What skills are necessary to ensure a seamless DevOps transformation in any organization? The DASA DevOps Competence Model, developed by the DevOps Agile Skills Association, outlines the 12 key knowledge and skill areas which employees need to develop to make the change stick. In this presentation, Niels Loader, a member of the DASA Editorial Board, lays out each of the areas and how they drive change in organizations. Get more info or become a partner today at http://www.godasa.org.

1. DASA
Is an independent and open association supporting the development of
high-­performance IT organizations through agile DevOps initiatives.
DASA offers thought leadership as well as practical guidance for
competence development for professionals and organizations.

2. DASA Master Series
Webinar
December 6th, 2017

3. #DASAchat
Host & Moderator
Kimberly Betty
Marketing Lead
DevOps Agile Skills Association (DASA)
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4. #DASAchat
About the DevOps Agile Skills Association (DASA)
DASA is an independent and open
association supporting the
development of high-­performance IT
organizations through agile DevOps
initiatives. DASA offers thought
leadership as well as practical
guidance for competence development
for professionals and organizations.
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5. Featured Presentation
"The Need for New Skills"

6. #DASAchat
Poll # 1: What is Your Experience?
A. Doing DevOps
B. Doing Scrum
C. Doing Lean
D. All of the above
E. None of the above
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7. #DASAchat
Poll # 2: What Domain are You Working in?
A. Operations
B. Development
C. Business
D. Quality Assurance
E. None of the above
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8. #DASAchat
Today's Guest Presenter
Niels Loader
Partner & Principal Consultant
Quint Wellington Redwood
Member of DASA Editorial Board
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9. DASA Competence Model

10. #DASAchat
Characteristics of Industry Transformation
TPS
1955
10
1880
Artisan
Unique products
Generalists
Craftsman-­Apprentice
Huge learning curve
Mass Production
1920
Standardized
products
Specialists
Coordination
Ultra-­Short
learning curve
Lean Production
1990
Flow of value
Generalized
Specialists
Multi-­disciplinary
Teams
Medium learning
curve

11. #DASAchat
Lean IT
The Transformation within IT
Artisan
Mass Production
Lean Production
1982 20101950
ITIL Agile DevOps
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12. #DASAchat
…so, let’s define and advance
the DevOps profession!
There will be X00.000 DevOps-­
related jobs in 2020
Why Professionalizing DevOps Skills & Knowledge?
… but fairly little is known
about what DevOps entails or
should be
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13. #DASAchat
The Key Question is …
What competencies do I need to
flourish in the DevOps World?
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14. #DASAchat
On the one hand …
Demand
IT Organizations
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15. #DASAchat
On the other …
Demand Supply
IT Organizations IT Engineers
Who is going to work where?
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Matching Supply and Demand
Demand Supply
IT Organizations IT Engineers
Who is going to work where?
DASA
Competence
Framework
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The Goal of DASA
Promote a knowledge and skills
framework for DevOps, based on
a defined set of principles
Generate interest and awareness
for the need for knowledge and
skill development
Map member training content to
the role based competency
framework
Develop and evangelize a vendor
neutral DevOps qualification
program for professionals
Advance quality of training and
open source certification for
DevOps knowledge and skills
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18. #DASAchat
The Mythical DevOps Engineer
Does the DevOps Engineer actually
exist?
–If so, what are the skills and
knowledge?
–If not, how do we move forward?
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19. #DASAchat
The DevOps Team contains two broad roles
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Specify &
Verify
Create &
Deliver

20. #DASAchat
Specify and Verify
This role is for DevOps Team
members who:
• Worked as Functional Support, User
Support, Business Analyst, Architect,
Tester, QA
• Had roles in translating customer value
into features and stories
• Were involved in supporting the
customer’s use of the IT service
The DASA Competence Framework
identifies:
Business Value Optimization
Business Analysis
Architecture & Design
Test Specification
Knowledge Areas
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21. #DASAchat
Business Value Optimization
• Intimate knowledge of business
processes and business rules
• Help to identify the improvements
that add most value to the
business
• Have well-­founded discussions
with business process leaders
concerning the development of
the business process.
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22. #DASAchat
Business Analysis
• Carry out a detailed analysis of
business processes and
information flows
• Determine effective solutions in
terms of functionality, cost and
lead time.
• Estimation of the impact of the
improvement on both the
business process and the IT
systems supporting it.
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23. #DASAchat
Architecture & Design
• Translate impact of improvements
to services on the technology
necessary to deliver the IT
service.
• Ability to identify the impact of
changes to both its own
technology stack and the
technology stacks of IT services
with which there are links.
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24. #DASAchat
Test Specification
• Ensuring that it is clear up front
how the DevOps team and its
customers will know whether new
functionality actual meets the
needs of the users of the IT
service.
• Specify the tests first so that code
can be created in line with the
required outcomes.
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25. Create & Deliver
The DASA Competence Framework
identifies:
Programming
Continuous Delivery
Infrastructure Engineering
Security, Risk & Compliance
Knowledge Areas
This role is for DevOps Team
members who:
• Worked as Developer, Technical
Support, Security/Audit, Operations
Engineer
• Had roles in creating customer value
through features and stories
• Were involved in ensuring the IT
service was correctly configured and
sized

26. #DASAchat
Programming
• Core competency of DevOps
team
• Creating and modifying software
code
• Everything: Applications,
Platforms, Infrastructure, ‘Full
Stack’
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Continuous Delivery
• Continuous Delivery requires
intimate knowledge of the IT
delivery process from
development to production.
• Automated delivery of code
through a well-­constructed
‘pipeline’ from development to
production
• Conceptual understanding of end-­
to-­end driving behavior
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28. #DASAchat
Infrastructure Engineering
• Automation of technological
environments, so that these can be
standardized, kept consistent
and refreshed easily.
• Good understanding of the
underlying infrastructural
technology to ensure that
applications match the standard
infrastructure models.
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29. #DASAchat
Security, Risk & Compliance
• Build in quality at the source.
• Attention to secure coding,
understanding the risks related to
the technology and functionality
• Comply with industry regulations to
ensure that the applications
deployed have value for the
customer.
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30. #DASAchat
Successful DevOps Team
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Business Value Optimization
Business Analysis
Architecture & Design
Test Specification
Programming
Continuous Delivery
Infrastructure Engineering
Security, Risk & Compliance

31. #DASAchat
Leadership
• An absolute necessity in a transformation
• Formal v. Informal
• Key roles:
–Coordination
–Organizational Development
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Enable &
Scale

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Enable & Scale
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Courage
Teambuilding
DevOps Leadership
Continuous improvement
The DASA Competence Framework
identifies:
Skills Areas
This role is for all DevOps Team
members, particularly for those in
leadership roles.

33. #DASAchat
Team Building
“A team is a small number of people with
complementary skills who are committed to a
common purpose, set of performance goals,
and approach for which they hold themselves
mutually responsible.”
Katzenbach and Smith 1993
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Barriers to Effective Collaboration
• Encourage collaboration
• Use Visual Management to foster
openness and trust
Lack of Trust Fear of Conflict
Inattention to
Results
Lack of
Commitment
Avoidance of
Accountability

34. #DASAchat
DevOps Leadership
• Mission command v. Central
command
• Management and other leaders
must support teams in the
development of effective
behavior and habits
• Encourages the team to take
responsibility for their work
• Provide feedback
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35. #DASAchat
Continuous Improvement
• Focus on Quality at the Source
• Continuous Improvement is About
Problem-­Solving – every day
• Kaizen Mindset
–Seeing and prioritizing problems
–Solving problems
–Sharing Lessons Learned
• Removing Technical Debt
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Courage
• Courage to experiment
• Fail fast
• Define and deliver a Minimum
Viable Product
• Take small steps and do not carry
out large experiments
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DASA Competence Framework
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The DASA Competence Framework Identifies
Knowledge
Areas
Courage
Teambuilding
DevOps Leadership
Continuous improvement
Business Value Optimization
Business Analysis
Architecture & Design
Test Specification
Programming
Continuous Delivery
Infrastructure Engineering
Security, Risk & Compliance
Knowledge Areas Skills Areas
Skill Areas

38. #DASAchat
DASA DevOps Maturity Model
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5
Master
2
Competent
3
Proficient
4
Expert
1
Novice

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DASA DevOps Maturity Model
• Specific definitions of
each level
• Helps organizations
define Demand in a
standard way
• Helps IT engineers
describe Supply in a
standard way
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40. #DASAchat
The DevOps Journey
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Meet Bob. Bob’s a Tester. He’s about to embark on his DevOps journey.

41. #DASAchat
The DevOps Journey (Cont.)
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Bob tests but the IT organization is changing ...
Does the DASA
Competence
Framework scan

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The DevOps Journey (Cont.)
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Architecture
and Design
Business Value
Optimization
Business
Analysis
Test
Specification
Bob gets assigned to a DevOps team..
Ambition: To become more
involved with customers on
a day-­to-­day basis.
Has investigated the Specify and
Verify profile that matches with his
ambition … but his current profile
does not..

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The DevOps Journey (Cont.)
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Bob starts his journey to DevOps in a step-­by-­step approach.
Step 1: Learn about
DevOps.

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The DevOps Journey (Cont.)
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The team needs to build his
capability in Business Value
Optimization (BVO) and
Business Analysis (BA).
Step 2: Bob learns more about the customer’s
processes by communicating to users and
follows some courses.

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The DevOps Journey (Cont.)
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Step 3: Bob continues to develop...Although he
has gained the practical experience, he supports
this with a formal certification.

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The DevOps Journey (Cont.)
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He improves his Test
Specification skills too.
Step 4: Bob improves in his
daily interactions with senior
colleagues, picks up the basis
of architecture and follows some
courses such as TOGAF.

47. #DASAchat
The DevOps Journey (Cont.)
4
7
As he works in a team, he
improves in both Knowledge
and Skill areas.
Step 5: Bob builds his
Competence “Stack” …

48. Questions?

49. #DASAchat
Interested in Learning More?
Email me:
kimberly.betty@devopsagileskills.org
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50. #DASAchat
Contact Us..
Kimberly Betty
Marketing Lead
DASA
Niels Loader
Partner -­ Principal Consultant
Quint Wellington Redwood
n.loader@quintgroup.com
n.loader@quintgroup.comkimberly.betty@devopsagileskills.org
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51. Thank You!
info@devopsagileskills.org