Arrested DevOps

In this episode, hosts Jessica Kerr and Matty Stratton are joined by guests Dr. Nicole Forsgren and Mr. Jez Humble, two of the authors of the 2019 Accelerate State of DevOps report. Historical Context The panel discusses the history and purpose of the report. This is the sixth year it has been produced. How did the report start and what questions is it seeking to answer? Nicole: “Once upon a time, kids, making software was sad. Making software used to light people on fire!” Nicole: “So why do we even do this DevOps thing? It’s because we want to make that software process easier and better.” Jez: “These approaches have worked even in highly regulated environments. They’ve worked everywhere.” Nicole explains that capabilities and practices are more important than tools. Nicole: “There’s no such thing as DevOps in a box.” The group discusses the limitations of systems data vs survey data, and the importance of collecting both. Survey data is low resolution but high signal and vice versa. Jez: “Over-precision is something that’s a real problem in our industry.” Nicole: [“How to Measure Anything” - Douglas W. Hubbard] ( https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles-Business-ebook/dp/B00INUYS2U ) The panel discusses the importance of starting from hypotheses instead of looking for any spurious correlations that exist in highly related systems. What’s New This Year? The panel discusses some of this year’s findings. The “retail apocalypse” over the last decade has had some surprising effects. Regulation has less of an impact than many industries assume. Jez: “We do see high performers in large companies who are highly regulated.” Matt: “People will sit there and say well, I have over 5000 employees and I can’t DevOps so now I have an excuse, and that’s not the case.” Enterprise! Change management processes are one of the key areas of difference between large and small enterprises. Jez discusses how to make that process more lightweight even in a large organization. Jez: “Risk is also about upside risk. If you can’t move fast at delivering software, that’s a risk to your business.” The panel discusses the importance of keeping a holistic view even in a large enterprise with specialized roles. Nicole: “You go from change management theater to strategic change management for a massive organization. It’s scary but it is also dope!” The report has found year after year that a slower change management process can paradoxically result in more instability, not less. The panel discusses the reasons this experiment was not successful and how enterprises can implement more nimble processes going forward. Productivity The panel talks about what productivity actually means. The report uses an interesting definition: “Productivity is the ability to get complex, time-consuming tasks completed with minimal distractions and interruptions.” Nicole: “You may be just closing the tickets that are meaningless but are easy to close.” Research shows that real productivity reduces burnout and improves work-life balance. The group discusses how to separate that real productivity from gamification and busywork. Jez talks about scaling up and how centers of excellence may not be as useful as previously thought. Nicole points out that the report has given a lot of starting points for people to begin making changes in their organization. Remember to read the report!

Matty and Trevor chat with guests Jessie Frazelle, Veronica Hanus, and Jeff Smith in front of a live studio audience at devopsdays Chicago 2019. Community & Event Stuff If you have an upcoming conference you would like to see promoted on ADO, you can fill out the handy form at arresteddevops.com/conf Upcoming conferences Open CFPs lots of DevOpsDays Discount codes ADO2019 for 20% off lots of devopsdays Velocity Berlin Nov 4-7 2019 - discount code “ADO2019” gives 20% off for Gold, Silver, and Bronze passes; early price price ends 20 September.

Bridget and Matty chat with guests Liz Fong-Jones, Alice Goldfuss, and RJ Williams, in front of a live studio audience at devopsdays Minneapolis 2019. Liz Fong-Jones is a new organizer of devopsdays New York City. Alice Goldfuss is the MC for devopsdays Portland. RJ Williams is an organizer of devopsdays Raleigh. Community & Event Stuff If you have an upcoming conference you would like to see promoted on ADO, you can fill out the handy form at arresteddevops.com/conf Upcoming conferences Open CFPs lots of DevOpsDays Discount codes ADO2019 for 20% off lots of devopsdays Velocity Berlin Nov 4-7 2019 - discount code “ADO2019” gives 20% off for Gold, Silver, and Bronze passes; early price price ends 20 September.

Martin’s talk on protocols from J on the Beach Mechanical sympathy: https://mechanical-sympathy.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-mechanical-sympathy.html https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mechanical-sympathy https://dzone.com/articles/mechanical-sympathy Universal Scalability Law, Queuing theory, Little’s Law http://www.perfdynamics.com/Manifesto/USLscalability.html https://blog.acolyer.org/2015/04/29/applying-the-universal-scalability-law-to-organisations/ https://www.infoq.com/presentations/little-usl-scalability-performance/ http://perfdynamics.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-little-triplet.html http://www.vissinc.com/2012/09/07/littles-law-isnt-it-a-linear-relationship/ https://medium.com/@__bbak/dont-be-fooled-by-littles-law-18e18dba3717 Florence Nightingale and Pie Charts Dijkstra on the radical novelty of software Image credit: Ylva, Ebba, and Kashti Grimm Community Velocity Berlin Nov 4-7 2019 - discount code “ADO2019” gives 20% off for Gold, Silver, and Bronze passes, and Best Price ends August 2. For any devopsdays, try the discount code ADO2019!

Pushing Left, Like a Boss: Part 1 OWASP Serverless Top 10 Project

Trevor chats with Steven Murawski of Microsoft about Azure DevOps, Windows Terminal and all the cool things from Microsoft Build 2019.

On being a principal engineer - blog post by Silvia Silvia’s talks Image credit Community Velocity San Jose June 10-13 2019 - discount code “ADO2019” gives 20% off for Gold, Silver, and Bronze passes. For any devopsdays, try the discount code ADO2019! CFP for devopsdays Chicago: open until May 3rd Checkouts Silvia: the Beyoncé movie came out on Netflix: Homecoming Jessica: Do something outside! It’s spring! Matty: Stocksy - for affordable stock imagery that benefits the artists and Super Team Deluxe for great pins and stuff

Image credit: photo by GotCredit Community Velocity San Jose June 10-13 2019 - discount code “ADO2019” gives 20% off for Gold, Silver, and Bronze passes. For any devopsdays, try the discount code ADO2019!

Mark’s talk from YOW! Australia: Principles of Reliable Systems Progressive Delivery by James Governor of RedMonk [Scientist](Scientist - https://github.com/github/scientist), a Ruby library for experiments Dark, a language/IDE for coding into a running system Entity Service Antipattern by Michael Nygard Facebook PHP Typechecking example from Julien Verlaguet the excellent closing loops / control plane talk by Colm MacCarthaigh Safety II That cool building in Sydney Credit for the drawing of Mark goes to lyn.ia Community Velocity San Jose June 10-13 2019 - discount code “ADO2019” gives 20% off for Gold, Silver, and Bronze passes. For any devopsdays, try the discount code ADO2019!

Previous episode: Punk Rock DevOps Oncall Nightmares Podcast Image credit: aesthetictech.net Community Velocity San Jose June 10-13 2019 - discount code “ADO2019” gives 20% off for Gold, Silver, and Bronze passes. For any devopsdays, try the discount code ADO2019!