A key finding from the 2023 State of DevOps Report is that effective leadership is critical for successfully scaling DevOps across large, complex organizations. As leaders guide their teams on the DevOps journey, certain practices unlock high performance at scale:
Provide Clarity of Vision, Goals, and Constraints
In dynamic, rapidly changing environments, teams need a fixed point to orient around. Leaders must paint a vivid picture of the future state, ground it in meaningful goals for major milestones, and transparently communicate organizational constraints. Clarity of purpose and priorities enables empowered action.
Increase Team Autonomy Within Guiding Guardrails
Balancing autonomy with alignment is key. Leaders cannot dictate play-by-play direction top-down across large organizations. They must set guiding principles and strategic guardrails, then trust teams to take ownership of solutions tailored to their domain. Psychology safety enables risk taking within defined parameters.
Drive Extensive Enablement - Training, Coaching, Tools
Expecting teams to optimize workflows without extensive enablement sets them up for frustration. Leaders need to invest up front in broad capability building via training, hands-on coaching, and optimized tools. Create the conditions for teams to then innovate on their slice of the system.
Foster Psychological Safety to Take Risks and Learn
Innovation requires failure, feedback, and growth in a safe environment. Leaders should actively nurture team psychological safety where people feel trusted, respected, and free to take chances without repercussions. Mistakes become lessons when blameless culture replaces fear.
Break Down Silos and Barriers to Collaboration
Matrixed organizations default to silos without conscious intervention. Leaders seeking broad DevOps adoption must proactively think cross-functionally, highlight interdependencies between teams, incentivize collaborative behaviors, and standardize platforms and practices across boundaries.
Lead with Empathy, Humility, and Servant Leadership
Enabling hundreds or thousands of employees to work differently takes sensitivity, compassion, and service. Leaders must remain humble, resist sweeping mandates, meet people where they are, and serve teams by removing roadblocks. Patience and understanding trump pace.
Coach Teams - Resist Mandated Solutions
Prescriptive solutions from the top often backfire. Leaders get better results coaching teams to creatively apply principles to their domain rather than enforcing specific playbooks. Facilitate, don't dictate.
For leaders, balancing alignment with autonomy, investment in enablement with urgency for outcomes, and directive with coaching is key to scaling DevOps. It requires a commitment to growth, leading from beside, and compassion. To discuss challenges and solutions in your context, please reach out.