Three steps to change:Lessons from Bureaucracy

Paula Thrasher

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Paula ThrasherApplication Delivery Lead

CSC

@paula_thrasher@csc

20+ years in ITAgile in Federal Government since 2001

15+ Federal Agencies/ComponentsFormer Software Developer, IT Director

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The Challenge: Fix this program

Can’t change moneyCan’t change the contractCan’t change people

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John Kotter 8-Steps to change1. Establish a Sense of Urgency2. Create a Guiding Coalition3. Create a vision for change4. Communicate the vision to gain buy-in5. Empower broad based change6. Generate short-term wins7. Never let up8. Incorporate changes into the culture

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Paula’s Three-Step Formula

1. Establish a Sense of Urgency2. Create a Guiding Coalition3. Create a vision for change4. Communicate the vision to gain buy-in5. Empower broad based change6. Generate short-term wins7. Never let up8. Incorporate changes into the culture

Want to Change

Know What to Change

Awesome side effect of letting teams fix themselves

Make the Change

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Step 1: Want to change

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Have a Crisis

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Make a Crisis

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Deployments over time

Awesome to be

a developer!

Sucks to be the Operations Team!

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Let a Crisis Happen

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Step 2: Know what to change

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Ways to make people know what to change

• Visualize the work

• Measure the work

• Find the big picture

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Visualize the work

Release PlanAgile

Development

Everything else done to Deploy….

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Numbers work too

Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3 Sprint 4 Sprint 50.05.0

10.015.020.025.030.035.040.0

22.425.5 27.3 29.2

35.5

User Story Average by Sprint (for all Releases)

AverageLinear (Average)

Team delivered 160% more features over five sprints after implementing DevOps Improvements/ Automation

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Truth… it depends on perspective

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Step 3: Make Change Happen

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How to Make Change Happen

• Build (Find) a good team

• Let them figure out how to manage change

• Go slay organizational dragons

• Manage your change program intentionally

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Allow the J-Curve to Happen

Satir, Virginia, et al., The Satir Model: Family Therapy and Beyond Science and Behavior Books, 1991

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Where you will spend your time…

Automating System Slaying Organizational Dragons

< 20 hours 4 months

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Change Improvement Board

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Do not confuse the Rebel Alliance with the Imperial Senate!

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Improvements to waste can be dramatic!

12 Hours 12 Minutes, 30 seconds

*Actual improvement from automating deployments to staging

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Catalyst Change Cycle

Find the Change TeamChange the BureaucracyMeasure Improvement

Change Team

ImprovementBacklog

Measure BaselineVisualize System of Work

Identify Waste

Disrupt Status QuoCreate desire to change

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5 Take Aways

• Build the “Rebel Alliance” and change program

•Want to Change

•Visualize the Change

•Make the Change

• Repeat! Repeat! Repeat!

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What I still don’t know how to doCreate and Scale DevOps “Change Agents” fast enough………