Michael Lanyon's Blog Notes and thoughts from LanyonM

Creative & Technology: A Partnership - DevOpsDays MSN 2016

Comments

"The premise that dev and ops are at odds is a fallacy."

This talk has been brewing for over two years. While talking to Patrick Debois at DevOpsDays Minneapolis 2014 the conversation meandered outside the typical confines of dev & ops. It was around the time Patrick joined Small Town Heroes, and I was reflecting on the parallels between themes at DevOpsDays and my work at Critical Mass. It felt like the issues we as a community were discussing were much more easily reconciled than the approach differences of Creative and Technology in my work environment.

I have come to believe that the premise that dev and ops are at odds is a fallacy. Sure, there are perverse organizational structures that silo expertise and incent them against one another, but I’m operating under the assumption that such easily identified wrongs aren’t present. What I was left to ponder (and later enumerate) were strategies and tactics that can be used to create high-performance, cohesive, multi-disciplinary teams.

Here’s an abridged outline of what I covered in the talk:

  • Mission statement
  • Participating & sharing in each others’ work process
  • Building trust
  • Surprise reduction
  • Psychological safety
"Understand your assumptions and
anticipate other's needs."

DevOps is about tools and culture. As much as I enjoy the occasional tool-smithing indulgence, I find the topic of leadership’s role in creating an environment that nurtures high-performance teams even more enjoyable and satisfying. Leave a comment or ping me on Twitter if you’d like to discuss further. Cheers.

https://speakerdeck.com/lanyonm/creative-and-technology-a-partnership-devopsdays-msn-2016