How DevOps is Transforming IT and Academia

How DevOps is
Transforming IT, and
What it Can Do for
Academia
Nicole Forsgren, PhD
Director, Organizational Performance and Analytics, Chef
Research Affiliate, Clemson University

@nicolefv
Outline
Listening to industry: the good and the bad
The promise of DevOps
● What it is -- and isn’t
● What it is doing for the industry
● What we’ve found
● What it can do for academia

@nicolefv
Listening to industry
Whenever I have industry peers come to me, I warn them:
Faculty own curriculum! If we listen too closely, our students
will end up learning COBOL!
● We know what is best for them
● We will focus on fundamentals
Industry laughs at the COBOL example…

@nicolefv

@nicolefv
So we’re back to the beginning!
Faculty own curriculum! If we listen too closely, our students
will end up learning COBOL!
● We know what is best for them
● We will focus on fundamentals
… But which fundamentals?

@nicolefv
Which Fundamentals… ?
What we learned?
HBR? That will point you to Agile.
● We KNOW they’re overly conservative
DICE salary survey? That points to technologies, and runs the
risk of COBOL

@nicolefv
What is DevOps?
A cultural and professional movement, focused on how we
build and operate high velocity organizations, born from the
experiences of its practitioners. -- Adam Jacob

@nicolefv
What is DevOps?
● People -- and not just technical people
● Mindset

@nicolefv
What is DevOps?
● Technology
● Process and management
● Culture

@nicolefv
What is DevOps?
● Lived experience
● Different in every team/org

@nicolefv
What is DevOps NOT?
● Agile (“capital A Agile”)
● Technology (though tech is very important)
● Prescriptive processes
● One size fits all
● EASY
But it most definitely is WORTH IT

@nicolefv
What is DevOps doing for industry?
“IT doesn’t matter”
-- Nicholas Carr (2003)

@nicolefv
IT Performance:
● Throughput/ Speed
○ lead time for changes
○ release frequency
● Reliability/ Stability
○ time to restore service
○ change fail rate

@nicolefv
Firms with high-performing IT organizations were twice as
likely to exceed their profitability, market share and
productivity goals.
http://bit.ly/2014-devops-report/
http://bit.ly/2015-devops-report/

@nicolefv
High performing IT organizations
More agile

@nicolefv
More agile What does this mean for:
New content delivery
Value/savings around A/B testing
Value around speed to market
Compliance/regulatory
Security

@nicolefv
More reliable What does this mean for:
Value/savings around reliability
Value/savings around uptime
Compliance
Security
Reputation around uptime,
compliance, and security

@nicolefv
Evaluating well-designed and
executed experiments that
were designed to improve a
key metric, only about 1/3
were successful at improving
the key metric!

@nicolefv
More reliable

@nicolefv
DevOps promises – and delivers
More throughput
More stability
In tandem. Without the tradeoffs that
ITIL calls for.

@nicolefv
Culture is also a key piece

@nicolefv
Google also found this

@nicolefv
Intuit
“By installing a rampant innovation culture, we
performed 165 experiments in the peak three
months of tax season.
Our business result? Conversion rate of the website
is up 50%. Employee result? Everyone loves it,
because their new ideas can make it to market. ”
- Scott Cook, Intuit founder

@nicolefv
Amazon
“I think building this culture is the key to innovation.
Creativity must flow from everywhere. Whether
you are a summer intern or the CTO, any good
idea must be able to seek an objective test,
preferably a test that exposes the idea to real
customers. Everyone must be able to experiment,
learn, and iterate.”
- Greg Linden

@nicolefv

@nicolefv
DevOps is transforming technology. Imagine the impact on
Minnesota’s economy:
● Major employers: United Healthcare, Robert Half, Wells
Fargo, Accenture, TEKSystems, US Bank…
○ Healthcare and Finance are areas embracing DevOps
● InfoSec is an emerging field-- and becoming a major
player in DevOps
● DevOps skills command top incomes (source: DICE.com)
Source for MN employment info: www.realtimetalentmn.org, IT 2015 Report

@nicolefv
What can DevOps do for us?
Let’s take some cues from the movement itself:
● It’s not just technology
○ Updating our LMS won’t solve it.
● It’s not just process
○ Making all of our lectures a flipped classroom won’t
solve it.
● Culture is really important. Foundationally important.
○ Open communication - across silos - is important
● Embrace the blameless post-mortem
○ Default to a position of trust

@nicolefv
What can DevOps do for us?
Curriculum development is HARD and takes a lot of time.
● Sharing is a key aspect of this -- use your academic
networks and your industry contacts. They are willing
and eager to help.
● Embrace the MVP (minimum viable product) and iterate.
● Every team or organization’s DevOps will look different
-- so will yours.

@nicolefv
We’ve talked about
Listening to industry: the good and the bad
● What it is -- and isn’t
● What it is doing for the industry
● What we’ve found
● What it can do for academia
It’s an exciting time!

@nicolefv
Thank you
nicolefv.com

How DevOps is Transforming IT and Academia

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