DevOps is not going to work…. Unless! How The Phoenix Project Simulation Can Help Jan Schilt, Owner Founder, GamingWorks BV This presentation will explore how the business simulation game “The Phoenix Project” based on the book of the same name can greatly improve the success of your DevOps investment. As case studies reveal there are enormous benefits to be realized by adopting DevOps, however industry trends reveal that many will fail as a result of ‘Cultural and behavioral issues and failing to adequately address organizational change. We have seen with ITIL how many organizations failed to gain the promised benefits because they could not translate the theory into practice and the belief that a tool would solve all their issues. Let us not make the same mistakes with DevOps. In this presentation we will show you how a business simulation can increase the velocity of your adoption, create buy-in, improve communication and collaboration skills between Dev and Ops, and capture concrete, shared, improvement actions aimed at creating success. DevOps Enterprise Summit London 2016

1. Version 1.0
DevOps Will Fail… unless
How Simulation will help!
Jan Schilt, CEO
GamingWorks BV
The
Phoenix
Project

2. The
Phoenix
Project
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About GamingWorks
• Dutch company, founded 2001, Paul Wilkinson and Jan Schilt
• Designers of Serious Business Simulations (interactive, team-
sessions)
• 300 partners, 40 countries, 400+ trainers
• 500+ runs a year

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Phoenix
Project
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Why will DevOps fail?
• LACK of right CULTURE, lack of right COMPETENCES
• NEW FRAMEWORK
• TOOLS are THE SOLUTION
• Certificates
• Fast implementation of DevOps
“Cultural resistance
will create significant
failure rates when
starting with DevOps”
“Organizational
change issues are far
more challenging”
“Enterprises are not
ready for DevOps but
will not survive
without it”

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Phoenix
Project
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Why will DevOps fail?
“DevOps cannot be obtained overnight with a simple
check and a little training. It is a transformational
approach to core processes and it takes time,
dedication and especially a team that can implement
DevOps practice.”

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Phoenix
Project
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How do we know?
Feedback from 5000+ sims (ITSM, PM)
• Unclear Roles and Responsibilities
• Lack of Management Buy-in, commitment
• Lack of business focus
• Them and us
• No time for doing it right
• No link People, Process, Product and Partner
• Communication

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Phoenix
Project
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What is DevOps?
DevOps is a cultural and professional movement
that stresses communication, collaboration and
integration between software developers and IT
operations professionals.
(c) DevOps Institute

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Phoenix
Project
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So, how can we avoid failure?
1. Business awareness
2. Senior (IT) management awareness
3. Focus on people (attitude, behavior, skills, communication)
4. Focus on teamwork (collaboration)
5. First processes and behavior then tool
6. Learning by doing culture
7. Transfer theory into practice
8. Integration in current way of working
9. Transformation approach

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Phoenix
Project
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What is a Serious Business Simulation?
• Interactive learning activity
• Group of learners, face to face
• Actors in a challenging, realistic context
• Focus of specific learning objectives
• Aimed at solving day to day problems
• Based on Learning by doing

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The Phoenix Project simulation
KPI R1 R2 R3 R4
Number of deployments 3 4 6 8
% successful 75% 79% 84% 96%
# Errors 8 10 6 2
% issues solved in same round 50% 66% 87% 100%

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The Phoenix Project Simulation
• 10-12 participants
• “The Phoenix Project”
• Business & IT roles
• Issues from the book
• Experiencing top 10 DevOps challenges
• Bringing real value to the business
• Reflection, experimenting, learning
• Finding solutions
• … and how to implement them in own work

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Project
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© GamingWorks Version 3.51
Subjects during the sim
Visualization
Flow
Collaboration
Communication
3 ways
Silo thinking
Lean
Agile
ITSM
Rework
Disruptions
Continuous Learning
RACI
Business VALUE
Decision Making
Training
Multifunctional teams
Sharing Knowledge
Standups
Product Owner
Feedback
Improving
Metrics
Priorities
Bottlenecks
Constrains
Celebrate

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Phoenix
Project
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Why is a simulation a must have?
• End-to-end working together in a safe environment
• Focus on behaviors, interaction, teamwork, communication
• Continual learning and improvement (Learning Cycle)
• Develops understanding and application of knowledge
• It fits 70/20/10 learning approach
• Focus on relevant issues

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Phoenix
Project
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When to use?
• After DevOps foundation -> Apply theory
• To create Business Awareness -> Play with business
• To assess current status -> Gap analyse
• To develop IT awareness -> DEV & OPS
• To practice working together -> DEV & OPS...and Business
• To explore solutions -> DEV & OPS
• To train ‘This is how we do IT’ -> DEV & OPS
• Before we start anything else
“If we had this simulation 5 years earlier, we
would have made bigger steps in our journey”
Jonathan Leckey – Head Operations AutoTrader

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Questions after the session…
How to…
... lead standup meetings?
… use KanBan?
… improve processes?
… make the right decisions?
… apply CALMS?
… stimulate teamwork?
… deal with FLOW?
… deal with Feedback?
… develop learning culture?
… avoid rework

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Thanks for your interest…
If you want to meet me in real life ?
Contact one of our partners on
www.gamingworks.nl
Time for Questions…