Aflac DevOps Journey of Journeys (Achieving Enterprise-scal DevOps without the one-size-fits-all mandate antipattern)

We know from Nicole Forsgren that “maturity models are for chumps” and that doing a one-size-fits all DevOps transformation is an antipattern. So how does an enterprise balance between the goal of broadly scaling DevOps and achieving rapid results with the reality that each part of the organization needs to customize and own their own approach?

From this experience report, you will learn ways to successfully navigate the balance and synergy between rapid scaling of DevOps with team ownership of business outcomes. It is an experience report about our DevOps transformation journey at Aflac. Or should we say our journey of journeys, where we are enabling each group to go on their own custom journey while leveraging a DevOps enablement team, Value Stream Mapping, Dojos, DevOps Kaizen and a set of cultural and technical principals and patterns. We are then mixing this with a set of DevOps journey maps with typical patterns of adoption.

It is about travels on a journey more like “Dora the Explorer” than taking the journey as a tourist.