“Change sticks when it becomes the way we do things around here.” ~  John P. Kotter DevOps benefits the business by improving communication, collaboration and the integration of people, processes and technologies across the IT value stream. Ultimately, DevOps enables companies to deliver better software faster and more reliably by… Improving communication, collaboration and the integration of processes and tools across the IT value stream Automating the process of software delivery and infrastructure changes Leveraging Agile, Lean, ITSM and evolving DevOps practices DevOps – The Basics Get Involved! DevOps practices will continue to evolve through communities of practice. Seek out opportunities to collaborate with others and to share what you’ve learned. Change related to DevOps initiatives will affect organizational culture. Effective communication plans, training, and clear policies and procedures are all needed to achieve the desired performance outcome

I looked up “Process Design” and found: “The activity of determining the workflow , equipment needs and implementation requirements for a particular process . Process design typically uses a number of tools including flowcharting, process simulation software and scale models.”  Hmm… that is good but “So What”?  Why should a service provider care about process?  I have heard some say that process is secondary to automation.  Okay, sounds good, but then we have to consider, “What are we going to automate?” Every Certified Process Design Engineer knows that when it comes to process we are talking about activity.  The key is that we need just enough process and just enough governance to meet requirements.  Process design contributes to our ability to balance speed and agility with stability.   Having good process design allows for a smooth service belt that delivers value to customers and also gives a service provider the ability to meet business and customer demand at a

Value stream mapping  originated a s a   lean -management method.  Today this method along with Agile, ITSM and other LEAN practices is utilized to understand and improve the delivery of products or services for all industries.  Being able to analyze the current state for the series of events that take a product or service from concept all the way through to value realization by the customer is a powerful tool. A tool necessary for designing an efficient future state and for strategizing continual service improvement.  Below are some thoughts on how the approach to value stream mapping can be applied to service management. Getting Started: Beginning with the formal proposal or request from the customer and then documenting what takes place throughout the lifecycle is always a good starting point.  Value Stream Mapping requires a gradient approach including the following elements: ·          Define physical flow of events – If you are just starting out, it might prove helpfu

The structure of an organization sets the hierarchy for responsibility and creates the various levels of communication within an organization. Organizational structure has a huge impact on how work gets done and can have a direct effect on productivity. Traditional IT teams are typically organized in silos which lead to a number of problems and are generally not conducive to the success of transformation. This is the year to shatter the silo’s. Service providers want to do bigger, better, more… faster than ever before while producing quality services and responding to ever changing business dynamics. Organizations adopting DevOps strive to break down the silos.  Why? Overall this is an effort to reduce bureaucracy, improve communication and collaboration, and provide people opportunity to grow.   Objectives are achieved in a variety of ways ranging from assigning Ops liaisons to Dev Teams to creating cross-functional product (vs. project) teams. Initiatives including those for Con

If you are involved in helping your organization to incorporate Agile, DevOps or any type of Digital Transformation it will become very clear that “Leadership” will have a powerful impact on the success of your effort. Transformational Leadership is a model in which leaders inspire and motivate followers to achieve greater performance by appealing to their values and sense of purpose.  This helps to facilitate wide scale organizational change.  That type of wide scale change is required. Required Dimensions for every Transformational Leader that will promote positive results include: Vision – Leaders must understand the organizational and team direction and shape them accordingly. People will follow an individual who inspires them, a person with vision and passion can achieve great things.  Leaders need to inspire followers to motivate the results they wish to see. Personal Recognition – Includes but is not exclusive to recognizing and commending the team for better than

Some IT executives and practitioners still believe that Agile is the way to success for transformation. Some IT executives and practitioners will argue that ITIL is the way to go. Some will say LEAN should be the approach to ensure success. Oh, you say, “they are all wrong?”  Perhaps you think DevOps and Continuous Delivery is the silver bullet? Well guess what?    You are all right.  The truth of the matter is that no one best practice or method stands alone.  There are far too many examples of how this trinity of LEAN, Agile, and ITSM enable DevOps for digital transformation.  ITIL’s Continual Service Improvement (CSI) Approach - Iterative ongoing continual service improvement is at the core of every Service Management Principle. The concept of ‘adopt and adapt’ involves adapting best practices to an organization's circumstances, needs, goals and objectives . Using Agile and Scrum will help increase your velocity. LEAN will help to remove waste to help w

I was recently asked to elaborate on a previous blog that discussed reducing metrics and reporting on those that matter to customers. In terms of any metrics, especially those that are important to customers, you should always think about or add the phrase “with quality”. Remember that the term “quality” is defined as “conformance to customer requirements”. So all metrics and measurements should ensure the work or actions you perform remains focused on the customer and their needs. Also in terms of how you phrase a metric it can often be more beneficial to measure in terms of increases and decreases rather than specific quantities. Given that, here some metrics that you might think about using: Increased Customer Quality Satisfaction %--perhaps the most important of all metrics Increase First Line Call Resolution [with quality] %--helps reduce costs but also builds perception of preparedness and knowledge in the eyes of the customer Decreased Mean Time to Restore Serv