#109: Leadership and Culture in DevOps with Claire Clark

Join Brian as he chats with DevOps expert Claire Clark about the cultural and mindset shifts needed for successful DevOps adoption, the concept of 'shift left,' and the crucial role of leadership support. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian and Claire Clark, founder of Sienso, winner of the The Great British Business Woman Award, and freelance software development executive, delve into the world of DevOps. Claire explains that DevOps is far more than just tools and processes—it's about fostering the right mindset and cultural shifts within the team. They discuss the 'shift left' approach, emphasizing the importance of considering end stages of software development early on. Claire highlights the critical role of leadership in supporting DevOps principles and aligning team goals. She also shares strategies for measuring success through a maturity matrix and underscores the importance of continuous improvement. This conversation provides a holistic view of DevOps, integrating both technical and cultural aspects. References and resources mentioned in the show: Claire Clark Sienso #108 Adaptive Organizations with Ken Rickard Mountain Goat Software’s Working on a Scrum Team Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Claire Clark is a multi-award-winning transformational leader and Chartered Engineer with over 20 years of experience in Software Engineering. Specializing in leading high-performing teams, Agile transformation, and DevOps, Claire has successfully managed complex projects across various industries, including cybersecurity, logistics, and financial services. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. And today we have a very special guest with us, someone I've been trying to get on for a while. We have Ms. Claire Clark with us. Welcome in, Claire. Glad you're here. Claire has been in our world for a while here at Mountain Goat. And she's had lots of interactions with us and Mike and over the years. Claire Clark (00:13) Hi, hi, good to meet you. Brian (00:29) And just for people who aren't familiar with Claire and her work, she is, I guess the best way to describe it is kind of a freelance software development executive. She kind of comes in in high level, kind of more temporary positions, would you say, Claire? Okay. Yeah, kind of coming in on the spot positions to help get people over the hump and get them situated and set up the way they need to be from an executive level. Claire Clark (00:44) Yeah. Yeah. Brian (00:56) Her company is called Cienso and she's won numerous awards over the years, but most recently she had a really huge honor. She was the winner in the engineering category of the Great British Businesswoman Awards. So first of all, congratulations on that. That's awesome. And the reason that we wanted to have Claire on was... Claire Clark (01:15) Thank you. Brian (01:22) just to share a little bit of her knowledge with us, and particularly the area of DevOps. She's done a lot of work with teams and building the teams. And we've had some really interesting discussions offline about this area. So let's start and just set the table a little bit here, Claire, for everyone. When we're talkin