A discussion on categorizing and dealing with organizational characteristics that affect DevOps success.

1. DevOps Culture Level 2
Conquering Fear and Improving
Outcomes
Mandi Walls, Chef Software
21 May 2015 :: IP Expo Manchester

2. whoami
•Mandi Walls
•Joined Chef in November 2011
•Professional services in the US, now building
the team for EMEA
•@lnxchk

3. Why DevOps Culture?
•The fuzzier, more challenging? part of
DevOps
•Impacts how organizations react to
internal and external pressures

4. Cultural Impacts
•How does the organization react to
market opportunity, embrace change?
•How does the organization remediate
problems, bugs, issues?
•How does the organization treat
individuals?

5. How Culture is Communicated
•Rewards
•Punishments
•Allocation of Resources
•Actions of Leaders

6. Categorizing Organizations
•From A Typology of Organisational
Cultures by Dr. Ron Westrum
•Quality and Safety in Health Care, 01/2005
• http://m.qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/13/suppl_2/ii22.full

7. •Looks at information flow in healthcare
teams
•Patient care impact
•Information drives alignment to goals,
awareness, and empowerment

8. Three Types of Organizations
•Pathological
•Bureaucratic
•Generative

9. Organizational Behaviors
Pathological Bureaucratic Generative
Power Oriented Rule Oriented Performance Oriented
Low Cooperation Modest or Local Cooperation High Cooperation
Messengers Shot Messengers Neglected Messengers Trained
Responsibilities Shirked Narrow Responsibilities Risks Shared
Bridging Discouraged Bridging Tolerated Bridging Encouraged
Failure -> Scapegoating Failure -> Justice Failure -> Inquiry
Novelty Crushed Novelty Associated with Problems Novelty Implemented

10. •Not indicated by size or age of the org
•Not necessarily indicated by industry
•Specific internal behaviors may vary
based on national culture, external
variables

11. Pathological Organizations

12. Characteristics
•Power Oriented
•“Hero” culture
•Obsessed with personal power,
influence, glory
•Hoarding of information and access

13. Does it DevOp?
•Low cooperation among teams
•Gatekeepers
•Often buy a tool or implement a project, then
keep it to themselves
•Empire Builders
•Use a new initiative to take over other teams,
responsibilities, resources, budgets

14. Safety
•Pathological organizations are “unsafe”
•Speaking up about ideas
•Reporting issues
•Discussing failures

15. Coping in Pathological Teams
•Westrum cites examples of pathological
organizations being particularly
dangerous – healthcare, military,
aviation
•In IT, they tend to be slower to improve,
respond to market dynamics

16. •Individuals who disagree are in
particularly perilous position
•People who feel strongly are often
compelled to leave
•Breaking the pattern can happen after a
change in leadership

17. Bureaucratic Organizations

18. Pathological Bureaucratic Generative
Power Oriented Rule Oriented Performance Oriented
Low Cooperation Modest or Local Cooperation High Cooperation
Messengers Shot Messengers Neglected Messengers Trained
Responsibilities Shirked Narrow Responsibilities Risks Shared
Bridging Discouraged Bridging Tolerated Bridging Encouraged
Failure -> Scapegoating Failure -> Justice Failure -> Inquiry
Novelty Crushed Novelty Associated with Problems Novelty Implemented

19. Characteristics
•Rule Oriented
•Obsessed with rules, positions, “turf”
•All activities, inquiries must be routed
through the appropriate channels
•Responsibilities are meticulously laid
out by department

20. Does it DevOp?
•“DevOps Team”
•New initiatives must be given their place in the
structure and hierarchy
•DevOps isn’t everyone’s job
•Small pilot projects within a single
department are often quite successful
•Harder to drive wider efforts

21. Safety
•Bureaucratic organizations are often
thought to be “locally safe”
•As long as your loyalty lies with your team
•Failure requires justice, so still not much
risk taking and experimentation
•There may be a department that is explicitly for
experimentation

22. Coping in Bureaucratic Teams
•Follow all the rules
•Even when they contradict each other
•Pick your battles
•Be flexible
•Giving others a chance to follow their rules will
build trust, new patterns of behavior
•Be patient

23. “Skunkworks” DevOps
•Secret projects executed in small teams
•Common in Bureaucratic environments
•Sometimes break out, sometimes die off
•Successful projects get attention, attract a
following – be careful of Pathological
tendencies!

24. Generative Organizations

25. Pathological Bureaucratic Generative
Power Oriented Rule Oriented Performance Oriented
Low Cooperation Modest or Local Cooperation High Cooperation
Messengers Shot Messengers Neglected Messengers Trained
Responsibilities Shirked Narrow Responsibilities Risks Shared
Bridging Discouraged Bridging Tolerated Bridging Encouraged
Failure -> Scapegoating Failure -> Justice Failure -> Inquiry
Novelty Crushed Novelty Associated with Problems Novelty Implemented

26. Characteristics
•Performance Oriented
•Individuals “bought in” to the mission
•Free flow of information
•Shared risks and responsibilities
•High trust and individual empowerment

27. Does it DevOp?
•“Just the way we do things here”
•DevOps tasks can be anyone’s job
•Automation, metrics, sharing
•Any new projects will inherit the DevOps
DNA right from the start
•Sharing is common, celebrated

28. Safety
•Generative organizations are “globally
safe”
•Blameless post-mortems
•Open experimentation

29. Getting to Generative
•Build trust
•Communicate
•Share knowledge, lessons – be
proactive in information sharing
•Embrace and build from failure
•Be clear on goals, empower people

30. You Can Do It!
•Any organization can work towards
Generative
•Regardless of industry
•Regardless of size
•Regardless of age of organization
•Examples from military, aviation, other
high-risk industries

31. •Yes, it requires leadership support
•Setting the values of the organization

32. The Reference
•A Typology of Organisational Cultures

33. Thanks for Listening!
Enjoy the rest of IP Expo!