Scott W. Ambler Senior Consulting Partner
scott [at] scottambler.com
@scottwambler
Disciplined Agile Operations and Support
Principles, Strategies, and Teaming Structures for
Disciplined DevOps
Agenda • Our principles • Our scope • Operations • Support • Parting thoughts
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The Seven Principles of Disciplined Agile
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DelightCustomers
Pragmatism
BeAwesome
ContextCounts
ChoiceisGood
OptimizeFlow
EnterpriseAwareness
A Disciplined Agile Operations Mindset
• Run a trustworthy IT ecosystem • Focus on the strategic (long term) over the
tactical (short term) • Streamline the overall flow of work • Help end-users succeed • Standardization without stagnation • Regulate releases into production • Sufficient documentation
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DevOps at a Small Company
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• As there is only a handful of product teams, a “you build it, you run it” approach is straightforward
• Operations Engineer(s) exist to support the product teams and handle common infrastructure issues
The DevOps Engineer “Role”
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Developer
Operations Engineer
Toolsmith
Support Engineer Database
Administrator
• This tends to be a position where the person(s) in it take on a collection of important roles
• DevOps Engineer tends to be a transitory role within smaller organizations or to organizations new to DevOps
DevOps at a Large Company
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• Roles tend to become more distinct as operational complexity grows
• When there are many product/delivery teams, the need to support common strategic functionality increases
A Disciplined Agile Support Mindset
• Avoid problems to begin with – Design the user experience (UX)
• Provide self-support strategies • Favor proactive support over reactive • Have two-way conversations • Solve the problem, and do so quickly • You build it, you support it
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DevOps – You Build It, You Support It
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• Requires developers to have people skills • Takes time away from development • Motivates developers to understand usage and to build a quality experience • Many organizations recognize that working with end users directly is a mark of a
senior developer
End User Developer
Request for Help
Information, Incident Status, Problem Resolution, …
Assisted Support: The Escalation Process
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There is an incident, and self support isn’t sufficient
Engages with support
Level 1 Support Support Engineer
Requires help or authorization
Level 2 Support Support Manager/Senior Support Engineer
Requires technical help to address
Level 3 Support Developer
Success Requires…
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A Flexible Mindset
Context-Sensitive Strategies
Great People Collaborating and Learning Together
Join the DA Community! Anyone who attends a Disciplined Agile presentation or workshop is entitled to sign up at DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org to register for the designation “Disciplined Agilist”
Seriously though, the DA designation is an important first step towards earning an actual DA certification, such as: More importantly, it gives you access to our “members only” information and webinars at DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org
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Do you wish your organization’s
leaders had a better understanding of
agile?
An Executive’s Guide to Disciplined Agile can help with
that! © Disciplined Agile Consortium 26
Thank You! Scott [at] scottambler.com
@scottwambler
DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org DisciplinedAgileDelivery.com
ScottAmbler.com
Disciplined Agile Delivery
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Scott Ambler + Associates is the thought leader behind the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework and its application. We are a management
consulting firm that advises organizations to be more effective applying disciplined agile and lean processes within the context of your
business.
Our website is ScottAmbler.com We can help
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