Culture

Continuous learning is a critical part of DevOps. Staying current is imperative. These are DevOps newsletters of note from several well regarded DevOps leaders. Last Week in AWS Chief Cloud Economist Corey Quinn goes through the torrent of news about Amazon’s cloud ecosystem and strains out the noise. Then he takes what’s left and gently and lovingly makes fun of it. DevTools Brew DevTools Brew is a 5-minute read to uncover the stories, strategies, and insights behind successful devtool companies. Every week, straight to your inbox. ...

“You are either building a learning organization or you will be losing to someone who is.” –Andrew Clay Shafer What is DevOps Provides a high-level defintion of DevOps Attempts to balance the needs of operations, development, and organizations A foundation from which to build a better definition Pros: Valiant effort with feedback from a few well know DevOps professionals Cons: It only defines the principle of DevOps, it does not show how it is done Quip: It’s better than nothing URL: What is DevOps DevOps For Dummies Foundational knowledge you will need for every DevOps journey “DevOps For Dummies provides a guidebook for those on the development or operations side in need of a primer on this way of working.” Pros: This is a must read Cons: None Quip: When I heard Emily was writing a “for Dummies” book I was perplexed as she’s one of the smartest people I know. URL: DevOps For Dummies The Phoenix Project Novel; Not your typical technical book Transformation of Broken Organization towards DevOps Culture Quintessential beginning of a DevOps journey Pros: Easy to digest, can suggest to executives Cons: The implementation details are fuzzy Quip: We all know Brent. Help Brent not be Brent. URL: The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations This is one of the most important book related to DevOps If an organization or individual is skeptical about DevOps this book provides the ammo needed for a frank discussion Pros: Lots of useful, metrics-based insights into DevOps Cons: Not a light read but, well worth it Quip: The audiobook is highly recommended because Nicole Forsgren reads emojis as words. URL: Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations Beyond the Phoenix Project: The Origins and Evolution of DevOps I think listening to the audio version of this book is more useful than The DevOps Handbook Years of research sources and use cases are poured over Gene Kim and John Willis have a wonderful banter Pros: Lightweight and fun Cons: I’m sad this didn’t come out sooner Quip: Listening to this is like throwing a sticker on a car thinking it’ll go faster. Make sure you do the homework too. URL: Beyond the Phoenix Project: The Origins and Evolution of DevOps The DevOps Handbook Handbook full of use cases and helpful examples Years of experience poured into one book The next step of a DevOps journey Pros: Detail oriented, can give to technical staff Cons: Not a quick read Quip: You’re DevOps’ing if you quote this book. URL: The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations The Twelve-Factor App https://12factor.net/ De facto standard for implementing software Good design principles for refactors and green field Pros: Free; Up-to-date; Roadmap Cons: State has to exist somewhere; lightly addressed Quip: If apps only had 12 factors… Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software Developer centric cases and examples for releasing First edition out of print; second edition is released! 😉 Technical af Pros: Looks at the SDLC holistically Cons: Maybe too high level Quip: Release early and often unlike this book 😉 URL: Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software Continuous Delivery Provides focus for deploying software faster Emphasizes automation (you must automate first) When people say “shift left” this is what they’re talking about Executing earlier in pipelines is described in this book Pros: Clear, real-world Cons: Sometimes redundant, slightly dated Quip: CD for your CTO to improve ROI and EBITDA. URL: Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation Site Reliability Engineering A collection of essays from Google SREs about how things are done at Google A fantastic reference for various functions like on-call, onboarding, delivery, etc. Pros: Free; solid examples of how to do things Cons: You are not Google; embrace with caution Quip: Google SRE is proof setting a pile of money on fire is a viable solution to engineering problems. URL: Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems The Art of Monitoring Opinionated HOWTO implementation guide to monitoring at scale Incredibly thorough book Pros: Explicit; Detailed Cons: Opinionated; Long; Perhaps too specific Quip: If a book’s art worthiness is measured by weight then we have a winner (767 pages). URL: The Art of Monitoring Effective DevOps Culture centric focus on DevOps Discusses collaboration, hiring, team building, etc. Great for leaders and managers Touches on a wide variety of important topics Pros: Culture is hard; this helps Cons: Etsy probably isn’t the best example anymore Quip: Effectiveness is a good thing! URL: Effective DevOps: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale Enterprise DevOps Playbook Roadmap for building a successful DevOps org Addresses hiring, culture, and learning Pros: Suggests tuning in your current organization Cons: Missing some pieces to the puzzle Quip: Yes! Enterprise and DevOps can work together… Somehow. URL: Enterprise DevOps Playbook The Open Organization Guide to IT Culture Change Community-produced companion to Jim Whitehurst’s 2015 book, The Open Organization Like SRE book, a collection of essays Focus on principles and practices of culture Pros: Easy to read; diverse authors; inspirational Cons: Not all pieces apply to everyone Quip: “Being positive is sometimes difficult to do.” I wrote that? Wow. I had no idea. URL: The Open Organization Guide to IT Culture Change Lean Enterprise Big picture, business minded change agent All phase guide to planning, organizing, implementation, and measurement Great for leaders and managers Pros: Mindset changing readiness guide Cons: None given the scope Quip: This is not a weight loss book… Or is it? URL: Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale Beyond Blame Failure happens; Beyond Blame is a HOWTO in making postmortems blameless Great for individual contributors, leaders, managers Pros: Guides you towards blamelessness Cons: Emotions are hard, this isn’t a psychiatrist Quip: I blame this book for your blame problems. URL: Beyond Blame: Learning From Failure and Success How Complex Systems Fail “Post-accident attribution accident to a ‘root cause’ is fundamentally wrong” Re-thinking failure in our systems makes them more robust Pros: Makes case that RCA isn’t a solid process Cons: None given the scope Quip: You’re human so you’re the problem. URL: How Complex Systems Fail (Being a Short Treatise on the Nature of Failure; How Failure is Evaluated; How Failure is Attributed to Proximate Cause; and the Resulting New Understanding of Patient Safety) In Search of Certainty Foundation shaking look at future Great for individual contributors, leaders, managers Pros: Helps manage a world we don’t know Cons: Slightly terrifying Quip: Death, taxes, and PagerDuty are the only certainties in life. URL: In Search of Certainty: The Science of Our Information Infrastructure The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It Stress isn’t all bad if we learn how to manage it Stress can actually make us happier Pros: Teaches life improving skills Cons: None given the scope TED Talk: How to make stress your friend Quip: If stress is good for me I’m going to live forever. URL: The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It The End of Heaven: Disaster and Suffering in a Scientific Age Slightly controversial take on disaster in modern times Recommended to me by John Willis Pros: Makes you rethink your feelings Cons: Slightly controversial URL: The End of Heaven: Disaster and Suffering in a Scientific Age The Art of War In DevOps you SHOULD NOT have adversaries I am willing to bet that anyone worth their salt has read this though Tactics from this work should be used sensibly “Know thy enemy” Pros: Well known work studied in business, military Cons: Not an easy read; multiple differing translations URL: The Art of War DevOps Newsletters Continuous learning is a critical part of DevOps. Staying current is imperative. ...

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.) and three things we’re professionally known for. The assignment seemed simple enough, but it turned out to be way better than I thought it would be. It fostered a shared knowledge amongst the group about each other that I think others could benefit from using potentially. ...

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. “Psychological safety refers to an individual’s perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk.” This is a mind bending idea but, it has real impact on a team’s ability to perform and innovate. Let’s analyze an example in my own work life of creating this psychological safety. ...

I went to DevOpsDays Atlanta for the first time this week. I hadn’t been in Atlanta in a very long time. It sure has changed a ton. Originally, I was going to help run the SJ Technologies booth. But, a speaker had to back out at the last minute and I was asked to fill the spot. I was working on a talk for ChefConf so I quickly finished that up and gave it to the good folks at DevOpsDays Atlanta. ...