Key takeaways from the DevOps Enterprise Summit 2019

I recently attended the DevOps Enterprise Summit in Las Vegas. I can tell you that it was was an amazing conference and a great community of people who are keen to share in each other’s learnings. There was so much that I learned from others.

Key takeaways:

I know everyone probably had their own takeaways. I had just too many of them but that’s a testimony to how great the conference was. Here are some of the nuggets from my perspective:

1. You are not alone. If there was one thing that was obvious sitting through many sessions was that there were many common themes that resonated with a lot of us - Project to product, Dojos, Engineering Culture. And through various sessions / lean coffee we all could bond over common pains e.g. - What do you tell people who say DevOps/Agile is done?? “Yay !!! let’s go home.” ?
2. Project to Products: Projects are so 1990s. Its apparent that this is a movement at Enterprise IT. I think at one point, more than 1/3rd of the audience said that they are all on a “Project to Product” journey. Couple of great talks on this. One by Ross Clanton & Amy Walters on learnings from real world and another by author Mik Kersten on his research for his book.
3. Auditors love DevOps. We had an awesome opportunity over 3 sessions to ask questions and bust myths from expert auditors from the Big 4. Did I say it was awesome? Here is the video to the session where auditors from the Big4 busted DevOps myth around compliance.
4. There are amazing companies blazing the path for others to follow. We heard inspiring success stories from Adidas, BMW, Verizon, CSG, Optum, Adidas, Compuware, Comcast and more...
5. Functional Programming Principles are cool (And CQRS too)... And Yes, Gene Kim loves Clojure !!!
6. I am now Certified Real Agile Practitioner (CRAP) !!! LinkedIn doesn’t let me add that one. For context, see one of the funnest lightening talks I have seen here
7. It was just great to sit through talks by thought leaders like Gene, Nicole, Mik. Really a lot of takeaways from all those sessions. My favorite was a preview by Gene into the five ideals from his upcoming book “The Unicorn Project”.
8. Pulling andon cords and swarming in real life could reduce overall wait time for developers !!! See the Presentation here. Video of the session coming soon.
9. Building an Engineering Culture is a recurring theme in many success stories - BMW, Verizon, Comcast ...
10. And yes, Platforms rule. Click here for a great case study from adidas.
11. Dojo are a rage in Enterprise IT. IT companies are producing lean agile engineering Ninjas in their internal Dojos!!! Capital One, Verizon, Target, US Bank, Walmart, and the list goes on. The Dojo Consortium has practitioners from 30 companies !!! Learn More here. Join the movement here.
12. The story of Project Athena at Verizon is super awesome and inspiring stuff. It's an initiative in Verizon to enable people from underserved communities to be technologists. Now go and do it in your org. Don’t just talk about it. Kudos Jaclyn for showing the way at Verizon.
13. Bengineers is another awesome idea!!! Tech needs more diversity. Way to go team Comcast - Leslie Chapman (Winner of a Tech Emmys), Michael Winslow. Wait, there is Tech Emmys?
14. A lot of books and reference material and case studies and videos. A lot to take back to our teams !!!
15. My awkward fanboy moments with Gene Kim and Nicole Forgersen. And signed books too !!! Thanks for indulging me. All of you were super gracious.

My favorite quotes from the conference:

You can’t steer if you are standing still.

Greatness is not free. You have to pay down technical debt.

The definition of DevOps changes continually because it is defined by its outcomes, not its methodology - @JennWrennHen

And I think the biggest takeaway was all the connections I made with like minded folks who are trying to figure out this thing called “DevOps” which really can’t be defined !!! A must attend conference for IT leaders.

Key Resources

1. Click Here for all the Presentations from the conference
2. Click Here for DevOps Forum Paper
3. Click Here for Youtube Playlist on the Keynotes
4. Click Here for Youtube Playlist on the Lightening Talks. BTW, they are awesome.
5. Keep an eye out for the videos on breakout sessions. They will show up in the IT revolution youtube channel.