When IT Says No: How to Create Fast Feature Flow

A session at SXSW Interactive 2012

Gene Kim

Saturday 10th March, 2012

12:30pm to 1:30pm (CST)

Few things frustrate designers and the business more than when we know what needs to be built, but it still takes quarters or years for features to be deployed into production. And then during deployment, massive chaos and disruption is created for the customer… and the business.

A primary cause for this is an adversarial relationship between Development and IT Operations, and an ever-increasing amount of technical debt that slows down the rate of release and time to market.

I’m going to present how great IT organizations simultaneously deliver stellar reliability and fast flow of features into production. It requires creating a “super-tribe,” where designers, development and IT operations genuinely work together – instead of throwing each under the bus.

It will draw upon my 11 year study of high performing IT organizations, as well as work I’ve done since 2008 to help some of that largest Internet companies achieve these performance breakthroughs.

About the speaker

This person is speaking at this event.

Gene Kim

Visible IT Flow

Gene is a multiple award winning CTO, an entrepreneur, a researcher and author. He was founder and CTO of Tripwire for 13 years, now a $100MM company. He has written two books, and is now writing “When IT Fails: A Novel.” Gene is a huge fan of IT operations, and how it can enable developers to maximize throughput of features from “code complete” to “in production,” without causing chaos and disruption to the IT environment. He has worked with some of the top Internet companies on improving deployment flow and increasing the rigor around IT operational processes. In 2007, ComputerWorld added Gene to the “40 Innovative IT People Under The Age Of 40” list, and was given the Outstanding Alumnus Award by the Department of Computer Sciences at Purdue University for achievement and leadership in the profession.