conway's law: the skeleton of devops

the skeleton of devopsconway’s law

hello i am dan slimmon

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hello i am dan slimmon● i’m in ops● exosite● blue state digital

what works in devopsLET’S DO CHATOPS!

k

what works in devops

what works in devopsLET’S DO CHEF!

k

what works in devops

what works in devops

what works in devops

theory

theory gets a bad rap

theorya theory is a set of rules

that generates predictions

about the behavior of a system

theoryexperimentsweed outfalse theories

theoriestell us whatexperimentsto do

theoryhydrogen emission lines

theoryrydberg formula derived in 1888

theory

1888 -1913in atomicphysics:

theory

theory

whoa

oh mans

HOLY SHIT

Z O M G

theorytheories can be tested

theories allow us to share understanding

theories point the way to innovation

devops theory

devops is a system

devops theory● silo destruction● infrastructure as

code● continuous

integration● empathy

● blameless post-mortems

● measure all the things

● chatops

devops theory● silo destruction● infrastructure as

code● continuous

integration● empathy

● blameless post-mortems

● measuring everything

● chatopscommunication

conway’s law

“How Do CommitteesInvent?” Melvin Conway, 1968

http://tinyurl.com/conwayslaw

conway’s law

organizations which design systems…are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations

conway’s law

to the extent that an organization is not completely flexible in its communication structure, that organization will stamp out an image of itself in every design it produces

conway’s lawif you have 4 groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler

eric s. raymond

conway’s law

proof

conway’s law

“proof”

conway’s lawconsider some system

and the organization which designed it

conway’s lawsystem: organization:

conway’s lawsystem: organization:

conway’s lawsystem: organization:

?

conway’s lawsystem: organization:

conway’s lawnew system: organization:

um...

conway’s lawnew system: organization:

conway’s lawyour org structure isn't solving your problem.

it's an artifact of how you've solved it before.

adam jacob

conway’s lawarchitectural innovations destroy the usefulness of the architectural knowledge of established firms

architectural innovation: the reconfiguration of existing product technologies and the failure of established firms. henderson, r. & clark, k. 1990.

conway’s law in devops

what’s this got to do with devops?

conway’s law in devopswe continuously redesign our systemsto make them betterand to adjust to changing stimuli

so we must do the same for our team structures

conway’s law in devops

chatops

chatopssystem: organization:

?

chatopssystem: organization:

chatopssystem: organization:

conway’s law in devops

infrastructure as code

infrastructure as coderubby rubby rubby #!/bin/bash

infrastructure as code

conway’s law in devopsdevops is a special case of conway’s law

we mold our communication structure into the shape we want for our system

theory is a conversation

agree with me

or, even better, disagree with me

theory is a conversation

organizations which design systems…are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations