This document summarizes a talk given at DevOpsDays Down Under in 2013. The speaker discusses how the skills required for system administration and development have converged over time, requiring professionals to be well-versed in both. He argues there is no talent shortage, only a lack of vision and courage to build high-performing, learning organizations where culture and individuals are cultivated. The key is aligning incentives and behaviors to encourage continuous learning and change through empowerment, feedback, and living organizational values.

1. DEVOPSDAYS DOWN UNDER
there is no talent shortage
Andrew Clay Shafer @littleidea
12 JULY 2013

2. start with history

3. you can either easily manage
complex systems at scale...
or you can’t...

5. developer sysadmin
3 people
2008

6. developer sysadmin
more people
2013

7. confession:
I was never particularly
passionate about operations

8. confession:
I was never particularly
passionate about
development

9. I was paid to develop

10. I am easily impassioned

11. I became fascinated with the
dynamics of high performance

12. fascinated with the dynamics of
high performing organizations

13. and the individuals that
comprise them

14. a master

15. mentally and physically unprepared for reality

16. the game had changed

17. In the 1960s, GM averaged a 48.3% share of the U.S. car and truck market

18. the game had changed

19. the game has changed

20. the game has changed
10 deploys a day 50 deploys per day
infrastructure is code
continuous this, that, and the other
all about culture
tools really do matter
all about the business
what about ITIL?
understand the flow of work
antifragile
quit your job feedback and visibility
measure everything

21. the game has changed

22. the game has changed
What should we DO?
Who should we HIRE?
devops isn’t working!
We can never do that!
WE CAN’T FIND TALENT!

23. the game has changed
A WAR FOR
TALENT!

24. fail

25. the game has changed
What makes
the difference?

26. devops doesn’t work
people do

27. a word about jobs
stone cutting doesn’t work?

28. Three Stone Cutters
“I’m paid to cut stones”
“I use special techniques to shape stones in
an exceptional way, here let me show you.”

30. I build cathedrals.
a sense of purpose

31. we reduce people to their job
dev ops

32. we talk about culture
like culture is a checkbox on a list

33. we talk about culture
then abstract everything into boxes with labels

34. we talk about culture
then hire based on a laundry list of buzzwords

35. we talk around culture
‘commitment’
‘cultural fit’ ‘motivation’
‘values’ ‘vision’

36. do we cultivate culture?

37. do we cultivate individuals?
this is the original meaning

39. incentives and behaviors
the games people play

40. game theory
the study of mathematical models of conflict and
cooperation between intelligent rational decisions makers

41. rational
chooses to maximizing utility function

42. Nash Equilibrium
no players have anything to gain by changing
only their own strategy unilaterally.

43. Pareto Efficiency
an allocation of resources in which it is
impossible to make any one individual better off
without making at least one individual worse off

44. Pareto Inefficient Nash Equilibrium
possible to make an individual better off
without making any individual worse off
no one will change their strategy

45. Pareto Inefficient Nash Equilibrium
until the game changes

46. the game has changed
software is eating the world

47. remember dvds?

48. we are in the middle of inventing our culture.
--Patty McCord
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3e1lnixKBM

49. The real company values, as opposed to
the nice sounding values, are shown by
who gets rewarded, promoted, or let go.
--Patty McCord

50. real values determine incentives
incentives determine behaviors
rational agents maximizing utility functions

51. you are either building a
software business...
or you will be losing to
someone who is...

52. everyone is starting to
understand this

53. you are either building a
learning organization...
or you will be losing to
someone who is...

54. organizational learning
“a dynamic process of creation, acquisition and integration of
knowledge aimed at the development of resources and
capabilities that contribute to better organizational performance”
“support the acquisition of information, the distribution and
sharing of learning, and that reinforce and support continuous
learning and its application to organizational improvement”
“Thus, organizational learning culture is under constant
construction, moving along an infinite continuum towards a
harmonious learning environment”

56. 7 dimensions of
Organizational Learning

57. continuous learning
represents an organization’s effort to create continuous
learning opportunities for ALL of its members

58. inquiry and dialogue
an organization’s effort in creating a culture of
questioning, feedback, and experimentation

59. team learning
spirit of collaboration and the collaborative skills that
undergird the effective use of teams

60. empowerment
encourage feedback and action to address the gap between
the current status and the vision regardless of rank

61. embedded system
establish systems to capture and share learning

62. system connection
actions to connect the organization to its
internal and external environment

63. strategic leadership
the extent to which leaders act strategically using
learning to create change

64. In my organization?
dimensions of the learning organization questionnaire (DLOQ)
http://www.partnersforlearning.com/questions2.asp
Questions
Watkins and Marsick

65. In my organization, people openly discuss
mistakes in order to learn from them

66. In my organization, people identify skills
they need for future work tasks

67. In my organization, people are encouraged
to ask “why” regardless of rank

68. In my organization, teams/groups
focus both on the group’s task and on
how well the group is working

69. My organization builds alignment of visions
across different levels and work groups

70. In my organization!
Statements
not only exist in spirit, but are incentivized!
if they are not incentivized, they won’t exist
rational agents maximizing utility functions

72. stop conflating learning with academics

73. stop conflating learning with training

74. stop conflating learning with education

75. there is no ‘school’

76. the organizations that build the
future become ‘graduate studies’ in
the skills they require to do so

77. The learning organization is one that
has the capacity to integrate people
and structures in order to move toward
continuous learning and change.

78. learning cannot be something that
happens outside of the process
learning is the point of the process

79. continuous
learning

80. a learning organization not only has the
advantage of the increasing capacity of
cultivated talents, but has advantages
attracting and retaining talent

82. there is no talent shortage
there is a shortage of vision and courage

83. you are not your job

84. I build the future

85. build the future

86. we build the future
together

87. the game has changed

88. come at me
@littleidea

89. ✤ Netflix - culture unleashed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3e1lnixKBM
✤ dimensions of the learning organization questionnaire (DLOQ) - http://www.partnersforlearning.com/questions2.asp
✤ Maverick - the worlds most unusual workplace - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maverick_(book)
✤ The Fifth Discipline - The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Discipline
✤ Organizational Learning Culture's Influence on Job Satisfaction... - http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/53624/1/Hsu_umn_0130E_10474.pdf
✤ Yang, B. (2003). Identifying valid and reliable measures for dimensions of a learning culture. Advances in Developing Human Resources
✤ Fred Ettish - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5maknndsas
Resources