Leading a Digital Transformation at the Speed of Government

A presentation at DevOpsDays Chicago 2020 in September 2020 in by Henry Quinn

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HENRY QUINN LEADING A DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AT THE SPEED OF GOVERNMENT

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CULTURE OF THE COURTS MY FIRST JOB! ▸ Z https://www.knowol.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/New-Haven-09.jpg @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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CULTURE OF THE COURTS WHAT DID WE BUILD WITH ALL THAT? ▸ https://blooloop.com/features/walt-disney-world-nighttime-entertainment/ @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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PROJECT REQUIREMENTS I WAS PLACATED WITH A PROJECT https://picography.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/picography-man-reading-newspaper.jpg @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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PROJECT REQUIREMENTS WHAT’S THE CATCH? ▸ It was written in ColdFusion. ▸ It had to be in 15 courts by the end of the year. ▸ Static app on custom VM’s. ▸ It was written in ColdFusion. https://www.haikudeck.com/bluetooth-le-and-corebluetooth-how-to-presentation-blT4G7eHGD @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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PROJECT REQUIREMENTS FROM NOTHING https://o.aolcdn.com/images/dims? quality=85&image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fo.aolcdn.com%2Fimages%2Fdims%3Fcrop%3D4830%252C3221%252C0%252C400%26quality%3D85%26format%3Djpg%26resize%3D1600%252C1067%26image_uri%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fs.yimg.com%252Fos%252Fcrea tr-images%252F2018-12%252Fbb586d40-fd47-11e8-bdf7-4d9a7236b898%26client%3Da1acac3e1b3290917d92%26signature%3Dafaef9d90a80981d72ecbf5db8b2158422844d2d&client=amp-blogside-v2&signature=278b23301792fab7f8322455bce8205bacf470f5 @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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CAD SLACK GROUP CAD & CONTAINERS ▸ Court Application Developers -> Judiciary Slack Team ▸ Finally “surrounded” by other engineers. ▸ There were rumors of a Kubernetes orchestrator becoming a national product to deploy judiciary apps. ▸ Containers had to be the move. https://diginomica.com/virtualization-dead-long-live-containerization @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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PROJECT REQUIREMENTS LEADERSHIP HIERARCHY FAILS US ▸ It takes a week to do things manually. ▸ I was the only developer for the district. ▸ Static apps don’t scale. ▸ Boss said no to containers. https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/human-resources/2014/05/my-boss-is-evil-and-10-other-career-excuses.html @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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HOW OUR LEADERSHIP HIERARCHY FAILED US ROUND TWO ▸ Using containers was a non-starter. ▸ I was to use my time building functionality in ColdFusion. ▸ We promised way more features to our handler helping us get funding than we had time to finish. ▸ Turn The Ship Around! https://opmed.doximity.com/articles/how-we-are-trapped-by-golden-handcuffs @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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NATIONWIDE SKUNKWORKS CLUSTERS CONTAINERS FOR DAYS ▸ There were people like me all over the country. ▸ Containers were like THE thing. ▸ We could build for our CM/ECF but deploy for courts across the United States. ▸ We learned quickly that we had to work in the shadows. ▸ There were several projects in motion outside of the normal leadership hierarchies. Exciting times. https://geekestateblog.com/real-estate-skunk-works-departments/ @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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“You were given a ColdFusion app and your problem with that was, ‘how do I deploy this?’ Congratulations, you’re a DevOps engineer.” - Tom Reznick https://twitter.com/threznick/photo @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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FUNDING SECURED CONTAINERS TO THE RESCUE https://www.allbusiness.com/startups-seeking-funding-consider-corporate-venture-capital-arms-110681-1.html @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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HOW OUR LEADERSHIP HIERARCHY FAILED US ROUND THREE ▸ Turn The Ship Around! https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/human-resources/2014/05/my-boss-is-evil-and-10-other-career-excuses.html @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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CONTAINERS TO THE RESCUE CONTAINERS SPED DEVELOPMENT UP https://www.feedough.com/what-is-a-beta-version/ @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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99.6% @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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HOW OUR LEADERSHIP HIERARCHY FAILED US ROUND FOUR ▸ After everything I did outside the leadership hierarchy to make this app work, there was a shift at the top. ▸ Some key high up position at the Administrative Office changed hands. ▸ The new OpenShift platform lead had other plans for it and all our momentum went on the back burner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Muf8Hpazf4 @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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HOW OUR LEADERSHIP HIERARCHY FAILED US ROUND FOUR https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/human-resources/2014/05/my-boss-is-evil-and-10-other-career-excuses.html @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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THIS IS WHEN I STARTED JOB HUNTING https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Laguna_Beach_Bucht.JPG @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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I taught myself to program as I went and got all the way to just needing a signature to save the government $15mm/ year and got the rug yanked out from underneath me. And that was before I found my local and global tech groups and got involved in the community. Think what all of YOU can do if you take initiative, lead from the bottom, and step outside of your leadership hierarchies when you need to. @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020

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WHERE TO FIND ME ▸ https://HenryNeeds.Coffee ▸ Points to Blog, GitHub, LinkedIn ▸ https://fairfight.com/ ▸ The right to vote is important! Please donate if you can. @Quinncuatro || https://henryneeds.coffee DevOpsDays Chicago 2020