Devops, Epathy, Innovation and other sappy stuff from the trenches of web operations.

Devops, Empathy, Innovation

and other sappy stuff from the trenches of web operations.

@melaniemj

What is Devops?

Empathy

“the ability to understand and share the feelings

of another”

But how do we share needs?

hint: we all work for the same company

the ability to understand and share the < ---- > of another team or colleague

goals

the ability to understand and share the < ---- > of another team or colleague

process

the ability to understand and share the < ---- > of another team or colleague

needs

what else???

Empathy

what about the bad stuff?

the ability to understand and share the < ---- > of another team or colleague

failures

Empathy

“the ability to understand and share the successes of another team or colleague”

“the ability to understand and share the failures of another team or colleague without blame”

Empathy

… A ridiculous example of empathy as it pertains to systems understanding

We think it’s “the database”

How is “the database” responsible for the

performance of the code you we wrote?

We think it’s “the database”

How do you think “the database” operates

without your our code?

We think it’s “the database”

It doesn’t, it doesn’t have a purpose without our

code...

So, who is responsible for the performance of

“the database”?

Cultures of Blame

Who here has - lost a colleague to culture?- left a job because of culture?

Have you ever

had the feeling that if you could just change your culture or ecosystem that your team would be so. much. better?

Did your environment

lack the security or protection to take risks?

Did your environment

result in blame or shame instead of learning from mistakes?

Did your environment

lack sense or knowledge of greater purpose?

Did your environment

suck? Tell me how it sucked and why.

Innovation@brantcooper #leanux15 (via @jezhumble)

Change it

- Say we instead of you- Encourage bold behaviour from others- Reward success and learn from failure- ...- If you don’t feel secure or protected… find a

new gig

Remove Barriers to Empathy

- Remove wait states between teams- Form common goals- Communicate your critical paths- Share reasons for failures (rather than hiding

and/or finger pointing)

This talk was not about Devops

Melanie Cey @melaniemj

Senior Systems Analyst, Systems Reliability Engineering @ YardiWe use Icinga, ELK, nxlog, nsclient and graphite to monitor >5,000 clients, >10,000 VMs and >60,000 services running on windows. Ask me how.