Pink Elephant Blog
My Eye-Opening First-Hand Experience of DevOps in Action: The Phoenix Project Business Simulation
The Scenario
It’s July 24, 2020. The CEO of car-parts manufacturer Parts Unlimited (PU) has just stepped down and the new CEO has his work cut out for him. The share price is tumbling, and the company’s archrival is outpacing them at every turn. PU has also failed to deploy the long-awaited “Phoenix” project, developed to restore profitability by integrating its retail and e-commerce channels. Sources say the company has six months to pull up their bootstraps, or they can expect more significant changes and turbulent times ahead!
This is the set-up scenario that seven remote-working Pinkers from sales, marketing, and operations were faced with as participants in the new, one-day DevOps in Action: The Phoenix Project business simulation – the virtual version. Our mission was to work together as a team to make the new Phoenix project a success
It Really Is “DevOps in Action”!
As a participant in this simulation, I must warn you – this is not a game or course – instead, it’s a highly engaging, intense, and interactive online experience. The goal of the simulation is to ensure those involved gain a deeper understanding of DevOps through a real-life, learn-by-doing experience for adopting and deploying DevOps practices.
Since DevOps describes a cultural mindset for how teams need to collaborate to deliver business value, this was the central theme of the day. Each Pinker acted in one of the business roles within retail operations, human resources, or finance – or within IT in operations, development, and so on.
Through four rounds (sprints), we lived and breathed the DevOps approach with each of us taking part in planning the sprint, executing the release, and then reflecting on the results and what to do differently in the next round.
And, just like in our real-world work lives, internal and external pressures came at us from all sides. It was no small feat trying to thwart an impending employee strike due to a payroll system glitch or keeping customers calm and share prices from plummeting further when we learned that customer credit card info had been leaked! Each new challenge forced us to rethink our strategies and shift our priorities, but as we worked together to solve the problems and implement solutions using the DevOps principles of collaboration, integration, and communication, we were able to:
- Effectively visualize work
- Keep track of our status and the advancement of our work in progress (WIP)
- Take what we learned from each round to improve in the next
- Explore and experience how to work as a remote team
From Theory to Practice – Key Takeaways
One of the most interesting parts of participating in this simulation was that by the end of the day each of my fellow Pinker participants – most of whom don’t have a technical DevOps background (I’m in marketing myself!) – were able to take the theory we were learning and actually put it into practice to achieve measurable results.
In addition to trying to manage more work than we could handle, it became instantly clear in the beginning that we had zero visibility into work or priorities. Once we laid out all the work that had to be completed and compared it to our capacity, we identified trade-offs and then worked together to set priorities. When we accomplished this, we all felt an alignment of purpose and were able to create the value (increase stock prices, profits, sales, customer satisfaction) we were trying to achieve.
Some other key observations and takeaways from my day of DevOps include the following:
- Having a common goal and aligning priorities to the goal is critical to project success
- Communication is key! When we were talking and providing feedback to one another, we were easily able to reorganize our workload. Making sure everyone is engaged and heard by actively asking for input, feedback, and suggestions is crucial.
- No matter how hard we tried to avoid it, sometimes, we just ended up moving into a siloed way of working. However, when we worked together as a team that was constantly collaborating, we moved outside of our silos and began to better understand flow.
The Virtual Version Rocks!
One last important observation. Like so many other organizations today, most of Pink's employees are working remotely, so we were all scattered over different geographical locations. Other than missing the high-fives I always use to celebrate light bulb moments with my teammates, it was truely a compelling and engaging experience. The online tool is easy-to-use and we were guided every step of the way by the amazing George Spalding, one of Pink’s most experienced delivery resources.
Find Out More about the Phoenix Project Online and Pink’s Other Business Simulations
Pink offers a number of different online and onsite business simulations that focus on various frameworks like DevOps, and Agile. Find out more here.
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