Presented at DevOpsDays Atlanta 2013 DevOps has proven itself across many smaller organizations but large enterprises are usually slow to change. It can be a daunting task even identifying where to make changes since there are so many processes and organizational silos to get in the way. As a veteran employee of small, medium, and large enterprises I have figured out ways to drive organizational change based upon getting results. In this presentation I will describe my methods for creating change within and across organizations and provide specific examples of how to begin a meaningful shift towards making DevOps a standard practice within your organization. I'll detail some of the roadblocks to making DevOps a reality and explain how to overcome these obstacles.

1. Moving the DevOps Needle In
Enterprise Organizations
DevOps Adoption Business Value

2. About Me: Jim Hirschauer
@HirschOnAPM
• I’m a Performance Geek!!!
• Designed and Implemented Monitoring
Architecture for Wachovia Investment
Bank and Wells Fargo Managed Services
• Initiated cultural shift to proactive
monitoring.
• I’ve used many of the enterprise class
monitoring tools in existence.
• I currently live, work, and play in Idaho. 2

3. 3
This is Iowa, I don’t live here.
This is Idaho, I do live
here.
Right Here!

4. The DevOps movement is an attempt to
bring Development and Operations
together so that they can achieve the
effectiveness and efficiency that the
business deserves.
4

5. Our Focus
Business Case
5
Cultural Change

6. Part 1: The Cultural
Change
6

7. Categories
Top Down
Bottom Up

8. Top Down
Forced change by executive order.
(Requires executive support)
8

9. Top Down
Pros
• Corporate
commitment
• Easier to implement
• Funded
9
Cons
• Resistance to
change without
passionate
supporters
• Hard to get executive
mandate
• Lots of executive
mandates already
• Executive input
(Usually not good in
technical matters)
• Requires business

10. Bottom Up
Starts small and spreads organically.
(Needs leadership and evangelism)
10

11. Bottom Up
Pros
• Passionate
supporters help
remove barriers
• Bypass road blocks
• Better end results
• Ability to change
and adapt.
11
Cons
• Starts slower
• Lack of executive
support
• Lack of funding
• Fragmented without
strong leadership.

12. In my experience, the bottom up
approach yields better results over
time.
12

13. Enterprise Barriers
Fear of Change
Complacency
Risk
Regulations
Other Agendas (Politics)
13

14. Figure Out Who’s Interested
• Show
– How it will make their life better
– Benefits to company
– Tactical and Strategic
• Methods
– Lunch and Learn
– Social Media
– Intranet
– Staff Meetings
14

15. What other methods have you used?
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16. Evangelize
16

17. Convert A Vocal Opponent
17

18. It Takes a Long Time
18

19. Communicate
• Ask about pain points
• Solve the pain
• Communicate your
success
• You’ve just converted a
new activist for your
cause. 19

20. Constant Sharing of Lessons Learned
Newsletter
Intranet
Elevator
Presentations
Conferences
User Groups
20

21. Success is your greatest weapon
21

22. How do you promote cultural change?
22

23. Part 2: The Business Case
23

24. If you’re going to
ask for funding,
you must
understand the
budget cycle and
buying process.

25. Define the problem
• Infrequent code releases
• Lack of innovation
• Long MTTR
• Too much downtime
25
Convert problems into
business impact.

26. What are the problems in
your organization?
26

27. Relate the problem to your competition
27
First To Market
Feature Parity
Product Parity
Ease of Use What Else?

28. 28
Create a multi-dimensional argument.
(don’t place all of your eggs in one basket)

29. Figure out the main players
29
ExecutiveBudget Holder
Supporter Adversary

30. Figure out a solution
• DevOps!!!
• Tools?
– Build Automation
– Release automation
– Test Automation
– Application Monitoring
30

31. Understand the pre-existing landscape
31

32. 32

33. Does FOSS make sense?
• Will I need
support?
• Are the features
right?
• Will security
approve?
33

34. Find like minded people
Be sure to include people who
are impacted by the problem
(the business)
34

35. Assume no financial support
• Asking for money
to prove your
concept is a non-
starter.
• Assume you will
have no funding
to start with.
35

36. Start small and collaborate for success
• Create success
on a small scale.
• Collaborate with
your supporters to
improve chances
of success.
36

37. Prove repeatability
37

38. Document your success
We successfully deployed XYZ tool and
were able to automatically deploy our new
code.
38

39. Document your success
By automatically deploying our new code we
were able to eliminate risk of human error
during deployment and increase speed of
delivery by 50%. This will reduce
customer impact and increase speed of
delivery.
39

40. Calculate ROI
40

41. Present your findings
41

42. Be prepared to do more work. The first
answer is usually no.
42

43. Learn from Failure
• What went wrong?
• Can it be fixed?
• Can it be avoided in the future?
43

44. Have you built a business
case?
What worked?
What didn’t?
44

45. Thank You