Building to Scale. Challenges with Growth.

Hello Fellow DevOps-ers! This month we will have 3 different presentations on technology and scale. Growth is a good thing. But it can be very difficult to properly manage.

Our presenters will focus on three specific areas of technology and growth. Architecture SW, Infrastructure, and Teams.

Presentations:

Jason Fuller - HERE.com -Head of Cloud Management & Operations for HERE. HERE is the leading company in the location intelligence industry, delivering highly precise and up-to-date maps, a location platform, and location experiences across multiple screens and operating systems. Prior to HERE, Jason held positions at Cengage Learning as the Executive Director of Cloud Service Delivery and Pegasystems as the Global Head of Cloud Service Delivery.

Abstract: Jason has managed the security, governance, analytics, and performance surrounding hundreds of thousands of AWS instances and the full AWS service catalog. If you are growing your company into AWS in early stage cloud adoption, living in a world of cloud for many years, or your company “born on the cloud”, there are several things that you need to consider when you are managing cloud at scale. Infrastructure and platform services at scale amplify the good, the bad, and the ugly.

David Brainard - is a Director of development at Liberty Mutual Benefits, a cloud-first, new-product organization expanding into direct sales of personal benefits. Previously Dave was director at Bank of America where he led a lean transformation effort program on scaled agile, platform, and CI/CD.

Abstract: “Functioning Like a Startup in a Regulated Industry”

Background: Liberty Mutual Benefits functions in a highly regulated industry where time to market can often be measured in years, not days, and where initial scale can be massive – making for difficulties when trying to test the market or provide incremental, validated functions to a market segment.

Approach: We decided to bring a product to market in < 3 months from concept to “cash.” This required cross-functional participation from the entire business, as well as ruthless prioritization and a willingness to pivot.

Findings: We discovered that it is possible, within certain limitations, to go to market in a lean fashion even in a highly regulated industry, however, it requires moving “left” even further to make this a consistent mode of operation

Conclusions: We will make further adjustments in our operating model, as well as consider the ways in which regulation and scale offer protection from competition. In addition, our approach highlights the need for good software architecture to be flexible to large volumes of change in a short time, and to provide plenty of insight early, even without access to typical data science tools.

Stephen Vance - "Cultivating People as the Org Grows"

Reporting hierarchies, matrix management, flat, functional, product, or geographical structures, the Spotify model, holacracy, chaos, anarchy, and more. Each approach to organizational and management structure tries to address some pain of the current structure and ends up invoking others, often at the expense of the individual.
Almost all of them assume that most or all of a wide variety of responsibilities can be effectively combined in one or two roles and reporting relationships. Let’s break that down so we can create more effective organizations that excel at cultivating individuals as they tackle larger problems, markets, and business volumes.