Many teams suffer from due to conflicting priorities. When today's priority one usurps yesterday's priority one, expensive context switching becomes a problem. Operations teams are especially hard hit by shifting priorities because of increased variability from supporting ongoing development of new projects while maintaining features & apps in production. Add in unplanned work and security issues and we have a battle between getting new features delivered or keeping production stable. Hence the dilemma DevOps is working to solve. Dominica will talk about how Dev and Ops teams can use use a Lean flow Kanban approach to limit work-in-progress and allocate capacity for the nature of the demand as a way to address and improve prioritization issues and context switching.

1. Handling Shifting Priorities using a
Lean Flow approach

2. Dominica
DeGrandis
Director,
Training
&
Coaching
Passionate
about
Continuous
improvement,
DevOps,
Kanban
and
behavior
change
Former
Configuration
Management
practitioner
Build
Engineer
&
Release
Manager
@dominicad

3. 1. What
is
DevOps
and
why
it
matters
2. Three
ways
to
handle
shifting
priorities
3. One
key
metric
for
prioritizing
@dominicad
Three things:

4. @dominicad

5. Pre
DevOps
state
of
affairs

6. Think
of
DevOps
as
a
container
of
prac8ces:
1.
Culture
2.
Automa8on
3.
Measurements
4.
Feedback
This
cross-­‐func8onal
aligned
view
is
helping
to
shiI
IT
from
a
cost
center
to
a
strategic
advantage.
@dominicad

7. To
Do
Doing
Done
Getting to done feels good
What
is
Devops?
why
it
maNers?
3
ways
to
handle
shiIing
priori8es
1
key
metric
for
priori8zing

8. To
Do
Doing
Done
And now - Three ways to handle
shifting priorities
What
is
Devops?
why
it
maNers?
3
ways
to
handle
shiIing
priori8es
1
key
metric
for
priori8zing

9. Poll results from 500+ people across 55 countries:
“What is main cause of conflicting priorities for
your team?”

10. Poll results from 500+ people across 55 countries:
“How does context switching impact your team?”

12. Puppet
Labs
2014
Devops
Report
“While
we
suspected
job
sa2sfac2on
impacted
organiza2onal
performance,
we
were
surprised
to
see
that
job
sa2sfac2on
was
the
#1
predictor
of
organiza2onal
performance.”
hNps://puppetlabs.com/sites/default/files/2014-­‐state-­‐of-­‐devops-­‐report.pdf

13. Organizational performance is dependent
on the alignment of teams.
Clear
priori8es
drive
coopera8on
Let’s
not
forget
that
the
intent
of
DevOps
is
to
improve
the
system
as
a
whole.
#KaizenDevOps

14. “Organiza2onal
health
will
one
day
surpass
all
other
disciplines
in
business
as
the
greatest
opportunity
for
improvement.”

15. Company
performance
Job
sa8sfac8on
Levels
of
trust
and
coopera8on
Tolerance
for
experimenta8on
Organizational Health Components
A
healthy
organiza<on
increases
the
happiness
factor
and
job
sa<sfac<on
at
work.

16. Dominica’s
Hypothesis
“Demand
increases
in
propor2on
to
the
ability
to
meet
the
demand.”

17. If everything is a priority one, nothing is a priority One
Every request cannot
be the top priority.
Hence the need to
limit your wip

18. kan·ban
känbän/かんばん(看
板)
noun, “signal card”
A kanban signal card is a visual
indicator of availability.
“The aim of kanban is to make
troubles come to the surface.”
-Taiichi Ohno

19. When a problem occurred, the board on the
assembly line lit up, work halted, and the issue was
immediately addressed by a supervisor at the source.
“Let the flow manage the processes,
and not let management manage the flow.”
Taiichi
Ohno

20. C
B
Portfolio Program
donedesign ready to
deliver
feedback
7
In work
Delayed
[idle for n days]
Blk
PZ
D
E
A
B A
F
build deliver
Displaced an
item now delayed
D
WZ
Project 1
Project 2
Project 3
E
12
JG
PB
B
CD
WZ
JG
Project 5
C
MN
committed
Project 4
C
B
B A
Dominica DeGrandis
@dominicad

21. ABribu<on
to
BernadeBe
Dairo
–
Canadian
Govt
agency
in
Toronto

23. Operations team work flow
ValidateDeliver ClosedDesign
Fires
Maintenance
Projects
Implement
3
9
2
Improve
CODB
Fire
Project
Improvement
Investigate
Unplanned
Unplanned
Exercise
to
try:
30
days
Priori8za8on
Policy?:

24. Operations team work flow
ValidateDeliver ClosedDesign
Fires
Maintenance
Projects
Implement
3
9
2
Improve
CODB
Fire
Project
Improvement
Investigate
Unplanned
Unplanned
Recruiting

25. Opera8ons
Workflow
ValidateDeliver ClosedDesign
Fires
Maintenance
Projects
Items in
backlog
remain
uncommitted
and un-
prioritized
until there is
capacity to
absorb them.
Implement
Backlog
3
9
2
Improvement
CODB
Fire
Project
Improvement
Investigate

26. Removing project work allows team to
focus on maintenance and improvements
ValidateDeliver ClosedDesign
Fires
Maintenance
Projects
Items in
backlog
remain
uncommitted
and un-
prioritized
until there is
capacity to
absorb them.
Implement
Backlog
3
9
2
Improvement
CODB
Fire
Project
Improvement
Investigate
Embed
Opera8onal
work
upstream
or
insist
that
product
development
teams
deliver
and
support
their
product?

27. Product development team board
Let’s
not
forget
support
work
Autonomy
w/o
authority
is
a
messy
business.

28. Product development team board
.
Consider impacts to others.
When people cooperate, they need less
meetings, less rules, less resources.

29. Ops team board

30. Por]olio
Program
Opera8ons
team
Product
Dev
team

31. To
Do
Doing
Done
One key metric for prioritizing
What
is
Devops?
why
it
maNers?
3
ways
to
handle
shiIing
priori8es
1
key
metric
for
priori8zing

32. Risks & Issues board – a 3rd type of Kanban

33. Risks & Issues board – Looking at cost of delay

34. Risks & Issues board with measure of Org health
Trust & Cooperation
Kiwi Dial

35. Risks & Issues board with measure of Org health
Trust & Cooperation
Kiwi Dial

36. To
Do
Doing
Done
How will your organization prioritize
the list of things to do?
@dominicad

37. To
Do
Doing
Done
A short prioritized list of things to
do is a beautiful thing.
What
is
Devops?
why
it
maNers?
3
ways
to
handle
shiIing
priori8es
1
key
metric
for
priori8zing
@dominicad

38. Improve collaboratively with Lean Flow
@dominicad