DOES20

aims, names and faces

What's the set of things that happen from idea through deploy and how long does each stage in that value stream take?

@Ben_Grinnell Oh good point! Yes, I want to know all the people first. Process second. (I was assuming I'd met everyone before actually joining the team.)

how is the coffee around here? By the way, what are the painful points of the xyz system?

do they work remote :)

Can I bribe you with beer? How about cookies?

I want to know how my teammates are feeling.

How the team collaborates and how we get feedback on the things we work on.

What do you look like when you feel stressed or anxious? (so I know how to help)

I like to understand the mission, and how people connect with it (or not). Good teams have mission passion.

@paula_thrasher I like to know that to... before I join a team. I want to join teams that have a mission that motivates _me_.

@mrmarrocos The benefit for remote work is consistently good coffee!

@mrmarrocos Or maybe "tell me where it hurts..."

who is on the team. Why are they are on the team. What are the team outcomes. How is the team reflecting and improving.

@realMattKParker I had someone pose the question once - do you make stuff, or do you make paper (or powerpoint)? I aspire in life to only answer that I make stuff.

what they would like to change if they could change only one thing

@paula_thrasher Awesome! Totally agree. I'd only add that I aspire to make the stuff that matters.

how open they are thought of moving ahead with open ears & mind. that defined their culture & how can I survive thereafter #devops #does20

I hate the term software factory. its insulting both to software engineers and to factories.

"Lets put Resources on it", its people not resources!

@paula_thrasher Totally. Emergent Determinism.

Calling people resources. They are people.

I'm currently feeling grumpy about "modern applications"... it implies that everything which doesn't adhere completely to today's trends--I mean, best practices--is an "ancient application."

"capacity" It's not like it's a bucket with a certain number of hours. Focus, mix of activities, etc all matters when it comes to productivity and happiness.

@davidstanke Micro services has taken on a whole new meaning too unfortunately.

Most favorite: Maker. We are makers; we bring new products into the world through collaboration and creativity, through learning, caring, and safety.

I hate the term Hybrid cloud when used to mean "keep our data center but run one small app on AWS"

Least favourite: Velocity. Say/Do Ratio. Maturity Model. Resources.

(edited)

favorite term is Technical Debt. Its overused, but its so real. SO REAL.

@mickfeech Yeah, every customer I speak to has a huge monolith, and then "a handful of microservices that do some auxiliary things." So it's neither here nor there, and everyone's disappointed by it. :-(

@paula_thrasher Perfectly said. Look over here in this dark corner, we're agile we're cloud! (or whatever)

@paula_thrasher agree! All tech is debt, as learned from @davidstanke at devopsdays nyc! ;)

Favourite: Outcomes. Autonomy. Multi-disciplinary. Emergence.

Better Value Sooner Safer Happier

Elephant Carpaccio

@mrmarrocos Thanks for the plug! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpPX6DXaGMg

Least favorite: Velocity. Never has a good idea been more abused and misused.

Favorite: Empathy (although we don't talk about it as often as we should).

@davidstanke Hybrid: To do two things badly

+: Psychological Safety

@jonsmart haha!

@jonsmart YES -- Supporting psychological safety is *proven* to make teams more effective. And I'm pretty sure it makes us better humans.

Favorite: Kaizen. It's never hard to get people to agree that we can always get better.

Favorite: learning, fast feedback

most favourite is. If you can't search over #google you can be good IT engineer :D #devops #does20

There's what's in the calendar... and then there's the children sitting next to you zoombombing your every meeting.

About 50% - I have 1st choice and backup choices for quite a few hours

Only about once every week or two. We have public calendars in our org and a culture of generally not booking over top of things.

(I was relating to people here: this week, I have an oddly high number of 2x or 3x overbooking... and finding which timeslot to use for urgent meeting was surprisingly difficult. (thank goodness @apitrevolution could help me out!))

Too much of it! You know it's bad when you have to start blocking off time for lunch.

@stephenmagill Oh, I always block off time for lunch, even when not necessary.

Good time to plug Making Work Visible https://itrevolution.com/book/making-work-visible/

Quite a lot unfortunately. It's been getting better the last month or so though.

@stephenmagill Likewise, I always block out lunch

TFW you come to the realization the the way you generate work is not to write code or fix things but to enable others to do so by attending meetings.

@jonsmart I do too and still meetings end up during that time period :(

My peak disaster was about three years ago in a role where I was regularly triple booked. I am much more calendar protective now. Its life changing.

@davemangot 😂😂😂

if people really want you on the meeting then they need to respect the calendar. Its a representation of your time and commitment

Judicious use of the Decline button

Fun game trying to get them rescheduled in a timely fashion too.

Not only is it hard for you... it's hard for the people trying to get on your calendar. Your job is to support those people, and they struggle to get a minute of your time. There must be a better way.

(edited)

@davemangot Agree on this point. As a leader I think you need to go to meetings so your team doesn't have to (so they can get things done)

I'd say that 25%. Some recurrent meetings contributes a lot for that!

@jonsmart One thing I've told my team though, don't accept a meeting with no agenda.

@mickfeech Agree with agenda mandatory. I'll go further. Invites need to include a meeting purpose, agenda and clarify if its informational, decision making, updates. Make meetings count (so you have less wasted time)

@paula_thrasher Agenda's yes, but also room for flexibility/socializing. Working remote can be very isolating and meetings that are "strictly business" can be pretty draining. Still need time to be a team, as people.