DevOps Enterprise Review #14

Gene’s links, DevOps resources, industry musings, & more

#DOES19 Las Vegas

Published in

IT Revolution

10 min readOct 23, 2019

Hello, DevOps Enterprise Summit (DOES) Community!

In the 14th edition of the DevOps Enterprise Review, we continue to highlight industry news and insights from IT practitioners and technology leaders from around the world.

If this is your first time reading the DevOps Enterprise Review (otherwise known as the “DOER”), the purpose of our bi-monthly periodical is to highlight resources, news and other helpful information for those within the global DevOps community. By providing a variety of learning resources, we hope to help technology practitioners advance the state of DevOps and nurture high performance within the enterprise.

Below, you’ll find various industry updates, including the most recent noteworthy tweets from Gene Kim and captivating discussions happening within the world of technology. We share articles about the best programming languages to learn in 2019 to land a developer job and what developers need to know about threat modeling. We also shared a story about the 5 things product managers should know about quality assurance.

With the DevOps Enterprise Summit Las Vegas happening next week, we also made sure to source plenty of resources to prepare for three jam-packed days of learning and networking. We highlighted a story about why changing your digital transformation story is key to changing your workplace culture. We also featured a story to debunk the top 5 DevOps myths and another about why you should hire DevOps enablers, not experts — courtesy of Team Topologies authors, Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais.

Last but not least, we made sure to include a preview for the DevOps Enterprise Summit Las Vegas event — happening next week, can you believe it?!

If there was anything we missed or that you want to call out for the next edition of the DOER, please send us your ideas in the comments section below.

Enjoy reading and we look forward to hearing from you!

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Gene’s Links

(Note: all posts sourced from Gene’s Twitter feed, @RealGeneKim)

Reshared from Nick Tyson. Reading and loving The Unicorn Project by @RealGeneKim. I was worried Gene might be spying on me by how uncanny the Phoenix Project was, after reading the first 5 chapters of The Unicorn Project, I’m convinced my office has mics and cameras, and mentioning Brazil, confirms it!
Reshared from Vala Afshar. Before alarm clocks, people were hired to knock on windows to wake you up. A glimpse into how technology may replace certain types of work, via @EconomicTimes.
Dear Universe: @mik_kersten told me about how Microsoft used F# to rewrite Windows Installer (as in, what gets booted from CD/USB/etc), an operation that has to go right the first time, w/some amazing successes. Does anyone have links to this? THX!! @SamGuckenheimer @jsnover
Reshared from Tricelle. I’m still on the search for my first job as a Software Engineer, and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard ”no” about 100 times by now because of my lack of work experience, but guess what? I’m still as excited as I was when I started my job search a month ago! #GirlsWhoCode #WomenWhoCode.
Reshared from Colm MacCárthaigh. Design with as few moving parts as possible, write as little code as necessary. Raise the bar for code readability and testing. Measure and instrument everything. Own the full product. Know your customer, your ops, and your financials. Cross boundaries and do whatever it takes.
Reshared from Bryan Liles. #1 quality for a senior engineer is the ability to craft well formed queries that guarantee answers for stuff you refuse to remember shows up on the first page of a Google search.
Reshared from Margueritte Kim. “Exclusive sock bundles coming your way! Need your own set? Find out how. #DOES_USA, #unicornproject #phoenixproject @RealGeneKim.” The Unicorn Project merch is starting to arrive!!!
Excerpt #4 of The Unicorn Project is up! In which Maxine pushes for a massive investment in speed, tries to bring Data Hub into the 21st century, faces the formidable TEP-LARB… …and is drawn ever-closer into Sarah’s orbit… #UnicornProject

DevOps Resources — Learn and Grow, Together

Want more frequent updates on DevOps Resources? Be sure to check the IT Revolution DevOps Blog for regular updates!

Breaking the Change Management Barrier

In the digital age, the business climate has changed, and IT must adapt its processes accordingly. Traditional change management leads to long lead times, increased impediments and overhead costs, and frustration from the Development and Operations teams, business leaders, and customers. This paper offers several patterns that can be applied in tandem or as appropriate by leaders seeking ideas and opportunities for optimizing the ongoing value of change management while reducing its complexity.

Authors: Ron Forrester, Sr., Jayne Groll, Chris Hill, Dr. Steve Mayner, Erica Morrison, Scott Nasello, Scott Prugh, Rosalind Radcliffe

Applied Industrial DevOps

As DevOps continues to challenge the status quo and improve business outcomes for software systems, many of the world’s larger enterprises are working to identify how to scale these practices across large, complex systems composed of hardware, firmware, and software. In this follow up to the 2018 paper Industrial DevOps, we take the original guidance eight supporting principles, and the subsequent definitions one step further, by applying the principles in the context of a hypothetical example using autonomous cars and then relating it back to those governing principles. Our intent is to help readers better understand the applicability and need for Industrial DevOps in different solutions, beyond those that are strictly software.

Authors: Josh Atwell, Ben Grinnell, Dr. Suzette Johnson, Harry Koehnemann, Dean Leffingwell, Vincent Lussenburg, Hasan Yasar, Robin Yeman

Love Letter To Clojure (Part 1)

Per Gene Kim: In this blog post, I will explain how learning the Clojure programming language three years ago changed my life. It led to a series of revelations about all the invisible structures that are required to enable developers to be productive. These concepts show up all over The Unicorn Project, but most prominently in the First Ideal of Locality and Simplicity, and how it can lead to the Second Ideal of Focus, Flow, and Joy.

In this post, Gene covers the following:

The First Ideal of Locality and Simplicity
The Second Ideal of Focus, Flow and Joy
Relearning Code, Functional Programming and Immutability
Composability, LISPs, jQuery and REPL

Industry News — Read All About It!

How to get a developer job: The best programming languages to learn in 2019— While not every programmer may follow the oft-repeated advice to learn at least one new programming language each year, most developers will continue to build their skills throughout their career. Many programmers find their job requires them to periodically brush up on new programming languages and their dialects, software frameworks, and tools. Knowing what to learn and when can be difficult, particularly when new software frameworks and tools are created every day. (Source: Staff, TechRepublic)

5 things product managers should know about QA — I remember the cold sweat forming behind my ears the first time a stakeholder asked me, “What’s the Test Plan?” I had no idea. As a new product manager, I had put most of my energy into defining requirements. Without a Quality Assurance team in place, testing became an afterthought — one I didn’t really know how to handle and which frankly gave me a lot of anxiety.

It turns out my experience was not entirely unique. QA is consistently ignored as part of the development process. According to a 2018 State of Testing survey by Practitest, QA testers reported “communicating the value of testing to the organization” as one of the challenges they face most frequently on the job. If QA experts are constantly explaining the importance of their job to their teammates and employers, that’s a red flag. As the product manager leading the product’s vision and execution, gaining a better understanding of how to collaborate with the QA team has become essential to developing and launching products. (Source: Catherine Huang, SD Times)

Why Getting Your Digital Transformation Story Right Is Key To Changing Workplace Culture—One of the most important steps a business can take when pursuing any kind of strategic plan, workforce transformation, or responsible business initiative is to make sure its leaders, people and stakeholders understand what it is you’re trying to do. Meaning, what problems are you trying to solve? What steps are you taking to solve them? And, most importantly, why should they care? (Source: Amity Millhiser, Forbes)

What Developers Must Know About Threat Modeling— Threat modeling is a process that far few developers seem to pursue, but it is a process that helps you and your team to model all potential threats to your application. Essentially, threat modeling is your thinking through all of the potential threats against an application. Doing so is virtually as easy as putting together a list of threats in a structured manner that lets you assess any perceived risks, allowing you to formulate how you are going to respond to the threats. (Source: Jeroen Boks, DevOps.com)

The top 5 DevOps myths debunked — Business executives today are under pressure to accelerate speed to market while ensuring high quality, so it’s not surprising that they are turning to DevOps practices to ensure high-quality software and an exceptional experience for the customer.

To be effective, they you a clear understanding of DevOps and a road map for implementing these practices, but there are many misconceptions and myths that can mislead you. While DevOps is no longer the road less traveled, many people still encounter bumps and unnecessary detours along the way. (Source: David Brooks, TechBeacon)

Why you should hire DevOps enablers, not experts — We are regularly asked if we know any DevOps or site reliability engineering (SRE) experts available for hire. Our answer is, invariably, “Not really.” It’s a tough market out there.

DevOps and SRE (for large-scale software, at least) are critical approaches for success in modern software delivery and operations, as widely demonstrated every year in the State of DevOps report or the array of presentations at the DevOps Enterprise Summit.

But if you think you can achieve DevOps by hiring “DevOps experts,” you are missing some contextual awareness. What exactly are you trying to improve in the first place? If your software delivery is slow because of work you’re handing off among multiple teams with diverse schedules and priorities, will a new hire really help? (Source: Manuel Pais, Matthew Skelton, TechBeacon)

Gene Kim explores DevOps transformation in ‘The Unicorn Project’ — Juggling a mix of technical, cultural and organizational challenges, many enterprises still find themselves in the thick of DevOps transformation. And while these efforts can lead to significant IT and business wins, they’re often impeded by years of technical debt mismanagement, inefficient processes and complex dependencies between dev and ops teams.

This chapter excerpt from Gene Kim’s ‘The Unicorn Project’ touches on one of the book’s core themes: Roadblocks occur when developers, ops and business leaders are misaligned. (Source: Kristin Knapp, SearchITOperations | TechTarget)

Reminders and Updates — Mark Your Calendars

DOES19 Las Vegas is next week!

It’s finally that time — The DevOps Enterprise Summit USA event is happening next week! Gene and the programming committee are incredibly excited to bring together technology and industry leaders together for another unforgettable event. As you know, the DevOps Enterprise Summit Las Vegas will be hosted at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas from October 28–30.

If you can’t wait for #DOES19, we’ve linked a few resources for you to prepare for the days ahead!

See the full agenda for the 3-day event
Check out the full list of speakers that will be sharing their insights at the event
Preview the event with past video presentations, previous speaker slide decks, and photos from all past events
And if you still haven’t registered to attend, this is your last chance to end your FOMO! Register here>>>

Separately, Gene sat down with Sam Guckenheimer, Product Owner, Visual Studio Team Services, Microsoft, and Topo Pal, DevOps Enthusiast to discuss the importance of auditors and DevOps practitioners working together in this video. The video is a preview to the Auditors Workshop taking place in DOES Las Vegas where you can ask auditors everything you’ve been afraid to ask. If you’re interested in learning more about the upcoming DOES workshop check out this blog.

2019 Book Publishing Update

With DOES19 Las Vegas coming up next week, we decided to highlight a tech-friendly book list this week. This book list was crafted after asking 12 tech entrepreneurs what their favorite book is. The responses ranged from self-help books to fiction. Whether you’re looking for a new book to discuss with your friends or you need a new book to add to your reading list, you may find yourself inspired by one of the many books on the list.

Make sure you stop by and see us at DOES19 Las Vegas. Several of our book authors, including Dr. Nicole Forsgrem, Mik Kersten, Mark Schwartz, Mirco Hering, Dominica DeGrandis, John Willis, Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais will all be at the event signing copies of their books.

As well, you can take advantage of this book bundle offer for The Unicorn Project from Gene Kim before the conference. With the book bundle, you may gain access to a 1 hour Q&A with Gene at the conference, exclusive merchandise, a signed copy of The Unicorn Project, and more. Not only that, but part of the proceeds will go to Girls Who Code (which helps teach girls coding at an early age) and Operation Code (which helps our veterans get technology jobs).