Talk given with Nick Barcet during the 2015 Vancouver Openstack Summit. If you are reading this abstract, you probably agree that Cloud technologies in general, and Openstack in particular, are a wonderful enabler of businesses transformation. At the same time you may have crossed the way of people who seemed stuck in an old way of thinking the use of technologies. They will tell you that what you propose will not work in real life… Probably because, it’s too far away from where they stand right now. The culture and organization change is often underestimated and touches all the areas from business to ops. Before your organization will be able to consider infrastructure as code, cross-functional teams that are in charge from design to production or zero-touch continuous deployment, there are steps to climb one at a time. In this session, we will share what we learned from real cases openstack projects: How to stage your transformation? How to present information depending on who you are talking to? How to generate quick wins to keep the enthusiasm momentum?

1. DON’T CHANGE MY MINDSET
I AM NOT THAT OPEN
Nick Barcet
Alexis Monville

2. 2
Nick BARCET Alexis MONVILLE
Director,
Openstack Product
Management
Director,
Improvement & Dissemination
Red Hat
Cloud Innovation Practice
@nijaba @alexismonville
@nijaba @alexismonville

3. HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT
DEVOPS?
3

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Developers Operators

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Developers Operators

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Developers Operators
CHANGE STABILITY

7. Timeline
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‘09 Velocity 2009
Alspaw & Hamond talk
10 deployments a day at
Flickr

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9. Timeline
9 @nijaba @alexismonville
‘09 Velocity 2009
Alspaw & Hamond talk
10 deployments a day at
Flickr
‘15 Openstack Summit

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11. Timeline
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‘01 ‘15‘09Agile Manifesto

12. Timeline
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‘01 ‘15‘09Agile Manifesto‘96 eXtreme
Programming

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Developers Operators
CHANGE STABILITY

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Developers Operators
CHANGE STABILITY

15. CULTURE
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16. Organizations are more like this?
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17. Or like this?
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Product
Proposing a radical collaboration
model will not help

19. START WHERE THEY ARE!
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20. Identify the value flow
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21. Vision
Stakeholders need to understand the global
vision that will guide our decisions
● ambitious enough
● showing the value for the stakeholders
● connected to reality
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The Director The Coach

23. Organize collaboration
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24. Organize collaboration
Who are my customers?
Who are my providers?
What defines the services/products that we
provide?
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25. For each provider
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Product Owner
Coach

26. Product Owner mission
Imagine that you are a PO at Amazon for a
given functionality
Listen
Propose
Gather all stakeholders (customer and provider)
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27. Product Owner mission
Output is
● a shared definition of your product,
● a shared understanding of the personas,
● a backlog of prioritized features,
● a definition of your interfaces in the value
flow,
● and a definition of your metrics that enable
[show|charge]back
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28. DON’T CHANGE MY MINDSET
I AM NOT THAT OPEN
28

29. FIRST THEY IGNORE YOU,
THEN THEY LAUGH AT YOU,
THEN THEY FIGHT YOU,
THEN YOU WIN.Mahatma Gandhi
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30. Understand your world
passive resistance
derision resistance
active resistance
change agent
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31. All characters appearing in this work
are fictitious. Any resemblance to real
persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.
Of course….
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32. This is Henry
Joe joins your meetings without actively
participating… and accept the decisions without
enforcing them…
He is...
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33. This is Beth
She is looking for each possible loopholes… She
is giving counter examples... She highlights how
the change cannot apply to her work.... She
warns about the risks for the whole
organization…
She is...
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34. This is Bob
He is taking people apart to make fun of what is
being said… He finishes your sentences… He
sends email to the group with dilbert cartoons…
He is outwardly positive...
He is...
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35. This is Johanna
She wants to understand your goal… She is
asking questions about the current situation…
She is proposing her support… She offers
solutions to problems...
She is...
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36. People do change...
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37. CREATE THE CONDITIONS
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38. Passive
Pair them with change agent…
Coach a change agent on how to show results...
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39. Derision
Give her/him the responsibility to communicate
about the team progress
Coach personally on the objectives and how
this could be an opportunity for her/him
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40. Active
Give her/him the responsibility for risk analysis
and project retrospectives*
Offer her/him a way to express his discontent
and propose mitigation strategies
*make her/him apply 6 thinking hats retrospective or pick
another one from http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?
title=6_Thinking_Hats_Retrospective
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41. Change agent
That’s who you start with…
(S)He could be your Product Owner!
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42. LET’S START THE JOURNEY!
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43. There is always a way
It’s only a matter of state of mind.
Resistance is part of the game and provides the
feedback that we need for the journey.
It’s our role to adapt to these signals.
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44. THANK YOU
Nick Barcet
Alexis Monville
@nijaba
@alexismonville

45. THANK YOU
Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat
@RedHatNews
Red Hat channel