Why I Keep Going Back: A Tribute to DevOps Enterprise Summit

Why I keep going back to DOES—continuous learning, inspiring transformation journeys, and connecting with DevOps heroes and thought leaders.

On a quest to learn and practice more about DevOps & challenges, I continuously look for the opportunity to learn from practitioners, authors, thought leaders. I wanted to amplify my learning by investing my time and money in, particularly attending conferences. Where we could meet with like-minded people, connect & discuss with other practitioners, learn from pioneers leading the DevOps transformational changes for large & complex enterprises.

One such conference, a standout for me is DevOps Enterprise Summit (DOES) by IT Revolution which I had the opportunity to attend in 2016, 2018 and also presented on our DevOps Journey in 2019.

Why DevOps Enterprise Summit?

DevOps Enterprise Summit is a conference for the technology leaders of large, complex organizations implementing DevOps principles and practices. DOES brings high-quality DevOps content to the community in the form of new and repeat Experience reports, Next-Gen Infrastructure & Ops, Subject matter expert talks, learning organizations and from the people pioneering the DevOps transformation.

Three days of great learning, packed with fantastic content spanning different industries like Banks, Automobile, Sports, Government/Public sector, Airlines and others, carefully selected by the programming committee.

The best, DOES is a vendor-neutral conference, so you do not get bombarded continuously by Vendors pitching their products.

Why do I keep going back to DOES and this community?

In my opinion — it is all about continuous learning, the inspiring DevOps transformation journeys, opportunity to hear solutions for DevOps common problems and some unique challenges.

  - The community makes it more valuable because you get to interact with delegates discussing DevOps problems, challenges and solutions in hallway tracks, breakfast tables, lean coffee sessions, birds of a feather interactions.

  - The contents are not about What is DevOps? It is about How to DevOps, How to lead and transform. Where I learnt about "Project to Product", "Making Work Visible", "Team Topologies", "Agile Conversations", "Accelerate" and other exciting topics.

  - Access to the DevOps heroes who have done amazing work transforming the way they work.

  - Connecting with thought leaders, authors, experts.

  - Diversity: inspiring female presenters, panel members talking about leadership, mentoring, education and coaching.

  - The DevOps confessions — stories that DevOps enthusiasts wanted to share anonymously.

Highlights

As a technical person, I thought initially DOES would provide me with technical insights, but I am happy to admit that I was wrong. I started seeing DevOps transformational stories beyond technical capabilities — understanding value & impact on end-users, customers, developers, operations, productivity, burnouts and some inspiring talks on leadership.

Closing Thoughts

Over the last few years, DevOps Enterprise Summit had a significant influence on me and my learning experiences. It helped me to learn things outside of my role title, technical skills and taken me to a different zone to accelerate my DevOps journey by connecting the dots.

Do You Want To Be Relevant? While your work is valuable, are you the person moving your organization forward? — Jeffrey Snover, DOES 2018