ohno

15. When a problem occurred, the board on the
assembly line lit up, work halted, and the issue was
immediately addressed by a supervisor at the source.
“Let the flow manage the processes,
and not let management manage the flow.”
Taiichi
Ohno

16. C
B
Portfolio Program
donedesign ready to
deliver
feedback
7
In work
Delayed
[idle for n days]
Blk
PZ
D
E
A
B A
F
build deliver
Displaced an
item now delayed
D
WZ
Project 1
Project 2
Project 3
E
12
JG
PB
B
CD
WZ
JG
Project 5
C
MN
committed
Project 4
C
B
B A
Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad

17. ABribu<on
to
BernadeBe
Dairo
–
Canadian
Govt
agency
in
Toronto

18. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad

19. Operations team work flow
ValidateDeliver ClosedDesign
Fires
Maintenance
Projects
Implement
3
9
2
Improve
CODB
Fire
Project
Improvement
Investigate
Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Unplanned
Unplanned
Exercise
to
try:
30
days
Priori3za3on
Policy?:

20. Removing project work allows team to
focus on maintenance and improvements
ValidateDeliver ClosedDesign
Fires
Maintenance
Projects
Items in
backlog
remain
uncommitted
and un-
prioritized
until there is
capacity to
absorb them.
Implement
Backlog
3
9
2
Improvement
CODB
Fire
Project
Improvement
Investigate
Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad

21. Removing project work allows team to
focus on maintenance and improvements
ValidateDeliver ClosedDesign
Fires
Maintenance
Projects
Items in
backlog
remain
uncommitted
and un-
prioritized
until there is
capacity to
absorb them.
Implement
Backlog
3
9
2
Improvement
CODB
Fire
Project
Improvement
Investigate
Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Embed
Opera3onal
work
upstream
or
insist
that
product
development
teams
deliver
and
support
their
product?.

22. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Product development team board
Let’s
not
forget
support
work
Autonomy
w/o
authority
is
a
messy
business.

23. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Product development team board
.
Consider impacts to others.
When people cooperate, they need less
meetings, less rules, less resources.

24. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Ops team board

25. Enterprise Portfolio Board
Active
Projects
B
C
D
M
A
H
K
Work-item
types
F52
F
13
13
26
C B A
OperationsFinance SB Infrastructure
26 54
4
64
25
nextbacklog
F
N
D
E
63
Too big! G
32

26. PorXolio
Program
Opera3ons
team
Product
Dev
team

27. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Risks & Issues board – a 3rd type of Kanban

28. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Risks & Issues board – Looking at cost of delay

29. Risks & Issues board with measure of Org health
Trust & Cooperation
Kiwi Dial

30. Risks & Issues board with measure of Org health
Trust & Cooperation
Kiwi Dial
sflvnsYnvfnvdnvjdnvj

31. Improve collaboratively using models
Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad

32. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
To
Do
Doing
Done
A short prioritized list of things to do is a
beautiful thing.

33. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
To
Do
Doing
Done
How will your organization prioritize a short list
of things to do? What is the one metric that
matters most?
Value of Lean Flow approach:
clear priorities
fewer interruptions

34. Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad
Staying
focused
when
inflicted
with
conflic3ng
priori3es