The document discusses various ways that DevOps initiatives can go wrong if not properly implemented, such as abandoning quality controls without establishing new ones, overfocusing on tools rather than culture, and ignoring signs of burnout. It provides counterpoints and "antidotes" to help avoid these pitfalls, such as establishing peer reviews, prioritizing individuals and interactions, and emphasizing rest and balance.

1. How NOT to do Devops....
Confessions of a
“thought leader”
Tuesday, 1 October 13

2. How NOT to do Devops....
Confessions of a
“thought leader”
Tuesday, 1 October 13

3. Your quest is to find the Warlock's treasure, hidden
deep within a dungeon populated with a multitude of
terrifying monsters. You will need courage,
determination and a fair amount of luck if you are to
survive all the traps and battles, and reach your goal
— the innermost chambers of the Warlock's domain.
Two dice, a pencil and an eraser are all you need to
make your journey. YOU decide which route to
follow, which dangers to risk and which monsters to
fight.
Tuesday, 1 October 13

4. Your quest is to find the Warlock's treasure, hidden
deep within a dungeon populated with a multitude of
terrifying monsters. You will need courage,
determination and a fair amount of luck if you are to
survive all the traps and battles, and reach your goal
— the innermost chambers of the Warlock's domain.
Two dice, a pencil and an eraser are all you need to
make your journey. YOU decide which route to
follow, which dangers to risk and which monsters to
fight.
Tuesday, 1 October 13

5. Tuesday, 1 October 13

6. STEPHEN NELSON-SMITH
Tuesday, 1 October 13

7. Sysadmin
Writer
Automated Infrastructure Expert
Buddhist
Yogi
Tuesday, 1 October 13

8. Tuesday, 1 October 13

9. ABANDON THE PATH TO
QUALITY
Tuesday, 1 October 13

10. Quality
Meeting or exceeding the expectations
of the consumer or customer.
Tuesday, 1 October 13

11. “Many so-called Agile adoptions, being
merely the thinnest of veneers, rather
than a change of any substance, can lead
to a situation where formal controls - i.e.
the conventional path to quality - is
abandoned without the adoption of any
viable alternative path to quality.”
Bob Marshall
Tuesday, 1 October 13

12. “Untested and unreviewed
infrastructrure code is akin to running
the nation’s railways on untested and
incompatible track, points and signals.”
Stephen Nelson-Smith
Tuesday, 1 October 13

13. ANTIDOTE
Intrinsic motivation
Mastery
Non-violence
Autonomy
Tuesday, 1 October 13

14. “What is at the heart of the
transformation? It's the release of…
intrinsic motivation…By creating…
happiness in work…pride in learning”
W. Edwards Deming
Tuesday, 1 October 13

15. “Mastery resists definition yet can be instantly
recognized. It comes in many varieties, yet follows
certain unchanging laws. It brings rich rewards, yet
it is not really a goal but rather a journey.”
Tuesday, 1 October 13

16. Instruction - find the right guide to take you on
your journey
Practice -the joy of learning and improving through
repetition
Surrender to Your Passion - love it or leave it
Intentionality - visualize the outcome
Go to the Edge - go a little bit further than we’ve
gone before and maybe even further than anyone
else has gone
Tuesday, 1 October 13

17. “If you want people to do a good job, give
them a good job to do.”
Frederick Herzberg
Tuesday, 1 October 13

18. "The greatest reward for a job well done
is the opportunity to do more work."
Dr. Jonas Salk
Tuesday, 1 October 13

19. Get what really matters without using guilt,
humiliation, shame, blame, coercion, or threats.
Tuesday, 1 October 13

20. 1. Observation
2. Feeling
3. Needs
4. Request
EMPATHY
Tuesday, 1 October 13

21. Henrick Knikberg, Culture > Process, Paris Scrum Gathering, 2013
Tuesday, 1 October 13

22. Practically:
Pair
TDD / BDD
Peer review
Tuesday, 1 October 13

23. Tuesday, 1 October 13

24. THERE’S NO VALUE ON
THE RIGHT
Tuesday, 1 October 13

25. We have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the
right, we value the items on the left more.
Tuesday, 1 October 13

26. Manifesto for Devops Ineptitude
We are uncovering better ways of misunderstanding and misusing
“agile” principles by doing it wrong and helping others do it wrong.
Through this work we have come to conclude that we should have:
Manadatory devops tools to enforce individuals and interactions.
Infrastructure as code, with little or no documentation.
Naive trust supported by hand-wavey verbal agreements.
No plan at all, because we’re “lean” and “agile” hipsters.
That is, while there is wisdom in the Agile Manifesto, we failed to
understand its essence and implemented a botched mockery in its
place.
Tuesday, 1 October 13

27. ANTIDOTE:
BDD / TDD
Document why not how
Real options
Deliberate discovery
Tuesday, 1 October 13

28. Tuesday, 1 October 13

29. Tuesday, 1 October 13

30. IGNORE THE SIGNS OF
BURNOUT
Tuesday, 1 October 13

31. Karōshi (過労死)
Death by overwork
Tuesday, 1 October 13

32. Extreme long hours that interfere with
normal rest patterns
Night work that interferes with normal rest
patterns
Working without holidays or breaks
High pressure work without breaks
Extremely demanding physical labor and
continuously stressful work
Tuesday, 1 October 13

33. Are you creating artificial relaxation and
alertness?
Alcohol / Marijuana / Sedatives
Caffeine / Cocaine / Amphetamines
Tuesday, 1 October 13

34. ANTIDOTE:
“Don't Do Anything That Isn't Play!”
Marshall B. Rosenberg
Tuesday, 1 October 13

35. Watch out for signs of violence:
Guilt
Duty
Shame
Fear
Tuesday, 1 October 13

36. Disconnect
Sleep well (and enough)
Eat (often and healthily)
Pray / Meditate
Exercise
Play
Tuesday, 1 October 13

37. “It is a very good plan every now and
then to go away and have a little
relaxation… When you come back to the
work your judgement will be surer, since
to remain constantly at work will cause
you to lose the power of judgement.”
Leonardo Da Vinci
Tuesday, 1 October 13

38. Tuesday, 1 October 13

39. FOCUS ON THE TOOLS
Tuesday, 1 October 13

40. Tuesday, 1 October 13

41. “Creating the label `lean` (what it is)
leads naturally to the notion of tools
(how you do it), obscuring the importance
of perspective (how to think about it)”
John Seddon
s/lean/devops/
Tuesday, 1 October 13

42. “If the object of a change is to change
the system, tools can, at best, be only an
aid.”
John Seddon
Tuesday, 1 October 13

43. “before we jump to the conclusion that
the tools will work ... we had best first
study the systems.”
John Seddon
Tuesday, 1 October 13

44. Fuck tools!
We need culture!
Tuesday, 1 October 13

45. O
R
W
!
G
N
£$%& tools!
We need culture!
Tuesday, 1 October 13

46. “Culture alone is hollow posturing, tooling
alone is fiddling in the dark.”
Adam Jacob
Tuesday, 1 October 13

47. “Right behind `culture ! tools` is `great,
any choices I make are good choices tools don’t matter`”
Adam Jacob
Tuesday, 1 October 13

48. “The tools we use have a profound (and
devious!) influence on our thinking habits,
and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.”
Edsger Dijkstra
Tuesday, 1 October 13

49. “In a broken culture, with a desire to
change, the tooling can often lead the
way to cultural changes.”
Adam Jacob
Tuesday, 1 October 13

50. ANTIDOTE:
“Teach perspective - how to think - if the
tools help, people will beat a path to the
cupboard door”
John Seddon
Tuesday, 1 October 13

51. GROW your tools
Tuesday, 1 October 13

52. GOAL - what are we trying to achieve?
REALITY - where are we now?
OPTIONS - what could we do to bridge the gap?
WILL - what will we do?
Tuesday, 1 October 13

53. Start where you’re at!
Tuesday, 1 October 13

54. Beware the argument from authority
(because I said so)
Tuesday, 1 October 13

55. Tuesday, 1 October 13

56. ALWAYS SAY YES
Tuesday, 1 October 13

57. “People who can’t say no spend their very
limited time and already taxed energy on
other people’s priorities, while their own
priorities fall to the wayside.”
Tuesday, 1 October 13

58. “If you think it looks like it’s going to be
slow and expensive, it probably will be
slow and expensive, and someone has to
pay. If you're not transparent about
that, the chances are you'll pay yourself,
with lost profit, lost reputation, or lost
health. In my case: all three.”
Stephen Nelson-Smith
Tuesday, 1 October 13

59. ANTIDOTE:
Practice saying no!
Tuesday, 1 October 13

60. 9 Practices to help you say “No”
(Peter Bregman, Harvard Business Review)
1. Know your no
2. Be appreciative
3. Say no to the request, not the person
4. Explain why
5. Be as resolute as they are pushy
6. Practice
7. Establish a pre-emptive no
8. Be prepared to miss out
9. Gather your courage
Tuesday, 1 October 13

61. A trusted advisor walks away from money
if there is no mutual benefit.
Tuesday, 1 October 13

62. Tuesday, 1 October 13

63. BUILD A DEVOPS TEAM
Tuesday, 1 October 13

64. “The Devops movement addresses the
dysfunction that results from
organizations composed of functional
silos. Thus, creating another functional
silo that sits between dev and ops is
clearly a poor (and ironic) way to try and
solve these problems.”
Jez Humble
Tuesday, 1 October 13

65. “Functional silos allow people to ignore, or
at least feel disconnected from, the
consequences of their actions.
Devops is a cultural change that
encourages, exposes and rewards people
taking responsibility for what they do
and what is expected of them.”
Ben Kepes
Tuesday, 1 October 13

66. ANTIDOTE:
Create and collaborate
Tuesday, 1 October 13

67. Cross functionalise
Tuesday, 1 October 13

68. Get on the improvement ARC
Tuesday, 1 October 13

69. AWARENESS
(comprehend where we are right now)
RESPONSIBILITY
(agree that we are the
ones to make change)
COMMITMENT
(decide to take action)
Tuesday, 1 October 13

70. Take baby steps....
Tuesday, 1 October 13

71. O
R
W
!
G
N
Take baby steps....
Tuesday, 1 October 13

72. “Continuous improvement isn't nearly as
important as discontinuous improvement.”
Russell Ackoff
Tuesday, 1 October 13

73. If you lack executive sponsorship,
forcing Devops will accelerate your own
demise at best and your organisation’s
demise at worst.
Tuesday, 1 October 13

74. “If you agree with me and your CEO
doesn’t understand and you dont want to
wait around to convince him: fucking quit
because everyone is this room is hiring
and they do.”
Adam Jacob
Tuesday, 1 October 13

75. Tuesday, 1 October 13

76. FIX ALL THE THINGS
Tuesday, 1 October 13

77. "We fail more often because we solve the
wrong problem than because we get the
wrong solution to the right problem."
Russell Ackoff
Tuesday, 1 October 13

78. "We fail more often because we solve the
wrong problem than because we get the
wrong solution to the right problem."
Russell Ackoff
Tuesday, 1 October 13

79. "We fail more often because we solve the
wrong problem than because we get the
wrong solution to the right problem."
Russell Ackoff
Tuesday, 1 October 13

80. “We chase the latest ideas in software development without bothering
with the scientific method.
We think it is a waste of time to understand the theory, create
hypotheses, run experiments, gather data, and find out what really
works in our environment.
We fail to appreciate that “best practices” are somebody else’s
solutions to their problems, not necessarily the right solutions to our
problems.
We adopt new development approaches with an unhealthy dose of
wishful thinking, rather than determining the most appropriate
practices for our environment —
and then we are surprised at the disappointing results.”
Tom & Mary Poppendieck, Leading Lean Software Development
Tuesday, 1 October 13

81. ANTIDOTE:
Beware shiny things
Abandon technical purity
Exercise real options
Tuesday, 1 October 13

82. ANTIDOTE:
Beware shiny things
Abandon technical purity
Exercise real options
Tuesday, 1 October 13

83. Tuesday, 1 October 13

84. Tuesday, 1 October 13

85. BE AFRAID OF BAD
NEWS
Tuesday, 1 October 13

86. "Studying the organization as a system
will certainly reveal bad news."
John Seddon
Tuesday, 1 October 13

87. “Fear takes a terrible toll. Where are
the comptroller's figures on the losses
from fear? They are enormous. Nobody
knows their magnitude. Getting people to
express their ideas without fear of
retribution requires fundamental
change."
W. Edwards Deming
Tuesday, 1 October 13

88. ANTIDOTE:
No fear
Tuesday, 1 October 13

89. “Lean downhill when skiing. That takes a
certain amount of fearlessness, courage,
or aggressiveness. It turns out that
leaning downhill gives you more control
than leaning back uphill. It is connected
with `always try to keep going forward`”
Alistair Cockburn
Tuesday, 1 October 13

90. “I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total
obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner
eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.”
Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
(From Frank Herbert's Dune Book Series)
Tuesday, 1 October 13

91. Tuesday, 1 October 13

92. Thank you.
#devopsdays TLV <3 @LordCope
Ask your questions... I am not afraid.
Tuesday, 1 October 13