Explaining why businesses should do continuous delivery (CD) can be hard. Businesses have roadmaps and plans and getting them to do development or operations work for a practice they don’t understand can be daunting. As a product manager I want to share with you how you can convince people like me (product managers) and others in your business why you should practice continuous delivery and build a DevOps culture.
Originally presented at DevOpsDays Nashville in November 2016
https://www.devopsdays.org/events/2016-nashville/program/suzie-prince/
2. Suzie Prince
Head of Product for
ThoughtWorks products group
Product Manager for Snap CI
10 + years experience in
software development including
agile and CD practices
Tweeting @pm_suzie
7. @pm_suzie
“Continuous Delivery is the ability to get
changes of all types—including new
features, configuration changes, bug
fixes and experiments—into production,
or into the hands of users, safely and
quickly in a sustainable way.”
- Jez Humble, continuousdelivery.com
8. @pm_suzie
“Continuous Delivery is the ability to get
changes of all types—including new
features, configuration changes, bug
fixes and experiments—into production,
or into the hands of users, safely and
quickly in a sustainable way.”
- Jez Humble, continuousdelivery.com
15. @pm_suzie - Mark Lyons, How do I become a Product Manager?@pm_suzie
16. @pm_suzie
“IT is part of the business and not
outside it. The team should be
responsible for business success, not
just technical success, which has no
value in itself.”
- Mary Poppendieck, Unknown
22. @pm_suzie@pm_suzie
Busy!Knows business goals
Understands customers
Wants to deliver a
valuable product
Wants to meet
customer needs
Has too many
requirements
Has to balance
bugs and new
features
Has to answer to
customers when
product is
unavailable
Needs feedback
Does not know
everything
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pixbymaia/20639146075/in/photostream/
23. @pm_suzie@pm_suzie
Busy!Knows business goals
Understands customers
Wants to deliver a
valuable product
Wants to meet
customer needs
Has too many
requirements
Has to balance
bugs and new
features
Has to answer to
customers when
product is
unavailable
Needs feedback
Does not know
everything
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pixbymaia/20639146075/in/photostream/
24. @pm_suzie@pm_suzie
Busy!Knows business goals
Understands customers
Wants to deliver a
valuable product
Wants to meet
customer needs
Has too many
requirements
Has to balance
bugs and new
features
Has to answer to
customers when
product is
unavailable
Needs feedback
Does not know
everything
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pixbymaia/20639146075/in/photostream/
28. @pm_suzie
ASK QUESTIONS
Can you tell me more about…
What is your desired outcome?
What would make you happy?
What’s a bad day look like? What does a good day look like?
Is there anything I could do?
31. @pm_suzie
TIPS FOR ACTIVE LISTENING
Give undivided attention and show you’re listening
Defer judgement. Don’t assume. Have a open mind
Provide feedback. Reflect. “What I’m hearing is…”
No solutions!
Say thanks
50. @pm_suzie
“Part of the reason IMVU can get away
with all their bugs is because they’re
in the entertainment business, so
none of their users rely on them for
anything really important.”
- Anon, 50 Deployments A Day and The Perpetual Beta
52. @pm_suzie
“Continuous deployment sounds cool. In
a world where safety and reliability and
privacy and security aren’t important,
it would be fun to try. But like a lot of
other developers, I live in the real world.
And I need to build real software.”
-Jim Bird, Continuously Putting Your Customers at Risk
58. @pm_suzie
DATA AND RESOURCES
• https://puppet.com/resources/white-paper/2016-state-of-devops-report
• https://continuousdelivery.com/evidence-case-studies/
• http://www.mindtheproduct.com/2016/02/what-the-hell-are-ci-cd-and-devops-a-
cheatsheet-for-the-rest-of-us/
• http://www.mindtheproduct.com/2016/07/continuous-delivery-devops-product-
managers-new-bff/
• http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/06/why-continuous-deployment.html
• http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/continuous-deployment-5-eas.html
59. @pm_suzie
TIPS FOR SELLING CD TO YOUR BUSINESS
Get to know your business
Show empathy and learn their drivers and fears
Highlight the benefits, not the features, of CD
And keep going.…