Software Defined Interviews - Episodes Tagged with “Allstate”

Episode 26: Getting over resistance to change

Software Defined Talk — Tue, 16 May 2017 18:00:00 +0200

Matt Curry is back! In this episode recorded at OSCON 2017, we discuss the problems with getting people to change, from staff to management, private sector and government.

Episode 14: Building a cloud in 30 minutes, metrics are a distraction

Software Defined Talk — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 02:00:00 +0200

"I get to see your face during this podcast," Matt says as we start talking about SpringOne Platform. Both of us were there and we recap Matt's talk on managing 10 Pivotal Cloud Foundry instances, namely, how they figured out using a Concourse pipeline to automate much of that management. We discuss "how to do the transformation" talks we liked, like the Citi talk.

In addition to some other random digital transformation topics, we also discuss how HR policies are struggling to change with things like pair programming and DevOps.

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Show-notes and Links

Matt Curry: @mattjcurry
Coté: @cote, cote.io

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 643

Episode 11: How do we do things we would never, ordinarily do?

Software Defined Talk — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 01:00:00 +0100

Summary

Matt and I talk about lessons learned from almost a year of helping transform IT at Allstate. When it comes to scaling up agile and cloud-think the real challenges are in functions other than development, like budgeting, planning, training, hiring, and how the overall IT department is organized. We discuss those topics - esp. budgeting! - and also how to set one's personal expectations about going on the transformation journey. Then we discuss an upcoming column on mine in The Register on the benefits of small batches thinking.

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Show Notes and Links

After a year, the question becomes "can it scale?"
How do we do: Budgeting, training, hiring, how do we organize teams
We only plan with good information, not bad information.
You need to establish an overall vision, but avoid being too specific on tactics. For example, with a claim application, we know the general product, the vertical, the line of business we have roughly an idea of what claims are, who the customer is, and what that experience is like. Delivering a better experience for claims, what that feels like, and how do we measure it - these things we don't know perfectly up-front, so we have lots of discipline around iterating and experimenting to deliver good product.
How budgeting changes in this small batches approach.
With a lot of this, you can't talk someone into doing these things up-front. They have to experience it first hand: you have to walk them through it.
"Sometimes 'nothing' is a big win."
Coté's DevOps columns at The Register.
Not mentioned, but good thinking to be had in Larman's Law
Matt Curry: @mattjcurry
Coté: @cote, cote.ios of small batches thinking.

Libsyn downloads as of 20160912: 477.