The IT Skeptic - devops

Forget the Fullstack

skeptic — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 02:07:16 +0000

Perfect people don't exist.
Start where you are. Work with who you have. Let the teams do "team Tetris" to self assemble into functional units with all the skills they need.

The wonderful free resources from DevOps Forum are the best. Thankyou Gene Kim!

My changing mind

skeptic — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 07:58:47 +0000

It's lucky for me that I don't get the kind of attention which would lead to people comparing my current posts to my old ones. There is nothing worse than having your own words quoted back to you a decade later. And this blog has been going 12 years, so my views have certainly changed over that time - not drifted slightly, but shifted majorly. Here are some examples:

Kill the ticket

skeptic — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 10:27:18 +0000

I really like the "kill the ticket" movement in DevOps. (hat tip to Damon Edwards). A ticket means a work record in a tool like Remedy or Service Now to represent an incident, problem, change request, defect....

The Five Ways of Devops

skeptic — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 22:19:58 +0000

I think there are not Three Ways of Devops but five Ways.

The novel The Phoenix Project was intended to be a way of selling and educating us on the concept of Agile, Lean and DevOps, but it is such a brilliant book that it created a new model of its own along the way, known as the Three Ways.

Velocity through quality

skeptic — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 23:16:24 +0000

The fundamental axiom of New Ways Of Working And Managing (NWOWAM, pronounced "wow, man!")is "Velocity Through Quality".

A layman's definition of Devops

skeptic — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 07:48:14 +0000

I was asked for a 30 second elevator pitch in DevOps for a non-IT boss. Here's what I came up with. Have at it.

Agile is the approach of working with complex systems anywhere.
Lean is the approach of optimising the flow of work anywhere.
DevOps is the application of Agile and Lean to the acceleration of value work through IT.

Challenge the level of ceremony in process

skeptic — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 09:09:15 +0000

Reduce the level of process and hand it to the people.

I've been involved in enough ITIL adoption efforts to know they don't all work. Mostly that is because they are done to people, not by people; and they micro manage people as clerical workers instead of empowering them as knowledge workers.

DevOps Balanced Scorecard Dashboard

skeptic — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 08:50:45 +0000

Here is my DevOps Balanced Scorecard Dashboard

The metrics are only examples of suggested topics. Any availability/stability/reliability metrics are good for Quality

Does DevOps eliminate any ITSM processes?

skeptic — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 22:01:30 +0000

The question was asked in Facebook Back2ITSm group:
"there’s a gaggle of ITSM processes involved in delivering a solution, from biz requirements to live operation... does DevOps actually eliminate the need for any of these processes?"

No.

Activities don't go away. We do them differently.
Having said that, there are some huge transformations.

The tension between velocity and agility

skeptic — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 07:51:31 +0000

There is a tension between the higher levels of velocity which are achieved by extreme standardization and pursuing the manufacturing perfection; versus the agility and improvement - the ability to learn, experiment, and change - which comes from retaining flexibility and variance.

Don't go DevOps with a big bang

skeptic — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 21:38:04 +0000

When I see organisations move to agile ways of working using a big bang approach I always wonder to myself just how profound a grasp of Agile they have.

And when I hear analysts recommending such an approach it is hard to understand where they come from.

Project management was the worst thing that ever happened to IT

skeptic — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 20:22:09 +0000

When we impose fixed time, money, and deliverables, which is the classic project management formula, then the only variable available to a project manager is the quality of the outputs.

DevOps offers hope for the future of IT

skeptic — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 06:24:41 +0000

I was speaking with one of the leading thinkers in DevOps who had come back from the Gartner conference depressed by the lack of insight exhibited by those there who are supposedly the leaders of our industry, and contrasting it to the innovation and excitement of the DevOps Enterprise Summit.

Devops rediscovering service management

skeptic — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 20:17:38 +0000

[updated 15th Nov] There was a lot of "Ding!Dong! The wicked ITIL is dead!" in DevOps and Agile, but finally the DevOps world seems to be rediscovering the value of ITSM knowledge, culture, and capabilities (and vice versa: a visible increase in influence of DevOps on ITSM). This will take you a couple of hours to work through if you watch all the videos, but please do.

DevOps messes with your head - reprised

skeptic — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 09:51:14 +0000

Last year I wrote about how DevOps messes with your head, or as we say down here, it does yer head in.

In the interim I have been adding more examples to the presentation which I shared.

DevOps Configuration versus ITSM CMDB

skeptic — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 22:40:36 +0000

Devops configuration tools means something quite different to ITIL configuration tools (cmdb).

This blog first gathered its following by saying that cmdb is an unhealthy aspiration for nearly all organisations.

DevOps isn't a tool to be applied selectively

skeptic — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 04:48:48 +0000

Several times lately I've come across the idea that DevOps is a localised technique which can be used on one team or application, and not another. This isn't true. DevOps is a cultural transformation,a journey not a state or a tool. The primary goal of that transformation is to increase collaboration towards a common goal, to break down silos. A bi-modal model achieves the opposite.

DevOps Enterprise Summit: humane IT

skeptic — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 14:42:30 +0000

Returning from DevOps Enterprise Summit in London, I'm reflecting on the experience.

My one big takeaway is that IT is finally a people industry. The talk is of happiness, safety, empowerment. Hippies like me feel at home again. Gene's passion is "humane IT" and it shows.

Kill the CAB

skeptic — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 04:38:37 +0000

Requiring permission from a Change Advisory Board after a change is complete is absurd. A system has to be broken to need any discussion by that stage. Fix the system and kill the CAB. Its possible.

Change goes away

skeptic — Sun, 28 May 2017 04:52:50 +0000

What does IT operational production change management look like in a highly DevOps-driven organisation? It doesn't. It vanishes.