I enjoyed reading this, but...
As per the title, I enjoyed reading this but like most evangelical treatises about DevOps, Agile and such like, they all seem to refer to some form of utopian dream or of how these "should" work in the workplace rather than providing hard and fast case studies of actual issues and how they were overcome; and when I say that, I mean in relation to the transformative elements of totally unique and individual fully global integrated ERP solutions for example (in which I include legacy, mainframe, web and all the other components and teams that make up that solution) or to a two man business in a shed somewhere, rather than just seeming to expect everyone to be and work like Tw@ter or Facebook.
I know it sounds dull, as everyone mostly wants to make themselves sound smart by talking in acronym, or focussing on all of the glittering sparkly rocketship technology, but I absolutely support the initial view as to why "culture" is the most oft spoken about piece. This is for a very good reason. Get this wrong and you may as well go and burn all of the cash in a field.
Where I am currently we're in the early phases of implementing these newer methods such as Agile and DevOps - and I'm more than happy to be supporting this. But to do it the supposed "right" way (and I personally do not believe there is a one size fits all "right" way) despite what all of the pointless books and so called "consultants" say, would mean rebuilding the company organisation, people, hierarchies, systems, processes (Business + IT) and almost everything from scratch. Which just isn't going to happen.
Each company is unique in the way it works. Whilst the overarching theories about how to "rapidise" stuff is not, how they are implemented most definitely is, and how that "culture" changes (or cannot change) to absorb them is probably the most important aspect of it.