Handling Shifting Priorities using a Lean Flow approach

Dominica  DeGrandis  Director,  Training  &  Coaching    Passionate  about  Continuous  improvement,  DevOps,  Kanban  and  behavior  change  

Former  Configuration  Management  practitioner  Build  Engineer  &  Release  Manager      

@dominicad  

1.  What  is  DevOps  and  why  it  matters  

2.  Three  ways  to  handle  shifting  priorities  

3.  One  key  metric  for  prioritizing  

     

@dominicad  

Three things:  

@dominicad  

Pre  DevOps  state  of  affairs  

Think  of  DevOps  as  a  container  of  prac8ces:    

1.   Culture  2.   Automa8on  3.   Measurements  4.   Feedback  This  cross-­‐func8onal  aligned  view  is  helping  to  shiI  IT  from  a  cost  center  to  a  strategic  advantage.    

@dominicad  

To  Do   Doing   Done  

Getting to done feels good

What  is  Devops?    why  it  maNers?  

3  ways  to    handle  shiIing    priori8es  

1  key  metric  for  priori8zing  

To  Do   Doing   Done  

And now - Three ways to handle shifting priorities

What  is  Devops?    why  it  maNers?  

3  ways  to    handle  shiIing    priori8es  

1  key  metric  for  priori8zing  

Poll results from 500+ people across 55 countries:“What is main cause of conflicting priorities for your team?”

Poll results from 500+ people across 55 countries:“How does context switching impact your team?”

Puppet  Labs  2014  Devops  Report  

“While  we  suspected  job  sa2sfac2on  impacted    organiza2onal  performance,  we  were  surprised    to  see  that  job  sa2sfac2on  was  the    #1  predictor  of  organiza2onal  performance.”        

hNps://puppetlabs.com/sites/default/files/2014-­‐state-­‐of-­‐devops-­‐report.pdf    

Organizational performance is dependent on the alignment of teams.

Clear    priori8es    drive    coopera8on  

Let’s  not  forget  that  the  intent  of  DevOps  is  to  improve  the  system  as  a  whole.    #KaizenDevOps  

“Organiza2onal  health  will  one  day  surpass  all  other  disciplines  in  business  as  the  greatest  opportunity  for  improvement.”      

Company  performance  Job  sa8sfac8on  Levels  of  trust  and  coopera8on  Tolerance  for  experimenta8on  

Organizational Health Components

A  healthy  organiza<on  increases  the  happiness  factor  and  job  sa<sfac<on  at  work.  

Dominica’s  Hypothesis      “Demand  increases  in  propor2on  to    the  ability  to  meet  the  demand.”    

                                     

If everything is a priority one, nothing is a priority One

Every request cannot be the top priority.

Hence the need to limit your wip  

kan·ban

känbän/かんばん(看板)  noun, “signal card”

A kanban signal card is a visual indicator of availability. “The aim of kanban is to make troubles come to the surface.”

-Taiichi Ohno

When a problem occurred, the board on the assembly line lit up, work halted, and the issue was immediately addressed by a supervisor at the source.

“Let the flow manage the processes, and not let management manage the flow.”                                                                                                  

         Taiichi  Ohno    

C

B

Portfolio Program done design ready to

deliver feedback

7

In work

Delayed [idle for n days]

Blk PZ

D

E

A

B A

F

build deliver

Displaced an item now delayed

D

WZ

Project 1

Project 2

Project 3

E

12

JG

PB

B

C D WZ

JG

Project 5

C

MN

committed

Project 4

C

B

B A

Dominica DeGrandis @dominicad

ABribu<on  to  BernadeBe  Dairo  –  Canadian  Govt  agency  in  Toronto    

Dominica DeGrandis @dominicad

Operations team work flow

Validate Deliver Closed Design

Fires

Maintenance  

Projects

Implement

   

3

9

2

Improve  

CODB  

Fire  

Project  

Improvement

Investigate

Unplanned

Unplanned  

Exercise  to  try:  30  days  Priori8za8on  Policy?:  

Operations team work flow

Validate Deliver Closed Design

Fires

Maintenance  

Projects

Implement

   

3

9

2

Improve  

CODB  

Fire  

Project  

Improvement

Investigate

Unplanned

Unplanned  

Recruiting

Opera8ons  Workflow  Validate Deliver Closed Design

Fires

Maintenance  

Projects

Items in backlog remain uncommitted and un-prioritized until there is capacity to absorb them.

Implement

   

Backlog

3

9

2

Improvement  

CODB  

Fire  

Project  

Improvement

Investigate

Removing project work allows team to focus on maintenance and improvements

Validate Deliver Closed Design

Fires

Maintenance  

Projects

Items in backlog remain uncommitted and un-prioritized until there is capacity to absorb them.

Implement

   

Backlog

3

9

2

Improvement  

CODB  

Fire  

Project  

Improvement

Investigate

Embed  Opera8onal  work  upstream  or  insist  that  product  development  teams  deliver  and  support  their  product?  

Product development team board

 Let’s  not  forget  support  work            Autonomy  w/o  authority          is  a  messy  business.  

Product development team board.

Consider impacts to others.  

When people cooperate, they need less meetings, less rules, less resources.

Ops team board

Por]olio  Program  

   

Opera8ons  team  

   

Product  Dev  team  

   

To  Do   Doing   Done  

One key metric for prioritizing

What  is  Devops?    why  it  maNers?  

3  ways  to    handle  shiIing    priori8es  

1  key  metric  for  priori8zing  

Risks & Issues board – a 3rd type of Kanban

Risks & Issues board – Looking at cost of delay

Risks & Issues board with measure of Org health

Trust & Cooperation

Kiwi Dial

Risks & Issues board with measure of Org health

Trust & Cooperation

Kiwi Dial

To  Do   Doing   Done  

How will your organization prioritize the list of things to do?

@dominicad  

To  Do   Doing   Done  

A short prioritized list of things to do is a beautiful thing.

What  is  Devops?    why  it  maNers?  

3  ways  to    handle  shiIing    priori8es  

1  key  metric  for  priori8zing  

@dominicad  

Improve collaboratively with Lean Flow

@dominicad