This document discusses transformations towards agile and DevOps. It notes that 85% of transformations fail and takes 4-5 years on average. Rather than focusing on new processes or tools, transformations should focus on achieving business goals through continuous improvement, inspecting and adapting. High-performing organizations are measured by metrics like lead time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, and mean time to recover. These metrics correlate with better organizational performance. Transformations should focus on developing 24 key capabilities across areas like lean product management, lean development, continuous delivery, and culture. These capabilities are interlinked and improving one can improve others and overall performance. The document emphasizes that transformations are continuous improvements, not projects, with a focus on rapidly getting to

1. Capabilities as
enabler for
Agility and DevOps
wemanity
@nelisboucke
@matteo_pierro

2. The hard truths about transformations!
• Investements
Source: https://www.thoughtworks.com/perspectives/edition3-transformation-article

3. The hard truths about transformations!
85% of transformations fail
source: https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/12/04/digital-transformation-takes-around-four-years-and-85-them-fail-says-ibm
IBM study
IDG research
source: https://www.insightcdct.com/Transform

4. Why?

5. Agile Transformation
Push a new Process
(Framework)
DevOps
Transformation
Push new Tools
Transform to transform
4 to 5 years of

6. What some seem to forget!

7. Agile Transformation
Better business
outcome
DevOps
Transformation
Achieve business goals
• Profitability
• Productivity
• Market Share
?

8. Agile Transformation
Better business
outcome
DevOps
Transformation
Achieve business goals
Inspect & Adapt

9. How?

10. How: two key learnings
• Set of metrics correlate with organisational performance
• market share, profitability and productivity
• 24 key capabilities that drive the metrics and organisational
performance

11. Software Delivery Performance Metrics
•Lead Time
•Deployment Frequency
•Mean Time To Recover (MTTR)
•Change Failure Rate

12. Lead Time

13. Lead Time
CVS
Push

14. Lead Time
Build
CVS
Push

15. Lead Time
Build Deploy
CVS
Push

16. Lead Time
Lead Time
Build Deploy
CVS
Push

17. Deploy frequency
Deploy
Timeline of 4 days

18. Deploy frequency
Deploy
3 deploys/day

19. Deploy frequency
Deploy
3 deploys/day

20. Deploy frequency
Deploy
more than 2 deploys/day

21. Deploy frequency
Deploy
2 deploys/day

22. Change Failure Rate

23. Change Failure Rate
CVS
Push

24. Change Failure Rate
Build
CVS
Push

25. Change Failure Rate
Build
CVS
Push
Deploy

26. Change Failure Rate
Build
CVS
Push
Deploy
WTF?!?!

27. Mean Time To Recover (MTTR)
Build
CVS
Push
Defect!
Deploy
WTF?!?!

28. Mean Time To Recover (MTTR)
Build
CVS
Fix
Defect!
Deploy
WTF?!?!

29. Mean Time To Recover (MTTR)
Build
CVS
Fix
Defect!
Deploy
WTF?!?!

30. Mean Time To Recover (MTTR)
Build
CVS
Fix
Defect!
Deploy
WTF?!?!

31. Mean Time To Recover (MTTR)
Build
CVS
Fix
Defect!
Deploy
It’s Amazing

32. Benchmarks
High Performers Medium Performers Low Performers
Lead Time Less than one hour
Between one week and
one month
Several months
Deployment Frequency
On Demand
(Multiple deploys per day)
Between once per week
and once per month
Between once per month
and once per quarter
MTTR Less than one hour
Less than one
day
Between one day and
one week
Change Failure Rate 0 - 15% 0 - 15% 31 - 45%

33. Remember
• SDP Metrics correlate directly with organisational performance
• No tradeoff between quality and speed: successful companies score
better on all metrics

34. Which are the drivers
of the
high performers?

35. Improve through capabilities
Software Delivery
Performance
Lean Product
Management (5)
Lean
Development (4)
Continuous
Delivery (10)
Cultural
Capabilities (5)

36. How are they linked?
Limit Work in Progress

37. How are they linked?
Limit Work in Progress
Work in Small Batches

38. How are they linked?
Limit Work in Progress
Trunk Based
Development
Work in Small Batches

39. How are they linked?
Visual Management

40. How are they linked?
Visual Management
Make Flow of Work
Visible

41. How are they linked?
Visual Management
Continuous Integration
Make Flow of Work
Visible

42. How are they linked?
Feedback from
Production

43. How are they linked?
Feedback from
Production
Gather & Implement
Customer Feedback

44. How are they linked?
Feedback from
Production
Monitoring
Gather & Implement
Customer Feedback

45. How are they linked?
Lightweight change
approval

46. How are they linked?
Lightweight change
approval
Team experimentation

47. How are they linked?
Lightweight change
approval
Deployment Automation
Team experimentation
Shift Left on SecurityTest Automation

48. 24 Capabilities
source: https://devops-research.com/assets/transformation_practices.pdf

49. Conclusions
•Transformation is not a project.
-Focus on continuous improvement to achieve business goals.
•Can you go to production quickly and gather feedback?
•Focus on Capabilities not on Process and Tools
•Technical Capabilities are a crucial part

50. Additional Material