nordstrom devops rollercoaster - gartner datacenter conf
TRANSCRIPT
DevOps Roller Coaster
Rob Cummings – @opsrob
Infrastructure Engineering, Nordstrom
https://flic.kr/p/mnbf5
Agenda
• Why CD/DevOps?
• Enterprise scale
change is hard
• One way Nordstrom
is driving change
• Lessons learned
• Rob Cummings - @opsrob
• Worked for Bose, EMC, Accenture, and
Nordstrom in operations roles over the past
16 years.
• Today – Group Manager, Infrastructure Engineering, Nordstrom
About Me
Why take the roller coaster ride?
DevOps and CD in the enterprise.
Changing an enterprise is hard.
And that is ok, it is supposed to be.
(an exercise in empathy)
Accountable for
repeatable and
predictable
performance
Optimized for
incremental
change
www.flickr.com/photos/26782864@N00/3296379139/
https://flic.kr/p/8P394p
Your org is a
performance
engine.
The performance engine has
likely tried to change.
Probably didn’t work out so well.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/braintoad/2504094983/
1964
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monojussi/7598292754/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55593929@N00/575999466/1968
1974
“Innovation may very well signify the
future, but the performance engine is
the proven foundation, and if it
crumbles, there is no future.”
–pg 13, “The Other Side of Innovation”
So, how do we change?
Science!
Innovators2.5%
Early Adopters13.5%
Early Majority34%
Late Majority34%
Laggards16%
TheChasm
Rogers Innovation Adoption Curve
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_lifecycle
Innovators2.5%
Early Adopters13.5%
Early Majority34%
Late Majority34%
Laggards16%
TheChasm
Adopters
Time
Rogers Innovation Adoption Curve
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_lifecycle
…57 years later
http://www.forbes.com/sites/margiewarrell/2014/03/25/culture-of-courage/
“With the latest Gallup figures categorizing over half of
the workforce as disengaged, and nearly one in five
workers as “actively disengaged,” organizations need
leaders who not only engage employees, but moves
them to think more daringly, to take smarter risks, and to
challenge the very assumptions that may have
underpinned their success to date.” – Forbes, 3/25/2014
Innovators2.5%
Early Adopters13.5%
Early Majority34%
Late Majority34%
Laggards16%
TheChasm
Rogers Innovation Adoption Curve
Disengaged30%
Actively Disengaged
20%
One way Nordstrom is
approaching this
Full stack team of early adopters
Cherry picked a team:
Developers (vocal)
QA Tester (mentoring)
SysAdmin (empowering)
Scrum Master (new)
Product Owner (new)
Focus on minimizing outside dependencies.
Challenge: Empowerment
Goats and Fences
http://www.flickr.com/photos/noii/3093367803/
Goats look for opportunity
Goats wander
Big fence != empowerment
Start small, then grow
Challenge: The Stink
From excited to not.
Excite
me
nt
Time
The Stink
There will be hard times.
Challenge: Bias
Fundamental Attribution Error
People's tendency to place an undue emphasis on internal characteristics to explain someone else's behavior in a given situation,
rather than considering external factors.
Especially prevalent in silo’d orgs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
Fundamental Attribution Error
Homework
• Large organizations have been trained to resist large, rapid change.
• Focus on early adopters at the beginning, even if this is not the
highest business value.
• Build full stack teams for rapid change.
• Empowering teams will take significant leadership work.
• There will be rough times in your awesome project, brace for it
ahead of time.
• Watch for bias, especially the Fundamental Attribution Error when
times are rough in silo’d orgs.
Summary
