The Science Behind DevOps with Dr. Nicole Forsgren

About the Guest

Dr. Nicole Forsgren does research and strategy at Google Cloud following the acquisition of her startup DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) by Google. She is co-author of the book Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps, and is best known for her work measuring the technology process and as the lead investigator on the largest DevOps studies to date. She has been an entrepreneur, professor, sysadmin, and performance engineer. Nicole’s work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals. Nicole earned her PhD in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona, and is a Research Affiliate at Clemson University and Florida International University.

Links Referenced: 

Transcript

Mike Julian: This is The Real World DevOps Podcast, and I'm your host Mike Julian. I'm setting out to meet the most interesting people doing awesome work in the world of DevOps. From the creators of your favorite tools to the organizers of amazing conferences, and the authors of great books to fantastic public speakers, I want to introduce you to the most interesting people I can find.

Mike Julian: Ah, crash reporting. The oft-forgotten about piece of a solid monitoring strategy. Do you struggle to replicate bugs, or elusive performance issues you're hearing about from your users? You should check out Raygun. Whether you're responsible for web or mobile applications, Raygun makes it pretty easy to find and diagnose problems in minutes instead of what you usually do, which if you're anything like me, is ask the nearest person, "Hey, is the app slow for you?" And getting a blank stare back because hey, this is Starbucks, and who's the weird guy asking questions about mobile app performance? Anyways, Raygun, my personal thanks to them for helping to make this podcast possible. You can check out their free trial today by going to raygun.com.

Mike Julian: Hi folks. I'm Mike Julian, your host for the Real World DevOps Podcast. My guest this week is Dr. Nicole Forsgren. You may know her as the author of the book Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps or perhaps as a researcher behind the annual State of DevOps report. Of course that's not all. She's also the founder of the DevOps Research and Assessment, recently acquired by Google, was a Professor of Management Information Systems and Accounting, and has also been a performance engineer and sysadmin. To say I'm excited to talk to you is probably an understatement here. So, welcome to the show.

Nicole Forsgren: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm so glad we finally connected. How long have we been trying to do this?

Mike Julian: Months. I think I reached out to you, it's March now. I reached out in November, and you're like, "Well, you know, I have all this other stuff going on, and by the way, my company was acquired."

Nicole Forsgren: Well, back then, I had to be sly, right? I had to be like, "I've got this real big project. I'm sorry. Can we meet later?" And, God bless, you were very gracious and kind, and you said, "Sure-"

Mike Julian: Well thank you.

Nicole Forsgren: ... "we can chat later." And then I think you actually sent me a message after saying, "Oh, congrats on your 'big project'." I said, "Thank you."

Mike Julian: That sounds about right.

Nicole Forsgren: I appreciate it. Yeah. And then, you reached out again, and I said, "Oh, I'm actually working on another big project. But, this time ..."

Mike Julian: It's not an acquisition.

Nicole Forsgren: Yeah, it's not an acquisition. This time, it's a normal big project, and it's this year's State of DevOps report. And we just launched the survey, so I'm super excited we're collecting data again.

Mike Julian: So we can get that right out of the way, where can you find the State of DevOps report?

Nicole Forsgren: All of the State of DevOps reports are hosted at DORA's site. We still have the site up. And all of the reports that we've been involved in from, I want say we started in 2014, I'm so old I already forgot. All the reports that we've done are hosted. We'll post them in the show notes. If you can grab yourself a Diet Coke or coffee or a tea or a water, or if you want a bourbon. Get comfortable. Sit back, takes about 25 minutes. I know, right, everyone's like, "Girl, 25 minutes?"

Mike Julian: That's a big survey.

Nicole Forsgren: I know. It is. But it's because the State of DevOps report is scientific, right? We study prediction, and not just correlation. But sit back, get comfy and let me know what it's like to do your work. Because we're digging into some additional things this year; productivity, tool chains, additional things around burnout and happiness, and how we can get into flow, and really what that looks like. And some really great things are a bunch of people have already chimed in after taking the survey in really thoughtful ways. Also, by the way, I love you all for taking it if you have. Share it with your colleagues, share it with your peers.

But they've said that just by taking the survey, they've already come away, even before the report has come out, they've already walked away with really interesting ideas and tips and insights about how they can make their work better.

Mike Julian: Yeah, that's wild to think about, that the act of taking a survey actually improves my work. Because most surveys I take, I'm finished, I'm like, "Well, that was kind of a waste of time." It feels like I just gave away a bunch of stuff without getting anything.

Nicole Forsgren: Yeah, and I think the reason it works that way is because we're so careful about the way we write questions that sometimes just the act of taking the survey helps you think about the way you do your work. So just the act of kind of taking some of these questions helps people think about what they're doing. And then, of course, like I joked already, it's my circle of life, the survey will be open until May 3rd and then I will go into data analysis and report writing. And we expect the report itself to come out about mid-August.

Mike Julian: Well, why don't we take a few steps back and say ... Everyone loves a good origin story. I believe you and I met at a LISA many, many years ago. You were giving a joint workshop with Carolyn Rowland on-

Nicole Forsgren: Oh, I love Carolyn.

Mike Julian: Yes, she's also wonderful. I should have her on here.

Nicole Forsgren: My twin. Yes. Absolutely.

Mike Julian: So you were a professor then when I first met you. I'm like, you know that's kind of interesting that a professor's hanging out at a LISA and giving all this great advice on how to understand business value, which I thought was absolutely fascinating. Professor, hanging out in the DevOps world, how'd...