A brief case study of how tools and culture are interlinked and how. Focusing on Agile and DevOps as input to the case study

1. CULTURE BEFORE TOOLS
OR
DOES TOOLING FOSTER CULTURE?

2. Stone Age – Stone Tools
Bronze Age – Bronze Tools
Iron Age – Iron Tools
Late Middle Ages – Printing Press
TOOLS THROUGHOUT HISTORY

3. “The ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular
people or society”
Oxford Dictionary
“The way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs,
of a particular group of people at a particular time”
Cambridge Dictionary
WHAT IS CULTURE?

4. “The ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular
people or society”
Oxford Dictionary
“The way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs,
of a particular group of people at a particular time”
Cambridge Dictionary
WHAT IS CULTURE?

5. CULTURE IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Quality Culture
Agile Culture
DevOps Culture
Innovation Culture
Culture of Continuous Improvement

6. CULTURE IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Quality Culture – ability to ensure value is created for the customer
Agile Culture – ability to change quickly to changing business needs
DevOps Culture – ability to deploy reliably with fast feedback
Innovation Culture – ability to experiment & learn fast
Culture of Continuous Improvement – ability to remove constraints

7. AGILE
1950s – Iterative Development
1970s – Unit Testing first described, 1989 Test Framework invented - Fit
1992 – Grady Booch – first proposed continuous integration
1994 – SUnit the first unit test framework invented
1995 – Jeff Sutherland & Ken Schwaber coined Scrum
1996 – Kent Beck, Ron Jeffries, Ward Cunningham introduced XP
Tools: Cruise Control, Static Analysis, Unit & System Testing
2001 – Principles of Agile Development defined in the Agile Manifesto

8. DEVOPS
2007 – Patrick Dubois working on a project spanning Dev & Ops felt the pain
2008 – Patrick Dubois & Andrew Schafer discuss Agile Infrastructure
2009 – Flickr @Velocity Presented “10+ deployments / day dev & ops
cooperation”
2010 – Damon Edwards & John Willis defined the CAMS culture
Tools: Hudson, Maven, Nexus, Puppet, Chef, Rundeck, Linux Containers
2013 – Gene Kim defined the principles of DevOps – The 3 Ways

9. Culture before
Tools
Or
Tools foster Culture
?

10. Practices and process determine the activities and behaviours
In turn provide a guide as to what tooling is needed
Many tools are built by pioneers at the bleeding edge of innovation
Often solve specific problems and give a competitive edge
These early tools are built and used in isolation of any specific culture
TOOLS FIRST

11. TOOLS FIRST
Tools increase consistency, quality and efficiency
Tools can simplify activities allowing them to be easily shared
Tools reduce the cost & risks of practices
When costs are reduced adoption increases
More people using tools means more conversations and ideas shared
Using specific tool doesn’t mean you have adopted a culture

12. Conversations, collaboration, sharing Ideas about different but related
problems
Alignment of ideas form new perspectives
Overlapping perspectives identify new problem domains
New values or guiding principles are defined to align perspectives
Draw parallel to other areas, creates alignment, believe in the concepts
CULTURE FIRST

13. Cultures will co-opt Practices & Tools that exist to support their principles
Original tooling creates consistent repeatable results & trust
Tools shape the initial cultural landscape
As trust builds and risks reduce enterprises start to adopt the practices
Tooling gaps show as user base widens and use cases increase
Now enter a phase of tooling industrialisation
CULTURE FIRST

14. INDUSTRIALISATION OF TOOLING
Tools are important to Culture and its adoption
Principles and practices provide a guide for new tooling
Cultures adoption of tooling creates a marketplace of needs
Marketplace supports the industrialisation of improved tools
Improved tools reduce costs further

15. CULTURE BEFORE TOOLING OR DOES TOOLING FOSTER CULTURE?
Tools help solve & simplify specific problems
Its problems we share
Sharing experiences and knowledge help us align ideas
Aligning ideas and practices allow us to define new Values & Principles
Culture arises when we can align and believe in the Values & Principles
Better tooling is created to support cultural activities

16. CULTURE BEFORE TOOLING OR DOES TOOLING FOSTER CULTURE?
Tooling is important but not necessary
Culture does develop tooling

17. 17
THANK YOU.
Stephen Williams
T: @Steve2358
W: https://steve.carrd.co
L: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevewilliams112358