[BIG company] is a well-known company with a wide range of software products (we ship some hardware, too, but that is just a vehicle for the software :-). What is not as widely known is that many of those products came from individual companies with their own teams, processes, and cultures.

Our challenge within the [BIG company GROUP] is to move 13,000+ engineers across dozens of product teams to a common modern software delivery process based on DevOps principals and using industry leading shared tools and techniques. We are in the process of turning a Tower-of-Babel-like situation where each team follows its own process into an aligned collection of High and Elite performers on the DORA Maturity Model. We would like to share our steps — and missteps — with you.

This talk will describe our journey from individual teams to an opinionated shared services organization which helps our partners (the product teams) deliver predictably with high quality. We will cover various stops along the journey:

• Getting teams on the same page (our problem statement)
• Selecting our North Star tools and processes
• The cultural challenges in getting teams to accept change for the common good
• Building a shared platform
• Helping the teams migrate to the shared platform without losing velocity
• The benefits we have seen for [BIG company], for the product teams, and for individual engineers
• Where we plan to go from here

Karl is a Dell Senior Distinguished Engineer with over 35 years of experience in software development. He is a proven technical leader who has consistently delivered features and products across