Change is the only constant in life - Heraclitus

Change is the brutal truth for global enterprises. True business transformation requires fundamental shifts in behaviors. Software, systems, networking and storage all need to be aligned with the people working on these technologies and the associated processes, in order to increase the number of strategic opportunities an organization is capable of effectively responding to. To help drive this evolution, today we’re pleased to announce the launch of the Global Transformation Office, which will be focused on accelerating our customers digital visions while bringing holistic change across their technological AND social systems.

Market conditions, competitive pressures, the technology landscape and even customer requirements change on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Since the launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux more than 15 years ago, Red Hat has provided the technologies and expertise helping to fuel the next generation of business innovation, from the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform to the industry’s most comprehensive enterprise Kubernetes platform in Red Hat OpenShift. The Global Transformation Office formalizes and matures our commitment to delivering the software, the skills and the expertise required to serve as a change catalyst for global IT organizations, founded on the success and demand for our regional Transformation practices.

The DevOps way

For the last 10 years, DevOps has been a reference point for aligning and driving organizational change. Nearly every IT vendor has rewritten their marketing content to try to frame their products as the key to "Cloud Native SRE DevOps" buzzword-compliant outcomes. Marketing tools with transformation is easy, but changing entrenched politics and processes is less so. Rather than relying on interpretations of books and conference presentations and with the 10th anniversary of devopsdays upon us, the Global Transformation Office is focused on advancing social-technical practices led by experts that the rest of the IT industry refer to often.

The initial team driving the Global Transformation Office initiative is comprised of Andrew Clay Shafer, Jabe Bloom, John Willis, and Kevin Behr. Each team member has deep expertise in implementing Agile, Lean, Theory of Constraints and DevOps practices to drive organizational transformation beyond just delivering new technologies. In the spirit of Red Hat’s open company and culture as well as our commitment to driving open organizations, we hope that the global community of practice, not just Red Hat customers, will benefit from their forward thinking.

Meet the Global Transformation Office team

Andrew Clay Shafer

Always fascinated with the dynamics of high performing individuals and organizations, Andrew has a long history helping people deliver systems with better tools and processes. With more than 20 years experience in technology, he gravitated to Agile and Lean methods as a software developer and then applied this understanding to systems as the cofounder of Puppet. Andrew evangelized DevOps tools and practices before DevOps was a word and helped to organize DevOpsDays events since the earliest days of the movement. He’s been involved in a number of open source communities including Puppet, OpenStack, Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes. In addition to frequent conference presentations on related topics, Andrew also contributed ‘Agile Operations’ to the O’Reilly book Web Operations and wrote a Foreword for The Site Reliability Workbook.

"I see a lot of enterprises getting fixated on technology as a magic solution when the real opportunity comes from changing behaviors. As exciting as open source cloud-native technology can be, I’m even more excited by applying the principles of openness to organizational change. The magic is in your people." - Andrew Clay Shafer

Jabe Bloom

Jabe is the co-founder and Chief SocioTechnical Officer at PraxisFlow and has held numerous executive roles across a variety of industries over a 20 year career. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Design Studies at Carnegie Mellon University focusing on Transition Design. He is a go-to source for insights into improving organizational tempo, resilience and performance by transforming dynamics within the co-evolving interdependencies of management, design, development and operational practices.

"The goal of organizational transformation is to increase the number of strategic opportunities an organization is capable of effectively responding to. To do this organizations need to create the conditions in which the novel possibilities afforded by technology are unleashed to solve customer needs using the innate human capacity for productively engaging uncertainty. Those organizations who are successful will go on to transform the very markets and ecosystems they operate in." --Jabe Bloom

John Willis

John is the CEO and founder of Botchagalupe Technologies. His IT career spans well over 40 years, including time at a number of Open Source focused DevOps related companies like Canonical, Chef, co-founding SocketPlane (sold to Docker) and Docker. He is the co-author of The DevOps Handbook and Beyond the Phoenix Project. John has likely spoken at more devopsdays conferences than anyone and is frequently looked to as one of the preeminent voices on DevOps adoption and the evolution of practices like DevSecOps.

"The landscape of organizational capital over the last ten years has been like a cambrian explosion in both technology and cultural transformations. As we approach the end of this decade we are seeing a clear convergence of patterns, practices and principles that are driving unique high organizational performance. Red Hat’s investment in this new practice led by devops prime movers demonstrates its commitment to helping shape the next decade." --John Willis

Kevin Behr

Kevin is the founder, general manager and chief science officer of PraxisFlow, a consultancy focused on addressing the complex problems inherent to large IT organizations and creating a better flow through internal alignment. He is also the author and co-author of seven IT management books, including The Phoenix Project and The Visible Ops Handbook, and is often looked to as a visionary in optimizing businesses to blend technological evolution with human processes.

"There is a lot of speculation directed at complexity in today’s technology market. It is clear, the gifts and risks of technical evolution are not going to slow down. It has also become increasingly evident that yesterday’s transformation conversation is no longer sufficient for today’s challenges. We need to rapidly shift our focus from pure speed of delivery to a frame where we are delivering at the speed of customer uptake, in orchestration with the entire business. This boundary-spanning modulation capability has become a new, differentiating, enterprise advantage" --Kevin Behr

The future of enterprise transformation

During digital transformation engagements, we frequently reference the work of Andrew, Jabe, John and Kevin as the fulcrum for successful enterprise change. Now, with this team leading the Global Transformation Office, Red Hat looks forward to helping accelerate the cultural shifts necessary for enterprises to truly transform with our open technology. Watch this space.

Joel Jackson is global vice president, Red Hat/IBM Go-To Market at Red Hat