I wrote for XebiaLabs on leading a DevOps transformation within your organization. It’s based on a white paper I co-authored with a bunch of really amazing people at Gene Kim’s DevOps Enterprise Forum in 2016. The post covers five simple (but not easy) tips for making progress on adoption of DevOps patterns and practices within your organization. The tips include understanding other people’s goals and the problems they face, identifying a target mindset, and then developing and executing a plan with the most effective tactics.
In retrospect, I’ve been writing a lot for other blogs and less so for myself. Whatever gets the word out and advances the cause, right?
I wish I had read The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier twenty years ago when I started down the path of being a manager. I could have avoided a lot of pain, confusion, and conflict for myself and those I was managing. I agree with much of what is in the book about what works mainly because I learned the hard way about what doesn’t work. Continue reading →
A few years ago, I went through some executive coaching individually and as a group. In one of the individual sessions, the coach and I were talking about my team and the meetings I had with them. The coach asked me how I wanted someone on my team to feel after meeting with me. I had to think about it because I had never been asked that question before. And yet, it was an incredibly important answer to have. After a minute or two, I came up with the following answer. Continue reading →
Many of us have too much going on. Busy is the new status symbol. I’m no exception. And yet many of us also feel that while we do more and more, we actually accomplish less and less. I’m no exception on that point, either.
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown is a response to that trend. It advocates for whittling down what we spend our time and energy on so we can focus on the few activities and efforts that will have the most impact. In truth, it should have been subtitled “The Disciplined Pursuit of Less but Better” (which is an actual quote from the book).
“Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done.” (emphasis added)
If there is the concept of “essentialism”, there must be one of “nonessentialism”. In fact, the book contrasts the mindset, assumptions, decisions, and choices between “essentialism” and “nonessentialism”. Continue reading →
I’ve spent some time around John Willis, one of the thought leaders in the DevOps movement. If you spend any time at all around John, you’re bound to hear him talk about W. Edwards Deming and the idea that Deming laid many of the foundational principles and practices of DevOps. After reading Deming’s book, Out of the Crisis, I have to agree. And now I’m a fan of Deming, too. Not as much as John (just look at his Twitter avatar), but a big fan nonetheless. Continue reading →
I delivered a talk entitled “Decoding Culture: Beyond the Fluff and Back to Business” to an engaged group at the inaugural DevOpsDays Baltimore event on March 7, 2017. At the end of the talk, I promised to provide info on the resources I referenced. Continue reading →
Lots of organizations struggle with legacy systems. Or more to the point, they struggle to maintain and make changes to them in a way that provides the pace and value the organization wants. So given the scale of this issue in the Federal Government, ACT-IAC took a crack at providing a “best practice” approach for modernizing legacy systems in the white paper I just referenced.
I read the paper a couple of times. I definitely had some strong thoughts and feels as I read it. I couldn’t keep them bottled up so I suggested some changes to how the Government should think about legacy systems modernization on Excella’s blog. I could’ve written a lot more (like on the role of DevOps, which shouldn’t be in the “DevOps/Sustainment” phase — see page 20 in the white paper), but the post was already getting lengthy. Let’s consider this a good start for discussion and iterate from there.
I started my career as a developer. My success was determined largely by how much I could produce and how fast I could produce it. I was an “individual contributor.” As I grew in my career and gained experience and perspective, I realized a couple of things. First, what I could produce was insignificant compared to what a high-performing team could produce. Second, what I most enjoyed was not producing stuff myself — it was creating opportunities for others to be happy and successful. (That’s now my personal mission statement.)
I decided I had to become a better leader because, regardless of what title I had, that was my real job. Becoming a better leader was the only way I was going to be successful — as defined by the success of the people, teams, and organizations I led.
I’m not that interested in the charismatic leaders or leaders who succeed by “force of personality.” I’m more interested in leaders who put systems in place and create environments for the people and organizations they lead to be successful. I can’t “be” anybody else — but I can learn the principles, values, and systems they used for their success and adopt what I think will work for me.
I’ve discovered some “go to” resources in my quest to become a better leader. These resources achieved that “go to” status based on how useful they are to me — measured primarily by how often I reference them and how much they’ve shaped how I think, speak, and act. Continue reading →
“Performance more often comes down to a cultural challenge, rather than simply a technical one.”
— Lara Hogan, Engineering Director, Etsy
Culture has a huge impact on the performance of an organization — for better or worse. In fact, some say culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage an organization can have. Despite culture’s importance, it has also been “fuzzy” and notoriously hard to quantify. The problem has been that we’ve had no good way of describing, assessing, or measuring culture. That changed when Dr. Ron Westrum, a sociologist, came up with his “Three Cultures Model”.
At Excella, I lead our Services organization — really the “what” and “how” of our business. One responsibility in my organization is establishing partnerships to complement what we do. A partnership can deliver value to us, our clients, and our partner if established for the right reasons and managed correctly. For example, we are currently a partner with both Microsoft and AWS and they’ve both been win (clients) – win (partner) – win (us) relationships.
Occasionally I’m asked to look at new partnerships — either by an Excella employee or by a potential partner. These opportunities led me to think about the criteria for exploring a new partnership. Continue reading →
It's a Nice Life. 
