This talk at Skillsmatter was my attempt to answer a question that kept coming up: how do you actually bootstrap DevOps in an organization that isn’t ready for it? The technical practices get all the attention, but the real challenge is building trust between teams that have spent years in separate silos. I found a framework in Stephen Covey’s “The Speed of Trust” that mapped perfectly onto what I was seeing in DevOps transformations.
Self-Trust
It starts with yourself. Before you can change how teams work together, you need credibility. That means building your own capabilities – can you actually do both development and operations work well enough to be taken seriously by both sides? It means delivering results, not just talking about theory. And it means taking responsibility for failures instead of blaming the other team. Self-trust is the foundation because nobody follows someone who hasn’t demonstrated competence.
Relational Trust
The bulk of the talk covered thirteen behaviors that build trust between individuals and teams. Talk straight – no spin, no political hedging. Demonstrate respect for the other team’s expertise. Create transparency by sharing information openly, including when things go wrong. Right wrongs quickly instead of hiding mistakes. Show loyalty by giving credit publicly and addressing problems privately. Deliver results consistently – nothing builds trust faster than reliability.
Get better continuously – stagnation erodes trust. Confront reality even when it’s uncomfortable. Clarify expectations before work begins, not after it fails. Practice accountability by holding yourself to the same standards you expect from others. Listen first before proposing solutions – most DevOps initiatives fail because they prescribe answers to questions nobody asked. Keep commitments, even small ones. And extend trust proactively – someone has to go first, and waiting for the other side to trust you first creates a deadlock.
Organizational Trust
At the organizational level, trust deficits manifest as redundancy (duplicate processes because teams don’t trust each other’s work), bureaucracy (approval gates that exist because of historical failures, not current risk), and politics (energy spent on positioning instead of production). Each of these is a tax on velocity. Reducing them requires the same trust-building behaviors applied at a systemic level: transparency in decision-making, consistent follow-through on commitments, and demonstrating genuine care for outcomes beyond your own team’s metrics.
The practical advice for bootstrapping was to start bottom-up: find allies, deliver small visible wins, and let results create demand. You don’t need permission to start being trustworthy. Build credibility through competence and reliability, then use that credibility to advocate for broader change. Culture changes one interaction at a time.
Watch on YouTube — available on the jedi4ever channel
This summary was generated using AI based on the auto-generated transcript.