Businesses are demanding ever shorter release cycles for new applications. Traditionally ‘Operations’ is seen as a barrier with lengthy bureaucratic controls and delays in provisioning production systems. DevOps is a growing movement for shortening development and deployment and integrating Development and Operations. However this requires a mindset shift, new behaviors and a cultural shift in both Development and Operations. Traditionally suspicious of each other, they must now work closely together. Yet many companies are struggling to adopt and deploy DevOps and how to change the culture.
This workshop is designed to simulate a real-life situation. Parts Unlimited is in trouble. Newspaper reports reveal the poor financial performance of the organisation. The only way forward to not only save the company but to make it competitive and profitable is “The Phoenix Project” which represents an IT enabled business transformation, with Retail Operations as the business owner of this project. The VP of IT Operations is asked to take the lead of the IT department and ensure that “The Phoenix Project” will be a success. But the VP of IT Operations is facing a tremendous amount of work. A huge backlog of issues, features and projects.
Your team will act in different roles within the Parts Unlimited organisation. You can be Retail Operations, Human Resources or Finance – playing the Business roles of the company. Or you can be the VP of IT Operations or other members from the IT Team that needs to develop the applications and solve the IT Issues.
Your challenge is to use the DevOps principles and apply them in this serious Business Simulation. In three rounds you will work on the IT projects and IT issues and ensure that “The Phoenix Project” will be finished on time. But, beware, the business keeps coming with new ideas and demands and external developments outside your control can also throw a spanner in the works.
The objective of this business workshop simulation is for participants to gain a deeper understanding of:
The workshop is a great team building experience! It is targeted at all roles and staff in Business, IT Development and IT Operations who want to apply Lean, Agile and ITSM principles to improve the performance of their IT Services or to create more value out of their IT Solutions. The workshop consolidates a better understanding of DevOps and the culture changes needed to bring about better collaboration and therefore faster, error-free deployment of new IT Solutions.
The workshop is based on The Phoenix Project, a novel by Gene Kim, George Spafford and Kevin Behrbook.