There is much discussion about the changing roles of Development and Operations staff when organisations undergo agile/digital/devops transformations. But what about the changing role of the Team Leader? In pre-agile environments, as a Team Lead, your role is one of structure and co-ordination, it is through you that work routes. You know the skills and capacity of your team and are regularly making decisions about what can and can’t be done. But as your team starts to work in agile teams, the need for you to keep them busy is reduced, as this is now a responsibility of the product owner and agile team itself.

2. The changing role of the
TEAM LEADER
in a DevOps transformation
Steve Mactaggart @stevemac

3. Steve Mactaggart
Application Delivery Evangineer
$ whoami

4. @stevemac
What makes a team leader?
Responsibility for people
Ownership of process
Technical leader
Allocate capacity
Business influence
Strategic thinking
Plan work

5. @stevemac
Agile and DevOps myths
• They are the same thing
• DevOps is just about Automation
• We don’t need Operations staff anymore

6. @stevemac
DevOps
“DevOps is an extension of agile that
brings responsibility for long term
systems operations to delivery teams”

7. @stevemac
Where is the biggest change?
Allocate capacity
Plan work

8. @stevemac
With DevOps
How we allocate capacity has changed
We have long-lived persistent teams - Capacity is known

9. @stevemac
With DevOps
How we plan work has changed
Teams do work and have defined backlogs - Work is planned

10. @stevemac
With DevOps
If we have a handle on:
• Allocating capacity
• Planning work
What is the role of a Team Leader?

11. @stevemac
The two options
Move In - Join the team
Move Out - Support the team

12. @stevemac
Move In - Join the team
• Product Owner
• Scrum Master
• Technical Lead
• JATM - Just another team member

13. @stevemac
Move Out - Support the team
• Product Manager
• Capability Leader
• Business Sponsor

14. 4 key foci

15. @stevemac
1. Challenge the team to learn from failure
• If new to Operations - Understand the impact of failure
• Failure is only bad if you don’t learn from it
• DevOps is new - accept that problems will occur
• Use diplomatic skills to improve relations

16. @stevemac
2. Empower increased capacity through automation
• It’s not the all of DevOps - but often a focus
• Work is infinite - the team is not
• Automation may be new to team - start early - start small
• Outcome is reducing repetitive actions
- not headcount
• Showcase even the small gains

17. @stevemac
3. Drive understanding of new career options
• Encourage empathy between Dev and Ops
• Understand the motivations of team and stakeholders
• Continually look for ways to T-shape people
• Head towards opportunities of cross-skilling
• Respect concerns - take your time

18. @stevemac
4. Educate on the responsibility of priority
• DevOps is an extension of Agile - Prioritisation is the key
• Focus inside a team creates confidence
• Clear priority that is not constantly changing
• Educate both ways - In and Out
• Define some guidelines

19. Questions
Steve Mactaggart
@stevemac
#LASTconf 2017
• Move In or Out
• Work on the 4 key foci
• Challenge the team to learn from
failure
• Empower increased capacity
through automation
• Drive understanding of new
career options
• Educate on the responsibility of
priority