Get good at delivering software™
Like many CTOs you know your engineering organization is capable of more. Your private equity investors want results soon. You’ve read all about DORA metrics and DevEx. You've explained it to the team but they still struggle to deliver. You don't have the time to coach everywhere. Certainly not at the level required.I teach your existing teams to ship more often and with higher quality using the science behind the DevOps movement. When they know, I leave. If you need a partner to help you get where you want technologically as well as to truly improve your team itself, let’s talk and see if we’re a good fit.
I partner with PE portco CTOs to deliver on the investment thesis by helping them change the culture of their existing org from halting to daily delivery so they can get the race going.
Want to understand my approach?
Read my book DevOps Patterns for Private Equity
Engineering leaders can take my free self-paced 1 hour course
Subscribe to the monthly DevOps & Private Equity email
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About
I have successfully led and coached DevOps transformations and operational maturity achievement at companies like Salesforce, Barracuda Networks, Cable & Wireless, MeridianLink, and SolarWinds.Despite being a Silicon Valley veteran, I'm not content to work only with unicorns, and have tackled some of the major cultural and structural impediments to Dev and Ops collaboration. I have successfully helped transform organizations to new models of service delivery, resulting in reduced customer churn, faster time to delivery, resiliency, improved margins, and increased ability to grow.Between my those, my book, and my best-selling video course, I have improved the lives of thousands of IT professionals around the world.
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Nathaniel Barnes
Chief Technology Officer
MeridianLink
This had not been the company’s first attempt at adopting these practices. However, we found this time we were not only able to do so, but we were able to really start to make the necessary cultural changes stick as well. Once those things are in place, the team was really able to begin the purposeful process of self-improvement that allowed this transformation to be successful where others had failed.I would highly recommend Mangoteque to others, especially those who are trying to do significant modernization to their tech and their team. Few consultants have the ability to help you get where you want technologically as well as to truly improve your team itself.
Simon Yeo
Chief Information Officer
Barracuda
Dave really helped us understand ways to potentially restructure the team to be more efficient and solve many of the problems arising from lack of resources and motivation in a very detailed report. Overall, we feel he is an amazing communicator. In fact, one of the things that impressed us most was how Dave worked with and engaged various leaders within the company.This engagement helped us validate a lot of the issues we had been aware of and bring more public visibility into those issues. Outside validation from a well known industry expert can be a powerful tool. Dave’s knowledge in the field of DevOps, drawing from his own experience, as well as published literature, is incredibly valuable to organizations in all stages.
John Stauffer
Vice President of Architecture
ConnectWise
We had a large centralized “DevOps” team that was burning out and continuously behind working tickets. They were consistently holding up development efforts, and were demoralized. We needed to reorganize from an organization that processed tickets into a proactive mission-driven team that was building tools that allowed engineering teams to serve themselves.Dave deeply engaged with the team, coaching, attending sprint ceremonies and working 1-1 with leaders to help coach, mentor and improve the leaders and key engineers in the team. I would definitely recommend Mangoteque to anyone who wants to improve how they develop software. Dave drives changes and outcomes that support faster, higher quality delivery with a happier, more productive team.
Gene Kim, author, Wiring the Winning Organization, The Unicorn Project, The Phoenix Project, The DevOps Handbook, Beyond the Phoenix Project, Accelerate, The Visible Ops Handbook, and Visible Ops Security
Jez Humble, author, Continuous Delivery, Lean Enterprise, The DevOps Handbook, and Accelerate
Training
I'm currently developing a course for engineering leaders who support the CTO. It will will be online, cohort based, and run over multiple days, spaced out over a month. It will give leaders the ability to apply DevOps principles that lead to real business outcomes and help the CTO to achieve their vision.If you'd like to help shape the course, I have a free 1 hour course available with an hour of lectures people can take and give fast feedback.
Advisory Retainer
This product is for engineering leaders who want an experienced sounding board who knows exactly what the board wants, and how to deliver it. Because the DevOps movement is focused on tying technology organization initiatives to business outcomes, the retainer has a heavy focus on strategic decisions that grow your business more than simply growing your organization. This often takes the form of both engineering leadership discussions as well as technology focused ones, so that the organization delivers with high quality and high margins, on-time, every time.
The Service Delivery Assessment
This product is for smaller companies, and for those leaders seeking answers about the biggest opportunities to improve service delivery in less than two weeks, from a trusted outside source. It requires approximately 5 hours of interviews for 2 software pipelines. This assessment is based on the science of the Accelerate metrics and examines performance on over 50 different capabilities necessary to achieve DORA “elite” status. In the final report, I provide benchmarks and a prioritized playbook with custom recommendations on where to spend engineering resources to have the biggest impact on the DORA metrics. Periodic follow ups are included.
Custom Assessments
This product is for larger portfolio companies with complex challenges like long release intervals or frustrated developers. I conduct extensive interviews over a four to six week period, hearing from the most high fidelity information source: engineers. Working together with input from leadership, I write a detailed report explaining:
How you got here
Specific challenges
Specific recommendations about how they can be overcome
At the conclusion of the engagement and during periodic follow ups, the leadership team will have an actionable playbook for delivering on the investment thesis by enabling faster growth, higher margins, increased productivity, and happier engineers
Transformation
Going beyond the recommendations above, this product helps portcos transform their culture from needing help to overcome their challenges, to becoming a learning organization by potentially changing team structures, processes, and procedures. I work with engineers and leaders to change the perspective on tackling problems using the science of the DevOps movement, so they are seen as things that can be overcome, rather than something that must be dealt with. This product is a success when people stop asking for guidance as I’m no longer needed.
Speaking Engagements
Keynotes and other talks for conferences or portcos can be found on the Speaking page.
Speaker
"You were among the top 2 rated speakers- yet again! Thanks so much for participating and for another great presentation." - Top 10 Private Equity Operating Partner
Top-rated international private equity CTO conference and portfolio company speaker.
Generative AI Will Revolutionize Software: Now What? - Coding faster moves the bottleneck further into coding
The Hybrid Cloud Step - We are all someday going to public cloud
From Data Center to SaaS: The Essential Parts - Uncontrolled variation is the enemy
There's No Such Thing as DevSecOps - Security isn't something we do, we build it in
and more...
Podcast Guest:
Private Equity Value Creation - How to Leverage DevOps to Deliver a Competitive Product
Software Delivery in Small Batches - DevOps Patterns for Private Equity
Adventures in DevOps - DevOps Research & Assessment (DORA) metrics
Elite Software Delivery - The DevOps Movement and What it Means for Organizations
Small Batches - The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team from a DevOps Perspective
The Business of Cloud Native - The Power of Aligning Engineering and Operations
Terminal.io AMA - Embracing a Culture of Remote Work after the Lockdown
The DevOps Cafe - If at first you don't fully succeed... try clouds and gigantor at Salesforce
“Through a decade of work with Thoma Bravo portfolio companies, Dave has taught our product teams how to dramatically improve business outcomes and to discover where time comes from. He also taught us how to fly.”
Paul Zuber
Operating Partner and Head of the Technology Group
"As Dave mentions, private equity investors are serious people. This book will help the serious understand what goes wrong in R&D, and what they can do about it. I hope this helps encourage board directors to discuss R&D operating metrics with as much frequency and seriousness as they do sales and marketing operational metrics."
Gene Kim
Researcher and Bestselling Author of The Unicorn Project, The Phoenix Project, and Wiring the Winning Organization
DevOps Patterns for Private Equity:
Technology organization strategies for high performing software investments
Paperback:
As many of the top Private Equity investors know, software companies can be a great investment. Whether as a platform with add-ons, or as a profitable company that needs help to “nail it and scale it”, there are many opportunities for great returns. But that doesn’t make it easy. With compressed time schedules, closely watched budgets, legacy software, and massive amounts of complexity, transforming these companies can be a challenge.In DevOps Patterns for Private Equity, I describe patterns that are common in technology organizations from the perspective of the international DevOps movement. By applying core principles, I give practical advice to mature these organizations and maximize the value of software investments. Using anecdotes, contrasting theory and practice, and focusing on business value, my hard learned lessons give private equity backed technology leaders patterns they can recognize, and approaches they can use, to transform their technology organizations for peak performance and value creation.
"My association with Dave, be it as a collaborator on the ‘Funcast’ or as a guide addressing our portfolio companies, has always been an enriching experience. He manifests a practical, yet seasoned approach when it comes to advocating for DevOps in companies of any size. This book serves as a testament to his expertise, providing you with a comprehensive understanding of DevOps in a manner only Dave can deliver."
Jim Milbery
Operating Partner, Parker-Gale and co-host of the Private Equity Funcast podcast
“To truly harness the power of a team, you need more than management skills - you need visionary leadership and a firm grasp of DevOps best practices. This book is your guide, skillfully blending technological details with strategic wisdom. It offers a practical approach to leveraging DevOps as a catalyst for value creation in an ever-changing environment.”
Nii Ahene
Chief Strategy Officer, Tinuiti
“Dave is one of a small group of people I’ve met in my career who can talk about deep technical issues and business impact interchangeably, which is a must-have skill for anyone working in private equity. This book distills complex topics into bite-sized chunks that you can read and apply quickly.”
Scott Barstow
Operating Partner
“No longer a simple toolset, ‘DevOps Patterns for Private Equity’ positions DevOps as the beating heart of a productive engineering culture. It decisively illustrates how targeted, meaningful efforts will always outshine scattered, task-oriented actions.”
Kathy Keating
CTO, Advisor, & Executive Coach
“This book is a definitive guide for the intersection of modern software development transformation and the kind of massive business transformation that comes along with Private Equity. Whether you’re a leader in an acquired company or if you just need to drive modernization in your own business, I couldn’t recommend this book more strongly.”
Nathaniel Barnes
Chief Technology Officer, MeridianLink
"I have watched Dave grow from an engineering leader to an amazing DevOps coach for both public and private companies. Many of the insights and lessons he shared with other industry leaders from his years of experience are now available in this one book. These are hard, learned, first-hand lessons that will benefit any engineering organization and business."
Joe Kim
President & CEO of Sumo Logic
“After listening to and then engaging Dave, I’ve always been impressed with the way he engages and communicates. DevOps Patterns for Private Equity is no exception. In this book he delivers straight to the point examples and solutions on how to use DevOps to maximize growth in portfolio companies.”
Simon Yeo
CIO & SVP of Operations, WatchGuard Technologies
“Dave covers a subject that is a reality for a growing number of companies, how to achieve the outcomes that DevOps promises while being owned by a private equity owner. Dave does a great job of framing the challenge as enabling different stakeholders to communicate within the organization in order achieve peak performance and true flow.”
Joel Dolisy
Chief Technology Officer, Wellsky
“Dave catalogs a set of patterns that are the key ingredients to creating a modern world class engineering organization, covering both the philosophy and theory behind them as well as practical examples of how they are applied. I am looking forward to reading it again with my leadership team, and expect it to accelerate our transformation by several months.”
John Stauffer
VP Software Engineering, HHAExchange
”Dave speaks with authenticity as one who has lived and overcome the problems that modern DevOps philosophy addresses. His book will improve your mindset and give you tools to build a productive culture that accelerates software delivery and where people thrive"
Dan Timpson
Chief Technology Officer
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