Gene Kim

Welcome to the fourth annual DevOps Enterprise Summit here in San Francisco. I'm so excited by what we have in store for you for the next three days. And with me is our fellow master of ceremonies, Sam Fell.

Sam Fell

Morning, everybody.

Morning.

All right. Great crowd. Some of you may be nervous. I'm a little nervous, but it's okay. I read a book. If we just imagine Gene naked, we can all be okay.

Gene Kim

So, in the first 15 minutes...

Sam Fell

We're going to talk about the code of conduct a little bit later.

Gene Kim

We'll be describing some of the goals of this conference and tell you what to expect.

Specifically, I think we're here because we believe three things, and we are surrounded by 1,400 of your kindred spirits because they also share common beliefs. One is that DevOps is genuinely important. Two is that DevOps creates real business value. And three is we believe that DevOps makes our work more humane.

And we know through four years of benchmarking through the State of DevOps Report, that shows decisively year after year that this is indeed true. We know that high performers are massively outperforming their non-high-performing peers. They're doing 46 times more frequent deployments. They can complete those deployments 440 times faster, and they get far better outcomes. When they do a deployment, they're one-fifth as likely to have those changes blow up. And when bad things go wrong, as Murphy's Law guarantees, they can fix those issues 100 times faster.

And it's not just IT performance that high performers enjoy. They also have better organizational performance.

Actually, we found this other dimension of security for two years running. Not only do they have all these other great operational metrics, but they also have better security metrics because they're integrating security objectives into every stage of daily work. They're spending one-half the amount of time remediating security issues.

So as a population, we call that IT performance, but it goes beyond that. We know that high performers have better organizational performance as well. They're twice as likely to exceed profitability, market share, and productivity goals.

And for the first year this year, we had a separate survey track for not-for-profits. We found that high performers that were not-for-profits were twice as likely to achieve organizational and mission goals, whether you measure that by customer satisfaction, quantity, or quality.

We know that high performers had 50% higher market cap growth over three years. And another marker of organizational performance is that employees in the high performers were twice as likely to recommend their organizations as a great place to work to their friends and colleagues.

So, this gives us increasing confidence that DevOps helps organizations win in the marketplace.

Actually, if we can go back, one last thing that I can't help but notice is that something like one out of three or better of the people who present at DevOps Enterprise have been promoted over the last three years, often more than once. And it just shows that, I think, the people who are driving DevOps transformations, people see the organizational value they're creating, and they're being asked to take on even larger responsibilities to make an even more significant contribution to the organization.

So one of my favorite quotes from The Phoenix Project is this from Erik. He said, "I want to improve the lives of one million IT workers over the next five years."

And I think that's great, but IDC, the analyst firm, I think, puts it into perspective even better. IDC said there's about 8 million developers on the planet, 8 million ops people on the planet. And I think really the mission of DevOps is to help elevate the productivity of all of those 16 million technology workers, so they're as productive as if they were out of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and so forth. So DevOps is indeed not just for the unicorns, but for the horses as well.

So, to share with you why we've constructed the DevOps Enterprise Summit in the way we have. One of the things you'll notice is that we have a lot of experience reports, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. But the goal is we want existence proofs to help organizations negate objections. In other words, objections like, "Oh, we can't do that because we're an airline," or, "We're a telco," or, "We're a retailer."

So part of year one in 2014 was to gather as many experience reports as we could across as many industry verticals as possible to help you negate those objections.

There's another reason that experience reports have a special place near and dear in my heart, which is that as adult learners, as leaders, we don't learn from hearing from someone who says, "Here's what you should be doing," or, "Here's what I think you should be doing." Really, we learn better when we actually can hear what other people actually did.

And so that really creates the structure for the experience reports that you'll be hearing throughout the next three days, which is, in general, they all have this form: Here's the industry that we compete in. Here's our organization. Here's where I fit in the org chart. Here's the business problem that we set out to solve. Here's where we started and why. Here's what we did. Here's the outcomes that resulted, and here's the problems that still remain.

And almost every speaker you'll see, hopefully, will have a slide at the end that says, "Here's what we don't know how to do, and here's the help that we're looking for." And I love these type of asks because this really helps, I think, accelerate this mutually exothermic community where we can actively help each other, right? And what better way to help each other than when we know what help people are looking for.

So, one of the things that we also use those problem statements for is to really craft the program objectives for this year. And so these are actually the tracks for the conference.

One is technology for technology leaders. Two is next-generation leadership, especially for operations and other shared services. Third is gaining business buy-in. Four is security and compliance. And the fifth, let's call architecture and ideal end states.

So, the program committee has worked to create the best talks along these lines, and in certain cases, we actually did find the best subject matter experts in the space. So here's the types of talks that you'll see over the next three days.

One, our experience reports. Second one that I really love are repeat experience reports. This year, we're going to have three talks that presented for the last four years. So specifically, that's Scott Prugh and Erica Morrison at CSG, it's Tapabrata Pal and his colleague Stephanie at Capital One, and number three, Jason Cox at Disney, presenting with his colleague Brian Scott.

So I love this because it really shows us we can follow them in their journey year after year.

Another specific objective that's new for this year that I credit to one of our programming committee members is Courtney Kissler. We really want to find experience reports that span the business and technology divide. I think Mark Schwartz, in his phenomenal book A Seat at the Table, he really paints that the distinction between the technology leader and the business leader is disappearing.

So maybe in 10 years, that distinction won't even be there. They might be one person. So in the meantime, the best thing that we can do is find places where there's a genuine collaborative relationship that spans business and technology. And then the fourth type of talk is the experience report, the subject matter expert for those problem areas. Who are the absolute best people in the game where we can teach them what we want to learn?

So, in a second, Dominica DeGrandis will come up and talk about other specific mechanisms we created to help create more opportunities for serendipitous and collaborative interactions, because as learners, we learn best from fellow collaborators and peers.

And so specifically, we're going to be using the Lean Coffee format. And so Dominica, can you come out and share with us the DevOps workshops?

Go, Gene.

And I'll get you there and back.

If you want to go to heaven.

Dominica DeGrandis.

Dominica DeGrandis

Hi, good morning everyone.

So the DevOps workshops follow the Lean Coffee format. It's a very simple structure. Participants gather, they build an agenda, and they start talking.

So these are some topics that you'll be able to vote on if you want. And then the next slide is the format here. So you'll gather around tables, and each table's going to be facilitated by a speaker, so you never know who's going to be facilitating your talk until you show up.

The first one today is going to be at 4:10, and this is in the Imperial Ballroom A, which is downstairs. Tomorrow's is a different time. So tomorrow the focus is more on culture and org design, and tomorrow will be more on tech practices and metrics and some others.

And how you get to vote on this is we're going to spark the first topic with the voting wall. The voting wall has some of these topics posted on it. Currently, it's in between Imperial Ballroom A and B, and everybody here gets one vote. No cheating now.

So just go put a dot. I saw some there already this morning. Just go put a dot on one of those sheets of papers for what you want to discuss, and then show up in the room at 4:10 in Imperial Ballroom A and take a seat at the table.

Thank you.

Gene Kim

Thank you, Dominica. Thank you, Dominica.

I don't have any open hands for a microphone.

And by the way, my thanks to Dominica for year after year she's trained a small army to facilitate these Lean Coffee formats, so I'm deeply grateful.

So another way that you can connect is through Ask the Speaker sessions. So we've created a format where the plenary speakers will be available for you to ask questions to, and the times are listed here. And again, the goal is to create as many opportunities for you to connect with the people that you want to.

So one of the things I want to do is thank the programming committee. This year we had Jason Cox from Disney, as well as Courtney Kissler, now at Nike, join the programming committee. I'm so grateful for the help. Cornelia Davis, Dominica DeGrandis, John Willis, and Damon Edwards serving on the programming committee for the fourth year.

So if you want to connect with them, you can do that too, and probably the best way is through the app. So one of the things that you can do in the app is actually search through all the attendees, and you can actually contact them through the app. So I encourage you to do that. This is really here for you.

The last thing I want to do is share with you a code of conduct. Since we created this event, we made a point of highlighting our code of conduct in the opening remarks. It's impossible to ignore the events of the last several weeks and the growing awareness in so many venues people do not feel safe or heard.

So I'm going to read to you our code of conduct in its entirety this morning to emphasize our continued commitment and to be very specific about the environment we want to create over the next three days.

Our code of conduct reads: The DevOps Enterprise Summit participants shall conduct themselves in accordance to the highest standards of decorum and good taste.

DevOps Enterprise Summit is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everybody, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, political affiliation, or religion.

And so could you scroll up on the speaker notes, please? I'm using my iPad gestures.

So, Johnny?

TL;DR, be nice to each other, be good to each other, right? Respect each other.

So we do not tolerate harassment of any conference participants in any form.

So on the next slide. So here's what to do if you are being harassed, notice somebody that is being harassed, or have any concerns. Please contact a member of conference staff immediately. All members of staff can be found with a black staff ribbon on their badges, as indicated on the slide.

We have an IT Revolution booth downstairs in the Yosemite Room across from where you registered, and we can be reached at any time at help@itrevolution.com. Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. Conference participants violating the code of conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference without a refund at the discretion of the conference organizers.

We expect participants to adhere to the code of conduct at all conference venues and conference-related social events.

And really, I have always been amazed by this community. You are a community of leaders, and I thank you in advance for making this conference a great three days. So thank you in advance.

Sam Fell

And on a slightly more continuous delivery note...

Gene Kim

...up note, I am pleased to announce for the first time ever, the slides of every presentation will be available at the end of each day, both through Dropbox and GitHub. So thank you to the IT Rev team.

So I also want to note that this conference would not be possible without Electric Cloud. They've been a founding sponsor. They've been with us from the very beginning in 2014. So Sam, take it away.

Sam Fell

Thanks, Gene.

So, the history of the show, for those of you who may not remember, in 2013, Electric Cloud held the last of our customer conferences, Electric Cloud Spark. We had 200 customers joining us from all over the world. Gene, Jez, Gary Gruver, they were all speaking at the conference.

And Gene, after the conference, came up to our CEO at the time, Steve Brodie, and said, "Hey, these are exactly the kinds of people that I want to try and help bring DevOps practices to. Let's start a conference."

So we started a conference in 2014. 700 attendees showed up. 700 of you showed up to learn more about DevOps and how it could impact the way they deliver software.

In 2017, 1,400 of you are now sitting here. So this is an infection. It is spreading very nicely. You guys are a testament. Thank you. Thank you very much. You're a testament to the ideas.

Thank you very much.

To the ideas and practices that are bringing us this Precambrian explosion to the IT revolution.

You're all thinking to yourselves, "Okay, this is very interesting. I've been fed. I have water. What about Wi-Fi?" That's the Wi-Fi password. So if anybody doesn't have it yet, that's how you get on the Wi-Fi. Please limit your usage to two devices and don't live stream the event if you're here, right? That sort of soaks up all the bandwidth.

This also would not be possible without our sponsors. I have some slides with the NASCAR logos coming in just a second, but it would be great for you to go by the expo hall during the times when the expo hall is open. Today, it's open from 12:30 to 7:30. There's actually an event tonight that we'll be talking about as well, to help make it easy and very desirable for you to go into that room and talk to the vendors and see what kinds of stuff they have.

Tomorrow, it'll be open as well, and Wednesday. There's time for you to go in there and look around. There's a passport game, whole bunch of stuff for you guys to go and enjoy.

I want to have a special call-out to our platinum sponsors: CA Automic, BMC, GitHub, Go2Group, IBM, and Microsoft. Thank you very much for sponsoring.

We sold out on sponsorships this year. We've sold out, you saw the press release, we sold out on tickets as well. It's a pretty hot ticket, and so we're appreciative to all the sponsors.

Our gold sponsors, again, sold out gold sponsorships this year. Silver sponsorships sold out this year as well. So we appreciate all you guys supporting the show.

We also have fantastic media partners. Every year, we bring in some of the best media folks. The best media folks in the business are very interested in learning what you're learning, understand your reactions to the learnings that you're getting. And so we're very pleased to have all the media sponsors here as well.

That's the end of my prepared remarks. Gene?

Gene Kim

Very good.

So let's go to the first speaker, which is Scott Prugh and Erica Morrison from CSG. Again, speaking for the fourth time.

I met Scott Prugh shortly after The Phoenix Project came out, and I can't tell you how much I've learned from him over the five years. I had the privilege of being able to go get a plant tour of one of their bill-printing plants in Omaha. I got to attend one of their release plannings, and it was an incredible privilege and dizzying.

Scott is an architect at heart. Rumor has it that he has memorized all the keyboard shortcuts in Visio. When I met him, his title was chief architect. He was promoted to VP of product development and now owns a significant chunk of the product operations organization as well.

He'll be presenting for the third time with Erica Morrison, and her presentation on what happens when a dev manager takes over ops is one of my favorite presentations of all time.

So with no further ado, Scott Prugh and Erica Morrison.