Sarah Miller (Collins Aerospace)

Hello, my name is Sarah, and here's the setup.

Someone who shall not be named — Dave — he signed me up for a class to teach about DevOps. Okay, I'm excited. "Do you want a three-hour class, or the 16-hour class that we have?" He's like, "Uh, no — you get 30 minutes."

I'm like, oh, help. I don't know what to do. How do I teach DevOps in 30 minutes? It's nearly impossible. I mean, this is a lifelong practice we have.

Maybe I could do an activity. What would be fun? What do people know about today? What does a DevOps infinity loop remind you of?

What about a board game? Can we build a board game on DevOps? Maybe we can.

I needed help. I phoned my network. I found Chad. I asked Chad, "Do you know anything about games?" Chad was super excited. He was going to Gen Con and just was gamified all over the place. So I'm like, "I need a DevOps activity. Can we make a game?" He's like, "Yeah, let's talk. Let's do this."

So we did. We spent some time planning, designing, writing. It's kinda like coding, but different.

So we created a cooperative-play game where people try and get around the loop to release your software. We really want you to release your software. So you create some pipelines, you play the pipelines with some actions, and you go through your different software phases of planning, implementing, and releasing software.

So then we had to figure out how to get the game going. So we printed it — lots of paper cuts, lots of punching, lots of... my cutter broke, or I used all my cutter bits. I had to use my manual cutter. It took a long time, but we made it. We got a game, we got some pieces. We used our Amazon accounts, put it together.

And then we had the big day. It was exciting. We had six teams play the board game. Now, these were not software people. That was the kicker. We had to train on DevOps to non-software folks.

And so I learned several things. One: people are very competitive and they like to win. Two: I do not know how to write board game rules, nor do I know how to explain them — very, very hard. And three: 30 minutes is never enough. People just wanted to play.

And so we had a real exciting time. The teams were super happy and super excited. And this is some of the feedback I got from the different teams. One of the biggest comments — it's probably not even on here — is that releasing software is super hard, and you go back a lot in the game; no one can win. Although theoretically, through the math, it's possible.

And so we worked really hard to give our teams the understanding about how DevOps works, where it goes. And I think the best thing they did is they wanted to play again and keep playing.

So we had fun. We gave out a couple copies of the game at the event. So it was pretty fun.

And today I'd like to share the game with you. So you've got a typical QR codes. One is you can find out about me — I work for Collins Aerospace, I'm a senior tech fellow. And the second, you can find out about the game, so you can download it. Hopefully the link works; I tried to test it. My friends are good. And Topo and Jason, thank you so much for hosting our lightning talks.

I have brought you a copy of the game.

[Topo Pal / Jason Cox banter on stage] "Hey, this is mine." "What? Hey, hey, what are you doing? This is — give it, give it to — hey man, caring is sharing, right? Look, come on. What is this?" "Oh, oh, there are two. Oh, okay, okay. Where is — it's good. I guess I should listen to the talks."

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thank you.