As a biomimicry expert I believe in changing in an organic way by empowering people. In DevOps we talk a lot about culture and how to create a culture of continuous improvement. All to serve our clients best and to become an agile and sustainable organization. Nature is agile and sustainable for 3.8 billion years. In this talk I will take nature as our DevOps teacher. Where do we find DevOps in nature and how can she teach us to become more DevOps. I will use some great DevOps examples of e.g. ants and bees, but there is more we can learn. I will also provide some examples where I used nature as source of inspiration to lead a DevOps transition.

1. DevOps by nature

2. DevOps enthusiastic
Owner of NEEEDLE
Father of 2
Sport fanatic
@MARKHEISTEK
MARK@NEEEDLE.NL
HTTPS://NL.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/MARKHEISTEK
+31 (0)6 24806222
Mark Heistek

3. NATURE’S
PRINCIPLES
vs
DEVOPS
PRINCIPLES
FLOW
FEEDBACK
LEARNING
INTEGRATION

4. Biomimicry

5. Nature as a
model

11. Nature as a
yardstick

12. Golden Ratio

13. Golden Ratio

14. Golden Ratio

15. Golden Ratio

16. Nature by numbers
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGeOWYOFoA

17. Nature as a
mentor

18. Swarm
intelligence

19. The advantages of swarm intelligence
Flexibility
The group can quickly adapt to a changing environment
Robustness
Even when one or more individuals fail, the group can still perform
its tasks
Self Organization
The group needs relatively little supervision or top-down control

20. “Perhaps the most powerful insight from
swarm intelligence is that complex
collective behavior can emerge from
individuals following simple rules”

21. Simple Rules Rule

22. 1. Always align IT activities with the business
(Keep the company’s overall goals in mind
2. Use good economic judgement (spend the
money like it is your own)
3. Be flexible (don’t box yourself into one
thought pattern)
4. Have empathy for others in the
organization (When people ask you to do
something you don’t agree with, put
yourself in their shoes)

23. Foraging for Solutions

27. The Task of Dividing Tasks

29. T

30. Swarm intelligence kilobots
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDsmbwOrHJs

31. DevOps is
simple

32. It all starts with systems thinking

33. CAMS

34. The three ways
FLOW
FEEDBACK
LEARNING
INTEGRATION

35. Sometimes we don’t make it simple

36. NATURE’S
PRINCIPLES

37. The 5E CYCLE

38. EXPLORE

39. EVALUATE

40. ENVISION

41. EMPOWER

42. EXECUTE

44. DevOps by
nature at
Dutch Railways
(a case study)

45. We created a vision and boundaries (WHAT)

46. Facilitated the teams to fill in the HOW

47. So what happened
NOTHING

48. Wait for it….

49. The takeaways

50. • Simple rules rule
• Trust yourself
• Keep DevOps simple
• Look around you and learn from things
that are there for centuries

51. Enjoy your
DevOpsy day
@MARKHEISTEK
MARK@NEEEDLE.NL
HTTPS://NL.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/MARKHEISTEK
+31 (0)6 24806222