We are a shared services Enterprise IT Operations team in a 160 year old company that looks more like a dinosaur than a unicorn. We have been able to establish a beach head and are driving towards a DevOps model with several of our Dev partners. We’ve learned a lot about how to lead a grass roots, bottom up, Ops-out effort.

In my presentation I plan to relive/review the basic phases of evolution we went(are going) through….

Phase I – Realization

The realization after talking to the Dev teams and reading The Phoenix Project & The Goal by that even though we are not a young company we are built almost exactly like a factory line.

Phase II – Find a lever any lever.

Our lever was deployment automation for cost reduction (not the flashiest thing on the DevOps brochure) This has been our lever to open the door and begin broader conversations with our dev partners. We also used the built in Dev –Ops –QA friction in some cases to get movement and buy in.

Phase III – Find a partner any partner

After we realized we could make a difference and use our tools to initiate broader change, we danced with any team who would join us (not everyone wanted to dance). We tried to stay small and measurable and above all to bring value to our partner in any manner of Pilot, POC or pain point remediation that we could make happen.

Phase IV – Bend Rules and Minds

We had to get people out of the box on process and practice to make a difference and show the difference. Our differenced included Cost, Speed, Availability and ultimately a march to a DevOps model for one of our most critical applications. We advocated not breaking process (we are a financial services company) but pushing it to its very limits and sometimes reshaping it.

Hoping to share methods & tactics for others who might think they have too much organizational baggage to try for a DevOps model. Also a focus on the Ops side and what we can do to help drive rather than just try to keep up with the Dev side.

We are still on the path and not yet to the promised land be we have made some great strides and are gaining momentum.