Update (2023-06-23) I’ve created a page on the DevOps’ish site so that you’ll always have the latest access to what I’m sharing out to social media. The DevOps’ish Firehose is available for your regular consumption (Bonus: there’s an RSS feed) In the last issue of DevOps’ish, I stated, “I’m under explicit doctor’s orders to cut stressors out and do things that bring me more joy… I need to stop doing so much....
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. This is not health advice. It would be best to work with your doctors to determine what works best for you. This records what has worked for me, specifically given my unique health situation. I’m Chris Short and I have Long Thoracic Nerve (LTN) Palsy with Winging of the Scapula. On October 12, 2003, during a military hurricane evacuation exercise at Avon Park Air Force Range, I managed to permanently damage my LTN, leading to the winging of my right scapula....
In November, I went down to Raleigh to meet my team for planning meetings and team building. For a few of my teammates, this is our first face to face interaction with each other ever. My boss wisely gave us a relatively simple assignment. Create a slide sharing what we’ve done this year and want to do next year (which I’ll share to an extent in a later post). Create another slide listing three things that make us who we are (born in a unique place, grew up on a farm, etc....
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I have mentioned this a few times in various talks, on social media, and in my newsletter; the importance of psychological safety in creating effective teams is often overlooked. Google did an enormous amount of research to determine, “the secrets of effective teams at Google.” Code-named Project Aristotle, Google wanted to nail down, once and for all, what factors contributed to team effectiveness. The number one contributor to team effectiveness at Google was surprising at the time; psychological safety....