100 deployments a day
My key takeaways from Vodafone’s journey towards Agile transformation.
This was my first time to attend an Agile Valley event, they did come highly recommended by a few colleagues.
The event was broken down into the following sections with networking held both before and after the main talks.
Welcome & Keynote
(Ben Connolly, Head of Digital IT, Vodafone)
Speed dating tracks (15-minute sessions on each theme with 5-minute turnaround)
Session 1: DevOps
(Mark Wood, Digital DevOps Lead, Vodafone)
Session 2: Lean Portfolio Management(Arabela Silva, Digital Portfolio Manager, Vodafone)
Session 3: Cloud Deployments(Chris Parkyn, AWS Environment Manager, Vodafone)
I’m going to combine all my takeaways into 1 as some of the tracks turned into more informal discussions (some of them you could hardly hear the speaker).
So here goes…
Transformation (for Vodafone) is about Pace of delivery, with a key focus on engineering innovation and excellence.
Have a goal in mind. Vodafone wanted to move from releasing quarterly to releasing once a day. Eventually, they want to reach up to 100 a day.
Don’t fall into the Spotify trap. Just because Spotify have done such a fantastic job with the adoption of Agile from the outset, don’t think you can easily follow the model they promote. As Ben Connolly rightly put it: “Many (including Vodafone) look to companies like Spotify. But it can be a bit like buying a David Beckham shirt. It doesn’t mean you’ll be able to curl in a 30 yarder the very next day”
Remove inhibitors. When your team present and escalate blockers, remove them immediately so the team can continue to get on with the job at hand.
Fuel enablers. When things are working well, processes and ways of working are moving in the right direction make sure your scale them and fuel them so everyone can take advantage.
Get senior stakeholder buy-in from the outset.
‘The only thing that we do that adds value is to put high quality software into production.’ Ben Connolly
Don’t forget about the importance of people and culture when going through a transformation. You have to bring everyone on the journey.
Build it, Ship it Love it. The mantra that Vodafone live by. I really love this mantra, it really puts the emphasis on delivering great software that you love all the way to production and beyond.
Follow your work all the way to production and beyond. This is a focus on building a true Devops community where work isn’t thrown ‘over the fence’. You really have to care about what you’re building.
Make your progress visible. No matter how big or how small the progress is that you’re making, make sure you are making it visible. This will help move the dial in a positive way for those who don’t believe in what you are doing.
Put a lot of focus engineering best practice, automation, devops, cloud deployments, etc.
Vodafone seem to be doing a great job at managing from the portfolio level. They have implemented the right tools to see where their funding is being spent and what the ROI is.
Keep it simple. Vodafone shared their PI (program increment) board and it was incredibly simple and only contained the relevant information they cared about.
Automation is key. Vodafone is currently running at around 75% automation coverage which is really good.
You don’t have to be religious about the framework you use. Vodafone are currently using elements of SAFe to help them plan and structure their work from a program and portfolio level.
Security. Don’t underestimate the size of the task at hand when moving your infrastructure to the cloud (and make sure you bring security on the journey with you from the outset).
Get your CI / CD pipelines flowing. Vodafone are working towards setting up a continuous delivery pipeline to help reach the target of 100 deployments a day.
Well that is pretty much everything I can remember from the night. Thanks to my colleagues Sasha Kaufmann and Atifa Nadeem for helping out with the takeouts.
If you were at the event and would like to add anything then please comment below.
Come say hi at the next Agile Valley event…
