The Shift Lift scope has broadened during the Age of the Customer. As well as testing it brings other activities forward in the software development lifecycle to enable faster release cycles. For larger enterprises this can be a big cultural challenge. In this talk we will explore the new Shift Left and how you can get business stakeholder buy-in to set up your team for success and gain a huge return on the upfront investment.
3. Gerald Bachlmayr
Technical Principal
● Background:
○ Software Engineering
○ Work experience in EUR, NZ & AUS
○ Industries: financial services, education,
transport, government and others
● Focus Areas:
○ Transformations towards Cloud Native
○ Everything AWS - AWS Ambassador
○ Automation is part of the customer journey
3
bachlmayr
Intro Why How What Q & A
5. Ford, RCA, GE, Boeing,
P&G, Sony
Shift Left - Why Do We Want It?
55
Intro Why How What Q & A
Age of
Manufacturing
Mass manufacturing
boost industrial
powerhouses
Age of Distribution
Global connections
made distribution easy
Age of Information
Connectivity benefits
those who control
information
Age of the Customer
Empowered buyers
demand customer focus
Toyota, UPC, K-Mart,
CSX
Microsoft, Google,
Deli, Capital one
Apple, Amazon,
Spotify, Netflix
1900-1960 1960-1990 1990-2010 2010 - ?
6. DevOps
Shift Left - An Evolution of Scope
66
2001 2020
Broader coverage
(cross-functional
teams)
Data
Democratisation
CI/CD embeds Unit
Tests and Integration
Tests
DevSecOps
Intro Why How What Q & A
7. Shift Left - Previous Scope: Focus on Testing
77
How it works:
● Move activities in the delivery cycle to the left
● Link testing to requirements
● Start testing early
Develop Build Test Measure LearnValidate
Result:
● Detect defects early
● Measure it
● Learn → improve
Intro Why How What Q & A
8. Shift Left - Scope: Age of the Customer
88
Measure LearnDevelop Build Test Release Deploy OperateValidateIdeateNeed
Result:
● Streamlined business value generation
● Reduce frictions
● End-to-end approach:
○ Feedback
○ Measure it
○ Continuous improvement approach
Intro Why How What Q & A
10. Shift Left - The Big Buzzword Bingo
1010
Measure LearnDevelop Build TestValidate Release Deploy OperateIdeateNeed
Design Thinking
Design Sprint DevOps
DevSecOps
SRE - SLI
FinOps
Governance
Automation
MLOps
NoOps Continuous
Improvement
Working Backwards
from the Customer
SRE - SLA SRE - SLO
Intro Why How What Q & A
11. How to get Started - Assess the Current State
1111
1. Assess current end-to-end-process:
● Bottlenecks
● Team hand-offs
● Collect data points
2. Identify strategy (mis)alignments:
● Did we get closer?
● Business flexibility
3. Identify Pain points across teams:
● Internal / external customers
● Operations, Security, Procurement
● Synergies
Intro Why How What Q & A
12. How to get Started - Value Stream Mapping
1212
The creation of a holistic view of how work flows through entire systems
Approve
funding
Team 1
Define
requirements
Team 2
Develop
feature
Team 3
Test feature
Team 4
Release
feature
Team 5
Users
notified
LT = 3 days
PT = 15 min
LT = 2 days
PT = 0.5days
LT = 2
weeks
PT = 1day
LT = 1 day
PT = 3 hrs
LT = 1 day
PT = 30 min
Total lead time = 20 day
Total process time =
15.75 hr
CUSTOMER
What is the total? %
Business
Idea
Intro Why How What Q & A
13. How to get Started - Cross-functional Team
1313
1. Discovery Squad:
● Cross-functional team
● Full-time - focus on collaboration
● Pull model
2. Prepare your customer journey:
● Visualise your process
● Guide customers through process
● Question need of established tasks
3. Test your customer experience:
● Dry-run
● Collect feedback
● Measure & compare
Alvin
Security
Architect
Application
Owner
Software
Engineer
Technical
Lead
Data
Engineer
Intro Why How What Q & A
14. Challenges & How to Tackle Them
1414
Resource availability & new team:
● Top to bottom buy-in → escalation levels
● New cross-functional team → strong tech lead
● Agile coaching
Not understanding the WHY:
● Clear picture of current & target state
● Anchor tasks to that picture
● Need for improvements
Is this worth my investment?
● Customer feedback
● Metrics
● Opportunities → ROI
Intro Why How What Q & A
16. 16
A Shift Left Example - Design Sprint
A Design Sprint is a 4-day structured process for rapidly solving big challenges, creating new products, or
improving existing ones. It compresses potentially months of work into a few days.
ThursdayWednesdayTuesday
WHOLE GROUP
Monday
WHOLE GROUP
Sketch
Solutions
Map the
System
Realistic
Prototype
Test with
5 Users!
Draw a
Storyboard
Decide on
a Solution
Intro Why How What Q & A
17. Design Sprint - Example
1717
Current State:
● Sailboat exercise
Opportunities:
● How Might We
● Mapping:
○ Actors
○ Business domains or areas
○ Tools
Actionable outcome:
● Backlog
● Metrics
GOAL/VISION
WIND
Helping team
ANCHOR
Delaying team
ROCKS
RISKS
Intro Why How What Q & A
18. Get Ready for the Dry Run
1818
Target Process:
● Input
● People, Process, Technology
● Output
Discovery Squad - Team structure:
● Technical Lead
● Application engineer
● Data engineer
● Security engineer
Cross-functional SME:
● Validate outputs - e.g. risk assessment
Intro Why How What Q & A
19. The Dry Run
1919
Guiding Principles:
● Dedicated team
● Collaboration is key
● Manage expectations
During the Dry Run:
● Continuous feedback
● Customer survey
● Capture metrics
○ Duration for each phase
○ Elapsed time
● Update backlog
Be pragmatic:
● Tools
● Process can change
● Update your backlog
Intro Why How What Q & A
20. Summary
2020
People:
● Discovery Squad
● Top down buy-in
Process:
● End-to-end
● Anchor to the ‘why’
Tools:
● Pragmatic approach
● Support the holistic view
→ Continuous improvement
Intro Why How What Q & A
22. Let’s Start the Conversation…
contino.io continohq contino
London
london@contino.io
New York
newyork@contino.io
Melbourne
melbourne@contino.io
Sydney
sydney@contino.io
Atlanta
atlanta@contino.io
Editor's Notes
Hi everyone and welcome to “Embedding a Shift Left Culture in your Enterprise”.
Before we get started ….
Age of Customer
------- 1 minute talk
Hi - Gerald - TP @ Contino
Focus on helping enterprises with customer journey
See them struggling - adopt agile ways of working across the board.
Age of Customer:
Quality
Security & regulatory
Now - continuously new features
→ consider a lot at the beginning of the customer journey
Get ready for a) new SL looks like b) how to embed it in your enterprise c) what you need to do to turn it into a success story.
----Hi, I am Gerald and I work as a Technical Principal Consultant at Contino.
In my role I focus on helping large enterprises on their customer journey.
Too often can I see organisations struggling to adopt an agile way of working that enables a fast delivery.
And because of that those organisations are wasting their time and money.
We are now living in the Age of Customer. This means you organisation needs to focus on delivering to the customer
The right quality
While meeting security and regulatory needs
And on top of that - the customer wants it now and that includes CONTINUOUSLY NEW features and improvement
That means all required activities need to be considered at the beginning of your customer value chain:
That includes testing,
That includes security
That includes procurement
That includes data governance
And many more aspects
Do you think this is possible without moving everything to the Left?
I don’t
And this is why we will be talking about the New Shift Left and How you to embed it in your Enterprise.
Get ready and join use for an awesome series of presentations.
I want to go through what you can expect during the next 20 minutes
We will start with ...
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1-QlatpkOC2OOc8jLaFYQEWvvHhtvLgUK
Minute: 9:08
Build a customer centric environment
Massive change how the power shifts
120 years ago - manifacturing company had the power becasue they were selling in the domestic market, not much competition - people were rushing to buy
Distro: some people might have been already around.
Manifacturing - shifting from domestic markets.
NZ - shift from domestic market to global - second hand car market - markets were open - trriffs were dropped - could buy a car for 1 or 2k
Japan - said if you have a car older than 7 years old - you have to sell it -
All 7 year old cars were sent to NZ - and sold at car auctions - because distributers had all the power
Information:
Companies having the data were in power - google, etc.
Amazon last one of the big ones to entry
Look at how they sold products and access new market → used that info to turn it into a customer experience
Work out customer experience
→ has shifted again
Customers:Want -
Today - the customer has the power
Who do you buy from - not always rational -
Might be:
Well sought after - follow up after a purchase
Good recommendation
Great usability
Zoom in/out feature on a cataloge
Timeline - testing:
2001 - First mentionings in 2001 - Shift-Left Testing
2005 - CI/CD embeds Unit Tests and Integration Tests
Reference to Test Pyramid - Test Types
2015-2018 More focus on Security Testing
2018 - Realising - if we focus on the cycle only we are missing out on big opportunities
2020 - we know more
TODO Front-door diagram
Shift Left promises are customer focused:
Quick time to market
More releases
Streamlined delivery
Quality insurance
All of the above give us an advantage in a competitive market
2001 - First mentionings in 2001 - Shift-Left Testing
2005 - CI/CD embeds Unit Tests and Integration Tests
Reference to Test Pyramid - Test Types
2015-2018 More focus on Security Testing
2018 - Realising - if we focus on the cycle only we are missing out on big opportunities
2020 - we know more
7min
Shift Left promises are customer focused:
Quick time to market
More releases
Streamlined delivery
Quality insurance
All of the above give us an advantage in a competitive market
However - does not cover the entire bigger picture
Shift Left promises are customer focused:
Quick time to market
More releases
Streamlined delivery
Quality insurance
All of the above give us an advantage in a competitive market
5 minutes
The creativity is bottomless - the sky is the limit:
DevSecOps
FinOps
Governance Automation
MLOps
Continuous Improvement
DevTestOps
Shift Left is the New Shift Center
SaasOps
But how do we get any of those promised benefits?
TODO: Conways Law
Bottlenecks - resources or people need to wait for access to a system so they can initiate the process
Hand-offs - waiting time.
Key principles behind the framework are:
Efficiency:
provides a visual storyboard view of how work progresses from a request of some sort to fulfilling that request
Customer Needs:
Places the customer in a central position surrounded by a system relating to delivering customer value
Holistic:
It considers and accounts for all people, process and technology elements of this transformation
Leadership:
Provides means to define strategic improvements to the workflow
Perspective:
Focuses on the macro picture reducing the inclination to jump into the weeds and design micro-level improvements before entire work systems
Operating:
Shift Left continues
Observability is code
Measure it → metrics
Shift Left promises are customer focused:
Quick time to market
More releases
Streamlined delivery
Quality insurance
All of the above give us an advantage in a competitive market
Governance:
FinOps
GuardRails
Again: everything is code
Measure it
Continuous Improvement - Feedback Loop
Metrics
Customer survey
Team feedback - retro
Cross-functional disciplines
Data governance
Compliance, Procurement
Operations - e.g. SRE team
Legal - depending on industry
Pick 3-5 test applications:
Low to medium complexity
Measure it → metrics
Continuous Improvement - Feedback Loop
Metrics are your friend
Governance:
Top-down buy-in
Buttom up delivery
Feedback loops:
Metrics
Retros
Collaborate:
Full visibility
Allocate
Cross-functional disciplines
Data governance
Compliance, Procurement
Operations - e.g. SRE team
Legal - depending on industry
Pick 3-5 test applications:
Low to medium complexity
Measure it → metrics
Continuous Improvement - Feedback Loop
Metrics are your friend
Shift Left promises are customer focused:
Quick time to market
More releases
Streamlined delivery
Quality insurance
All of the above give us an advantage in a competitive market
Shift Left promises are customer focused:
Quick time to market
More releases
Streamlined delivery
Quality insurance
All of the above give us an advantage in a competitive market