DevOps teams bring together specialists from disciplines with different views on what is most important which forms the basis for groupthink. All closely-knit teams are susceptible to groupthink, a cultural attitude that implicitly rewards members whose striving for unanimity override their motivation to appraise alternative courses of action. DevOps team members from different specialties may often defer to the expert in a particular realm to solve individual problems.

This presentation examines groupthink within devops teams. It draws upon the research of Irving Janus, Daniel Kaheman and Carol Dweck to look at how biases and mindsets contribute to groupthink, and why groupthink leads to poor decision-making. You will learn how groupthink can prevent the DevOps team from achieving its goals of agility and quick corrective action and you will learn to use a combination of defined process and prescriptive actions, as individuals and as a team both internally and externally.