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Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of the Ventures and Devils. We're

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highly competent professionals here. Yeah, so I'm your host Will

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Button joining me in the studio today, Warren Brod so worn.

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Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for having me back.

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Speaker 3: I know we were saying we're competent tech folks, but

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you know, we were discussing before the call, how you

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had some MacBook problems. Someone else on, you know, one

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of our additional hosts had some microphone issues. Was nearing

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one hundred degrees celsius as far as CPU goes. So,

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you know, good times all around.

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Speaker 4: Right, We're doing great.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So welcome back, Jillian.

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Speaker 2: Happy to have you back on the show.

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Speaker 4: Thanks, I'm happy to be back.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Let's see if we can make it through one more

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recording without any of us dropping out due to technical issues.

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It seems like the gods are not in favor of

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that plan, so.

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Speaker 4: I don't know, we'll see.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So today we're going to be talking about how

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to run your DevOps team from a management perspective. You know,

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based on my experience, most of the time the teams

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I've worked with have worked off of a ticket queue

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where tickets come in, you grab them or assign them

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and you just can you continue working working through the backlog,

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and that's worked pretty well. But recently, like really recently,

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as of last week, I made the decision to change

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my team to working off of epics. And so there's

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some like some of the background of why I did that.

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We had a monster backlog Q and some of this

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stuff is just never going to be a priority, which

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is not unusual, but it made it hard to find

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what was is it relevant or what should be should

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be getting picked up or actively worked on. And then

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my team's also a global team.

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Speaker 5: So.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'm not always around to answer questions or something.

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So we have specific objectives for the fourth quarter of

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this year. So I just created epics for each of

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those each of those objectives. And so now everything that

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my team work is working on should be either part

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of that one of those epics or they should stop

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working on it and move to something that is on

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that epic. And so that's kind of the thought process

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behind it.

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Speaker 3: Genius, brilliant. We should have thought about this sooner, right, Okay,

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thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 4: I'm sure of that.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting you bring this up because I

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feel like it's been a theme for a bunch of

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months now, bringing up how all the teams that we

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have in an organization need to be run sort of effectively,

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and the best way to do that is by doubling

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down on things like team topology and focusing on Dora metrics,

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or having unified alignment via some sort of OKRs and

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having users that you collect feedback from and request and

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put them in your backlog, et cetera, and then groom

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that to focus on whatever your objectives that are going

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to be. So like, going objective first makes a lot

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of sense.

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Speaker 5: I like that idea too, because it creates like context

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around what you're doing, which I find is very important.

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Otherwise it's so easy to get like bobbed down in

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the details or this new library or this bug report,

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you know, or whatever, and not keep in mind that, hey,

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we need to you know, prioritize tasks based on what

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actually needs to be done, and there are a lot

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of There are a lot of factors in that besides

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technical issues that I think are easy to forget. So

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I always like the idea of epics because I feel

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like it incorporates more of the big picture into each

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one of the tickets as opposed to just here's a

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bunch of tickets, go work through them, guys.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I think one of the problems here is

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like how do you decide what model should work best

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for a team, And at least from my perspective, it

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comes from what is the identity or core reason that

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that team exists? And I think if you're changing the

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model from we work on and let's just be clear here,

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I think what we're saying is there are things that

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need to be done in the organization and the way

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in which they get done is one team who is

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not responsible for that thing but needs help to get

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that done, creates a ticket so that someone else who

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knows how to do that work can actually do it.

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And it's a very It resembles the support organizational matrix,

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where you file a support ticket and someone else goes

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and works on it. I think in the IT world

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it's very common, especially in non tech org organizations, where

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I need access to Heaven forbid this GIRA instance or

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project and other technologies, or I need to requisition bare

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metal machines or virtual machines for this service project or

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whatever that I'm working on. So like I do understand

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where that came from, and it does mean that while

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maybe that's not the best model for a service oriented organization,

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you can imagine even if it were and you decided

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to move to EPICS, you're actually saying, we're going to

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become something different, and maybe it's the thing that you

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always wanted to be. You always wanted to be something different,

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and now you have a working model that matches how

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you want the org structure to actually function.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there were There was a pretty sizable sequence of

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events that took place to get us to this point, because,

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like you said, you know, when we were operating in

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a support model, someone would file a ticket and say, hey,

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I need this, you know, bare metal stints, and I

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just don't happen to have those laying around idle. So

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it took time and effort to get one up and running.

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But then meanwhile, the team that opened that ticket was saying, oh,

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we're blocked because of DevOps, and so my team looked

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like shit, It's like, well, we just heard about this

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request four hours ago, you know, like, we're not really

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blocking you. You just didn't ask us early enough. And

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so then we struggled for a long time to figure

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out how to get the requests into our team earlier,

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you know, so we could be ready and do like

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a just in time delivery thing to throw out that buzzword,

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and that didn't work either. But then we had this

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input from like the company and the executives and the

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senior leadership, like, here's what we're focused on for Q four,

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this is mission critical for the company. And so each

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of those translated to different things that the software engineering

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teams are going to be working on. So I took

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those and said, okay, well, if they're building this, they're

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actually going to need a bare metal instance or a

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Kubernetes cluster or whatever it is. And so I created

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epics that align with the products that the engineering teams

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are going to ship, and then the tickets in the

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epics are the tasks that support that. And now also

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there's a side benefit of that, I've got someone on

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my team who's almost completely dedicated to that team, so

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they can go to their scrums and chat with them

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on a regular basis and have like this really in depth,

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long lived conversation so that they're in the loop and

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they start hearing about all the things that we still

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don't know about earlier in the cycle, and hopefully that

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is going to result in being to deliver the dependencies

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for them in a like a near time fashion.

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Speaker 4: I like that.

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Speaker 5: The biggest takeaway of all this is that doing support

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work is like playing telephone in kindergarten, right.

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Speaker 1: I think it's even a little worse. I think it's

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like eighteenth century mail correspondence, you know, where you break

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out the feather quill and the ink and you write

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it on parchment and then give it to the pony

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ex bess writer and they take it to the dock,

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or it gets put onto a ship and sales across

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to England.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think you.

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Speaker 3: Have a little bit of a benefit there because in

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those scenarios you can almost ensure that both parties are

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somehow communicating in the same language or context. And within

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the tech organizations, we have what another team could be

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working on could be so based in a contact or

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jargon that you just don't understand because it's heavily abtracted.

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Speaker 2: Away you know what you're even doing.

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Speaker 3: So not only is there a confusion of the number

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of middle people for that message to get to you,

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now even understanding what the why is. And I think

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One of the failure modes that a lot of service

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based organizations fall into is believing that the fix is

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clarity of expectations and communication by creating some sort of

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slas like, oh, you need a bare metal machine. We

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have a line item here that says the SLA is

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like five weeks, and it's like you can just write

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that down and think that, oh, everyone won't be happy

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now now they know exactly how long it takes the

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requisition one of these new things. But the reality is

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that they of course potentially need it whenever they realize

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they need it yea, and realize that they need it

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to solve whatever problem that they're currently having, and they

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doesn't they haven't necessarily planned out that far.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think in addition to that too, that's assuming that

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they actually ask for the right thing, which a lot

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of times they don't. You know, a lot of times

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the request comes in like hey, we need to deploy

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this piece of software we build, and then you get

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to look at it too, software and you're like, oh

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my dude, this is not a Docker container. Like I

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don't know what Google Search you typed in, but this

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is not going to run a Docker container.

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Speaker 3: I mean that's not even there's quickly a outlived it's

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usefulness there, and I fear that the lms are now

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even more effective than Google at returning accurate results, given

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what the first few result hits usually are have nothing

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to do with what you're actually looking for.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, on a bit of a side note there, I

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think it's Google now that does the AI generated response

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right at the top of the page when you type

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it in. Yeah, I found that to be helpful. Not

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all the time, but there's been a majority of the

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time whenever like that has actually been like, oh, yeah,

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that's what I was looking for, and then I just

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close the tab and move on. I close the tab

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worn that's something that some people do.

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Speaker 2: Things, I definitely close them.

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Speaker 3: So, you know, let's let's let the record show that,

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you know, I think we're just two different kinds of

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people here. Will Because when I started seeing the AI

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overview from Google, the first thing I did was I

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created a style blocker using a block to eliminate that

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element from my screen. And then I went to the

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network tab and found the UURL that Google was using

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to get that data, and I blocked it with my

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browser so that neither the display nor the network requests

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are executed for this data because I have no need

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for it whatsoever.

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Speaker 1: What if it's actually helpful, though, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I guess I'm just going to have to live in backwards.

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Speaker 5: Reality, to live like a caveman over here with how

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your AI response is?

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Speaker 1: Okay ran over.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know.

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Speaker 5: It's been like a pretty even toss for me because

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I find most of the time when I'm googling something,

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it tends to be like something local.

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Speaker 4: Like I was.

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Speaker 5: I was trying to find out where the address of

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the vet was that's like five minutes away from me,

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and instead I got this like AI response about like

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all the different reasons why you would need to, you know,

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take an animal to the vet, and I was like,

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I already know I have the appointment they're getting a vaccine,

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Like I don't, got like I don't need this, and

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then I had to scroll like all the way down

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to just get it.

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Speaker 4: Was very silly. So anyways, I find it's about fifty

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to fifty. Sometimes it's helpful.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair. So what are the uh bringing us

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back on topic here? What are the pitfalls to running

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a deadlops team using epics that I may not be seeing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So I particularly like the book here.

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Speaker 3: I think I use it as one of my previous

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picks called radical focus. And one of the challenges that

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definitely comes up is having too much like split focus

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on where you're actually going. So the book talks a

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little bit about how to build the appropriate okayrs, objective

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and key results for an organization. And one of the

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problems that can come up is that you'll focus more

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on what you believe the business needs right now that's

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already been articulated, versus some of these hypothetical bets that

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other teams are making, and so it can be tempting

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to lean on, hey, you said it right actually in

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this today that we shouldn't be working on those other things.

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And so the reality is that figuring out where the

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boundary should be between what you do work on that

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isn't defined sometimes called toil, sometimes called unplanned work, and

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what has already been defined to be worked on. From

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my experience, a good understanding at the team level can

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be important, but it also can change over time. Like

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you can say, oh, there was a lot of unplanned

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work in the past that never got done. We're going

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to radically shift and today we're only going to do

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planned work. But three months from now in next quarter,

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you can say, oh, that's also not healthy. We probably

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want like fifty percent of the time should be dedicated

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to plan to work, a thirty percent of the time

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it can be dedicated to unplanned short just in time

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work that we can get completed quickly. And measuring these

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against each other is important. So one of them is

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like keep the lights on our maintenance, which doesn't always

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well work itself into an objective and key result, it's

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sort of done. To have an objective that's like keep

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the lights on, so much more to have, like, you know,

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we actually want to accomplish something for the business here,

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So somehow how that can work. Those tasks can work

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in because fundamentally, from an agile standpoint, plans are great,

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but we have to know when the plan is wrong

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and be able to adjust and still do the work

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we want without getting blocked by a mindset or tool

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or framework that we've used to help us to get

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to this point.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess maybe one thing I can do is

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create an additional epic just called unplanned work, and at

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the end of the quarter, see what fell into that.

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Bucket and then adjust from there.

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Speaker 5: I also imagine it's going to be very different for

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different organizations, Like some just sort of by default are

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moving fast, and I have a lot of unplanned work,

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so I tend to work more in research.

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Speaker 4: It's almost all unplanned. There's a few things that I know.

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Most of the time.

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Speaker 5: It's like, oh, by the way, I have one hundred

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thousand simulations that I need to run yesterday, and I'm like,

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all right.

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Speaker 4: I guess this is what we're doing. This is what

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we're doing today. So I don't know.

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Speaker 5: I just I would imagine that it's all different, and

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I feel like it falls into the uh, what's that quote?

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You know, plans are useless, but planning indispensable kind of thing.

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Maybe there are some organizations that could really follow the

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use of epics and like, you know, properly plan things

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out and all this kind of stuff.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it definitely goes along with how not just

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the identity of the teams in the org that I mentioned,

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but how you're delivering value and that can be mapped

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to using the team topologies nomenclature, what's the value stream

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that your organization is utilizing? Because like you can focus

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around that and figure out how do we plan the

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work for that value stream and maybe we can't plan

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it at all. That value stream is specifically adding value

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by doing unplanned work, as Hillion points out, So I

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think identifying that is certainly one important aspect, and you

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sort of have to decide what is the sort of

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work that we'll be doing before we even decide how

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we do it or what needs to be planned. You know,

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what are we responsible for? And I think there's another

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potential pitfall here, which is what a lot of what

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you're doing is to support other teams, right You're leading

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platform engineering at the company, so realistically, what are their expectations,

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you know, coming up and saying I mean, I love

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that you went and did this for a couple different reasons.

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But I think the number one problem I usually hear

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from platform engineering leaders is that, oh, our stakeholders will

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be incredibly unhappy with us if we force them to

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commit to providing us input at the beginning of the

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quarter so that we can figure out how to best

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support them and go forward. I'm like, well, they should

321
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for sure do that, but you should also be more

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lenient on handling requests during the quarter as well, but

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so there are expectations and understanding as a partner in

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what you're delivering, I think is important for sure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, I think one of the critical pieces that

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made this whole thing possible was the mandate from the

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executive team saying, this is what we're doing this quarter

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without question. No, it's not up for negotiation, it's not

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up for debate. This is what we're doing. And that

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was a huge piece to making it possible for me

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to do this. But even with that, there's, like, you know,

332
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there's always like some uncertainty around that. You know, you

333
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may get like halfway through this project and realize you've

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got to shift to make it successful. And so one

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of the other changes I made along with this was

336
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on my team. Every person is the owner of one

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of the products that we build, and that person and

338
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then they have a backup as well for when they're

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sick or vacation or whatever. But one of their responsibilities

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is at the end of each week, meet with the

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team leader or engineering manager that builds that product and say,

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here's what we did this week, Here's what we think

343
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you're going to need for next week, and then debate

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that to get the right get both parties to agree

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on the deliverables for next week, and then identify blockers,

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you know, like we're blocked because you haven't delivered us

347
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a software, or your block because we haven't delivered you

348
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the hardware or vice versa, and just call those out

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so that they're known blockers. And then that has to

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be done every week, so that everyone's kind of like

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agreeing at a high level to what's happening for a quarter,

352
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but agreeing on a concrete level what's happening next week.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think that communication is really critical.

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Speaker 3: I tried to stay away from synchronous there though in

355
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the past.

356
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Speaker 2: What I found, and it.

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Speaker 3: Really depends on what your report is, cross team, cross organization,

358
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how much the leaders know each other. I found that

359
00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:18,000
a thing that I've been calling flash reports is great.

360
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So on a biweekly cadence, all the leads are responsible

361
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for like top two to three critical things that they

362
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want other teams to be aware of that are relevant,

363
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not from the business standpoint and not like I worked

364
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on these tickets or we release these features that's not

365
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super important, but like really what they think other teams

366
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will want to know or need to know. And then

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everyone fills out their one slides worth of information and

368
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then it's shared within the entire org so that everyone

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can sort of read it.

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Speaker 2: If they want.

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Speaker 3: And included in that is basically what you said already,

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what they worked on, what they will potentially work on,

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and then maybe blocker if they know dependencies on other

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teams that are interesting. And this isn't related to any

375
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specific project or anything. But often I found that in

376
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organizations where you depend on others or they depend on you,

377
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you don't necessarily know what those relationships are all the time.

378
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Like it'd be so easy if like, oh, yeah, I

379
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know everything that everyone else is working on and exactly

380
00:20:15,559 --> 00:20:18,759
how we're going to be involved there, But often I

381
00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:21,640
need a kicker from them where they say, oh, yeah,

382
00:20:21,759 --> 00:20:24,559
we're working on releasing a new API, and I'm like

383
00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:26,960
a new API to an existing service or like a

384
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:29,920
new service or new does that mean new infrastructure? And

385
00:20:29,960 --> 00:20:31,799
like they don't even know the answer that question because

386
00:20:31,799 --> 00:20:33,160
they haven't thought about it. But if I'm on a

387
00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:35,559
team that's dealing with infrastructure, I'm going to start thinking

388
00:20:35,559 --> 00:20:38,480
about it now because it's going to remind me, Oh,

389
00:20:38,599 --> 00:20:42,160
how do we do new containers in our organization, Do

390
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:44,640
we do something, is it all self service for them?

391
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Speaker 2: Et cetera, et cetera, depending on whatever that item is.

392
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Speaker 1: So in those those high level meetings, how do you

393
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coach or give feedback to someone when they're not delivering

394
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what you feel they should be delivering.

395
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Speaker 3: So, like outside, I think there's a I think it's

396
00:21:03,279 --> 00:21:07,240
about communication, right, yeah, what what is the expectation for

397
00:21:07,519 --> 00:21:10,000
this team and whatnot? So I would drill part of

398
00:21:10,039 --> 00:21:13,319
it down to the okayrs, are they on progress to

399
00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,279
somewhat deliver some part of what they're doing? If the

400
00:21:17,319 --> 00:21:22,640
answer is no, then that investigation process may lend itself

401
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:26,319
to oh, they're not relying on other teams or not

402
00:21:26,319 --> 00:21:29,400
depending on other teams enough, and that can uncover something.

403
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:31,960
I think there is a oh, you know what if

404
00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:36,039
teams aren't getting along sort of hypothetical that I often

405
00:21:36,119 --> 00:21:36,559
is played out.

406
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Speaker 2: I don't think whatever. I don't care if they get along.

407
00:21:38,440 --> 00:21:41,039
Speaker 3: You know, they have their own metrics that we decide

408
00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:45,319
upon and that people are agreement on, and if they're

409
00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:47,720
not making as much progress as we need them to

410
00:21:48,079 --> 00:21:50,720
from a business standpoint or from another team standpoint, then

411
00:21:51,039 --> 00:21:53,240
that should be visible so that everyone can go and

412
00:21:53,279 --> 00:21:54,680
jump on it, like, hey, you know you're not making

413
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:56,759
progress on that, And then that's where there's an opportunities

414
00:21:56,799 --> 00:21:58,720
like well, we're stuck on this because so and so

415
00:21:58,799 --> 00:22:00,720
other team, And I'm like, well, what happened when you

416
00:22:00,759 --> 00:22:03,240
went and talked to the other team and you said, hey,

417
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:05,880
we're stuck on this, because like what was that collaboration like?

418
00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:10,359
And hopefully they can resolve that between themselves. So it's

419
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:13,039
not just like they're not communicating, but they're not communicating,

420
00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:16,079
but the why right, Well, they're not communicating and that's

421
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causing this outcome or this impact in the business that

422
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:19,720
we want to rectify.

423
00:22:20,079 --> 00:22:22,039
Speaker 5: I find it really interesting that you and I have

424
00:22:22,079 --> 00:22:25,880
opposite opinions on if it matters if people are getting along,

425
00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:28,880
because I always find that, like, well, we have.

426
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Speaker 4: A lot of technical problems, we have.

427
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Speaker 5: A lot more people problems, like so many more people problems,

428
00:22:34,079 --> 00:22:36,319
and it really does matter if people are getting along,

429
00:22:36,359 --> 00:22:39,599
because that will be such a huge stalemate if they're not.

430
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Speaker 3: So I think it's like an implementation detail. Like for me,

431
00:22:45,079 --> 00:22:47,640
I don't care if they're getting along. If they're if

432
00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:50,400
the business has already put metrics in place that drive

433
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:54,279
them to achieve what we believe is important because the metrics,

434
00:22:54,799 --> 00:22:57,240
the encouragement to do the right thing is going to

435
00:22:57,240 --> 00:22:59,200
be based off of their salary, whether or not they

436
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:01,759
want promotions, what they see as the future for the business.

437
00:23:01,759 --> 00:23:04,680
We can't force them to get along unless there's some

438
00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:08,599
metric that the business cares about. That's like people are

439
00:23:08,599 --> 00:23:10,640
happy to work with each other, and then you can

440
00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:12,400
actually invest in that. But if it's not part of

441
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:17,039
anyone's retention strategy for them to work with others, then

442
00:23:17,039 --> 00:23:18,559
they're not going to do it and just be like, hey,

443
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:20,720
you know other people don't like you, is not a

444
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:24,240
good reason for someone to change, right, Like, maybe they

445
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:26,640
think that they're totally fine and the problems the other person.

446
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,200
Speaker 2: So I usually put everybody in front of.

447
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:34,319
Speaker 3: You, put something concrete in front of them, right, Like,

448
00:23:34,559 --> 00:23:36,599
it doesn't matter that you're not getting along. What matters

449
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:39,319
is that because you're not getting along, this project is

450
00:23:39,359 --> 00:23:42,119
not getting delivered as fast as possible. And like, if

451
00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:44,279
you two people are disagreeing about the architecture, it could

452
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be a decision making problem. Like both people think that

453
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:50,720
they're responsible for making the decision or not. What actually

454
00:23:50,759 --> 00:23:53,240
happens more frequently is neither of them think that they're

455
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responsible for making the decision, and they think some magical

456
00:23:55,839 --> 00:23:57,559
other third person's going to come in and be like,

457
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this is what you do. You use this, you use

458
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,119
all the script here, you terror form here, whatever you know,

459
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:07,319
ignore everything else, and that just never happens. That's usually

460
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:09,960
a huge slowdown in a lot of cases. So, I mean,

461
00:24:10,039 --> 00:24:12,680
I think realistically it could be people not getting along.

462
00:24:13,559 --> 00:24:16,759
I definitely, in my experience, have seen way more leaders

463
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say you're not getting along, fix this, this is a

464
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huge problem and not actually point to why that's important.

465
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And for technical leaders, especially ones that aren't necessarily engineering

466
00:24:27,039 --> 00:24:29,720
managers who understand how people work, just telling them to

467
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:32,759
get along with others is definitely not an effective way

468
00:24:32,799 --> 00:24:33,839
to convince them to do it.

469
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:35,880
Speaker 2: I have experience.

470
00:24:37,599 --> 00:24:40,759
Speaker 1: Make them hug it out, it's right.

471
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Speaker 4: They just have to walk around holding hands until they

472
00:24:42,799 --> 00:24:45,279
get out they like it or not.

473
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 2: I want to see that in practice.

474
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Speaker 1: That would be fantastic.

475
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Speaker 5: I mean, I've kind of thought like, if I ever

476
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:57,640
had an in person management kind of job, I'm going

477
00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:00,440
to have like a toddler corner. There's to be like

478
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,640
a bean bag and puzzle juice boxes, and like, whenever

479
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:05,640
anybody's too stressed out, I'm going to be like, you know.

480
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:08,839
Speaker 4: Just just chill out. Here's a juice box. It's all

481
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:11,640
gonna be okay. And I think that would work really well.

482
00:25:12,519 --> 00:25:15,119
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there is something there.

483
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:19,039
Speaker 3: I'd be careful, well, I'd be careful calling it the

484
00:25:19,039 --> 00:25:19,839
toddler corner.

485
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 2: I associate.

486
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:27,599
Speaker 3: Children with professional environments. I think it happens a lot.

487
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:30,720
I mean, there are, for sure overlaps in how you

488
00:25:30,759 --> 00:25:35,720
manage a team versus how you rear a child, but

489
00:25:35,759 --> 00:25:38,240
there are also a lot of discrepancies as well. So

490
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:41,519
like I think it's it's very important to know when

491
00:25:41,559 --> 00:25:44,599
the difference is. And I do know some people would

492
00:25:44,599 --> 00:25:46,960
definitely get triggered if they felt like they were getting

493
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:51,319
sent to you know, they were a child, and however

494
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:53,480
they're act now, maybe that's exactly what they needed to hear. Like,

495
00:25:53,519 --> 00:25:55,880
you know, just for the record, some people may absolutely,

496
00:25:56,039 --> 00:25:58,480
you know, prefer that treatment. I feel like my hypothetical

497
00:25:58,519 --> 00:26:05,400
corner would definitely have some variety of schedule, you know,

498
00:26:05,519 --> 00:26:07,559
A or B drugs in it or something like that.

499
00:26:11,279 --> 00:26:12,839
Speaker 1: I think that's part of it though, because you have

500
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,799
to figure out like what type of communication does this

501
00:26:15,839 --> 00:26:18,559
person respond to? And the only way to figure that

502
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,240
out is to get it wrong the first few times

503
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:26,359
as you're like ruling out possible solutions.

504
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 3: You know this.

505
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,279
Speaker 1: I think I've mentioned this on the show in the past. Like,

506
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:34,200
I taught CrossFit for five or six years, and like

507
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:39,200
the biggest thing I learned from that was how to

508
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:43,880
communicate with people in the format that they like to

509
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:49,160
communicate in. And doing there you're working under you know,

510
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:51,799
the pressure of a running clock. You're running under pure

511
00:26:51,799 --> 00:26:55,559
pressure because they're all doing the same thing together. But

512
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:58,000
there's also like a safety issue too, where if you

513
00:26:58,079 --> 00:27:01,079
can't get if you can't get your message across in

514
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,400
a timely fashion, that person's going to end up injured

515
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,680
for weeks or months or even permanently.

516
00:27:08,519 --> 00:27:11,400
Speaker 3: So what I'm hearing is you should first write a

517
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:14,240
survey asking them if they would like a toddler corner,

518
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,480
and then if you get a majority, then then you know,

519
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,519
create that because you know that that's what they actually want.

520
00:27:21,319 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 5: So I would create the Toddler corner first, and then

521
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:25,960
I would have like a we would have like a

522
00:27:26,039 --> 00:27:28,839
contest for what to name it, and I would just

523
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:30,759
leave the word toddler out of it, because I do

524
00:27:30,799 --> 00:27:32,960
actually have some tact not like a lot of tacked,

525
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,880
but like just a little bit, and then we would

526
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:38,799
just pick the best name and then that's what it

527
00:27:38,799 --> 00:27:39,319
would be called.

528
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 3: So I liked, you know, there is something interesting here.

529
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,319
I think it works less for remote companies.

530
00:27:45,519 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 4: Uh, well, it really does.

531
00:27:48,839 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 2: It worked it works for remote companies as well.

532
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:53,640
Speaker 5: No, I'm saying it really it doesn't work. I can't

533
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,039
think of it, like like I can't think of the

534
00:27:56,079 --> 00:27:59,920
good equivalent for remote companies. I have my own toddler.

535
00:28:00,839 --> 00:28:03,039
But that's besides the point.

536
00:28:03,799 --> 00:28:05,680
Speaker 3: I mean, could maybe there's like you have to use

537
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:11,039
this background on Google Works meeting, you know, it always

538
00:28:11,039 --> 00:28:14,759
has to look like this until it's over. I do

539
00:28:14,799 --> 00:28:16,680
think there's something interesting here, and I think, you know,

540
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:19,319
we're talking about pitfalls about potentially changing the way in

541
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:21,400
which a team does work. I don't think what they're

542
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:25,000
working on is super critical to that conversation. So as

543
00:28:25,039 --> 00:28:28,160
long as how you're working on it is aligned with what,

544
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:29,440
like what you actually.

545
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:30,160
Speaker 2: Want to have happened there.

546
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 3: And one of the things that often happens that I've

547
00:28:33,759 --> 00:28:38,759
heard of more happening in practice than experience is a

548
00:28:38,839 --> 00:28:41,920
lack of everyone being on the same page when wanting to.

549
00:28:41,839 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 2: Make those changes.

550
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:47,039
Speaker 3: And the message that has worked best for me is

551
00:28:47,759 --> 00:28:50,359
this is an experiment, like we're going to try. If

552
00:28:50,359 --> 00:28:53,440
we never try changing things, we'll never find a better

553
00:28:53,759 --> 00:28:56,799
local maximum. Because if we're at a local maximum right now,

554
00:28:56,839 --> 00:28:59,839
it's gonna be pain to find another one unless we

555
00:28:59,839 --> 00:29:02,160
make some giant leaps in what we're doing and hope

556
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,759
we land on another tall mountain. And so I try

557
00:29:05,799 --> 00:29:09,000
to phrase it as a time fixed or time bounded

558
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:12,319
experiment where we can just see how it works, and

559
00:29:12,519 --> 00:29:15,119
that usually eliminates a lot of concern because I think

560
00:29:15,119 --> 00:29:18,039
people tend to see that, oh, you're changing something, this

561
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:21,440
is permanent, We'll never change in the future. It's fixed now,

562
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:24,400
it will forever be like this, rather than we don't know.

563
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:26,440
I mean, we have maybe ideas of why we're picking

564
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:29,559
this as the experiment of changing to using epics in

565
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:34,000
a historically was a service based orient organization to new

566
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:36,880
you know, we provide tools and services to help, to support,

567
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:40,519
to enable, and we'll see how it goes, and if

568
00:29:40,519 --> 00:29:42,759
it doesn't work out, then we're definitely going to reevaluate.

569
00:29:42,799 --> 00:29:45,200
And maybe you point to, oh yeah, three six months

570
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:47,279
down the road, I already have a calendar invite set

571
00:29:47,279 --> 00:29:49,400
out that we're going to reevaluate specifically how it went,

572
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:51,119
how people feel about it, and then we can make

573
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:54,119
adjustments from there, and usually that eliminates a lot of concerns.

574
00:29:54,799 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a fair point, because in doing this, I've

575
00:29:58,799 --> 00:30:04,279
I've already received feedback along those lines of you know,

576
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:08,039
what if or why didn't we or whatever, and I

577
00:30:08,079 --> 00:30:12,279
was like, dude, I'm just I'm making guesses here, happy

578
00:30:12,319 --> 00:30:12,920
to revisit.

579
00:30:14,559 --> 00:30:16,119
Speaker 3: I mean, I would just be like, oh, yeah, you

580
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:19,000
know what, I'm definitely writing this down and it's going

581
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:22,240
in this document of everything that didn't work with our process.

582
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,960
And after three months, you know, when we're reevaluating what

583
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,079
was successful or not, we're just going to come back,

584
00:30:28,119 --> 00:30:30,519
go back through the list and see what happened there.

585
00:30:31,079 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 2: We'll have all this stuff captured.

586
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 3: And that definitely leads into the hearing people that they

587
00:30:37,559 --> 00:30:39,960
let their concerns be noted in some way.

588
00:30:40,839 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 2: I think there's another real problem.

589
00:30:42,319 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 3: Here, which is you will find a shadow organization having

590
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,960
stammed up there a hierarchy where some of these customers

591
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,279
or your users from a platform engineering standpoint, have been

592
00:30:53,279 --> 00:30:57,519
able to ninja requests into your organization to be worked on,

593
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:00,200
and now you're actually saying, Hey, this stuff that we

594
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,839
should have never been doing, that isn't even important for

595
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:05,480
the business. Hypothetically, we're not even going to do that anymore.

596
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:07,359
Like that's where some of the complaints are going to

597
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:10,079
show up. And I think being prepared to have the

598
00:31:10,119 --> 00:31:13,960
conversation whereas like, oh, we have these things in progress,

599
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:16,759
like which one of those is more important for you?

600
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:20,400
Like you stack rank them for me? And I feel

601
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:24,720
like without having that mentality it can be challenging the

602
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,119
first time to realize that is the conversation that you

603
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:27,680
want to have.

604
00:31:28,279 --> 00:31:32,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I see that point, because you can't say

605
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:34,279
yes to everything. And I think that's where a lot

606
00:31:34,279 --> 00:31:40,119
of that comes from, is saying I hear you, but

607
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:41,519
we're going to say no to that.

608
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, And that's the thing is you don't

609
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,960
necessarily have to say no. But I think alignment between

610
00:31:47,039 --> 00:31:50,519
different stakeholders is also important and clarity and so like

611
00:31:50,599 --> 00:31:54,000
asking for well, how much money, Like let's pretend I

612
00:31:54,039 --> 00:31:56,920
always love this hypothetical. Let's pretend my organization didn't exist.

613
00:31:57,839 --> 00:32:00,480
There's no DevOps at my company, there's no platform, we

614
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:02,799
have no tools, and you have this challenge in front

615
00:32:02,799 --> 00:32:05,319
of you, like what are you going to be able

616
00:32:05,319 --> 00:32:07,400
to get that taken care of by yourself? And if

617
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,200
the answer is no, like what's stopping you from achieving that?

618
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:12,519
And then potentially saying, oh, you know, if we had

619
00:32:12,559 --> 00:32:15,359
an organization, then we could take that work off from you,

620
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:18,759
And so there's a different perspective on who's fundamentally accountable

621
00:32:19,079 --> 00:32:19,960
for delivery.

622
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 2: There.

623
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:23,759
Speaker 3: I have another pitfall, but maybe I'll hold off on

624
00:32:23,799 --> 00:32:27,039
that for one moment while we digest this current idea.

625
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:30,039
Speaker 5: I like the idea of keewing everything up as sort

626
00:32:30,079 --> 00:32:32,400
of an experiment. I think it kind of releases a

627
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:35,759
lot of pressure and then, you know, anything that can

628
00:32:35,839 --> 00:32:38,880
be done to kind of tone down the seriousness I

629
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:41,640
think is usually helpful. I mean, I suppose we should

630
00:32:41,759 --> 00:32:44,920
take some things seriously sometimes, but.

631
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:46,799
Speaker 4: I don't know.

632
00:32:46,839 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 5: The exact structure of tickets is like, well, sometimes we

633
00:32:49,559 --> 00:32:51,240
just got to kind of like pick something and just

634
00:32:51,319 --> 00:32:53,160
move forward with it so that we can we can

635
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,079
just kind of move along and get things done.

636
00:32:55,400 --> 00:33:03,079
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I take very few things seriously non either. Okay,

637
00:33:03,119 --> 00:33:05,160
what's your other pitfall worn Yeah.

638
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 3: I mean so one of the things that can come

639
00:33:07,279 --> 00:33:09,880
up here is if you have too many epics, too

640
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:11,599
many things going on, Like I don't know how exactly

641
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:14,759
big your team is, but often, OKRs, I find that

642
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:18,319
somewhere in the one to three range for maybe twenty

643
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:23,480
people is appropriate, and that can first balloon out and

644
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:25,400
have a lot of things when we feel like every

645
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:29,000
single one of those items doesn't take so long, Like

646
00:33:29,039 --> 00:33:31,279
it's not it's like, oh, well, we need more work

647
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:34,839
because what we have currently doesn't isn't enough people to

648
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:36,640
work on, Like, we have too many people to do

649
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:39,839
that work right now, So let's create more things. And

650
00:33:40,079 --> 00:33:42,880
what ends up happening is you fracture the organization so

651
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:46,640
they're all focused on just whatever their silo is, and

652
00:33:47,079 --> 00:33:50,759
within your own organization, they can't effectively collaborate pull in

653
00:33:51,039 --> 00:33:55,640
extra people off. And so while you've solved the problem

654
00:33:55,799 --> 00:33:59,519
of what your users or customers need or want by

655
00:33:59,599 --> 00:34:03,480
prioritiz at that level, internal prioritization then becomes an issue

656
00:34:03,519 --> 00:34:05,440
and how you align and do, like how do you

657
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:09,480
decide which of your objectives of the key is what

658
00:34:09,519 --> 00:34:11,119
you're going after is most important?

659
00:34:11,119 --> 00:34:13,320
Speaker 2: How would you argue one over the other.

660
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 3: And when you have two people working on that, if

661
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:21,360
you have individual owners of different areas, then they're always

662
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:23,960
going to believe that the thing they're working on is

663
00:34:24,079 --> 00:34:27,280
most critically important and always believe the thing that someone

664
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:30,480
else is working on is less important, and so it's

665
00:34:30,559 --> 00:34:32,519
going to be impossible for them to get off of

666
00:34:32,559 --> 00:34:36,079
that and help or collaborate where they'd have to sacrifice

667
00:34:36,119 --> 00:34:38,760
something that they're doing. So I like the idea of

668
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:43,360
sort of ownership or responsibility to update the metric or

669
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:46,239
keep track of it, but as far as success goes,

670
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:48,599
it has nothing to do with this particular individual.

671
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 2: I mean, someone can.

672
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:54,599
Speaker 3: Be a project manager without having the accountability for whether

673
00:34:54,679 --> 00:34:57,159
or not that project is a success, because there's lots

674
00:34:57,199 --> 00:35:00,280
of things that are outside the org that impact or

675
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:03,280
outside even the team or the individual. And one of

676
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:07,280
the things I usually caution against is making a performance

677
00:35:07,639 --> 00:35:11,119
metric or measurement on something where the individual doesn't have

678
00:35:11,159 --> 00:35:15,280
a majority of the impact on it, because they'll be

679
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:18,480
beholden to whatever else is happening in the world at that.

680
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:22,760
Speaker 1: Moment, for sure. So like an example of that would

681
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:27,199
be holding one of my team members accountable for shipping

682
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:31,880
a product which they don't really control because they can't

683
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,400
ship it until the engineering team is done building it.

684
00:35:35,519 --> 00:35:37,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a great example.

685
00:35:37,199 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 3: So you mentioned the bear metal earlier, right, like, oh,

686
00:35:40,119 --> 00:35:42,679
this application is deployed to production?

687
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:43,880
Speaker 2: Is the is the metric?

688
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:44,039
Speaker 5: Now?

689
00:35:44,079 --> 00:35:46,559
Speaker 3: That could be great for the OKR for the business,

690
00:35:46,599 --> 00:35:49,000
but individually or even at your org level, you have

691
00:35:49,039 --> 00:35:52,239
no impact over the ability for another team to ship

692
00:35:52,559 --> 00:35:55,519
that application whatsoever. You can have all the bear metal

693
00:35:55,559 --> 00:35:58,960
ready according to some specification, and so maybe that's the

694
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:02,199
you know, those tickets make sense. The bare metal is

695
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:05,239
ready to go, all the necessary infrastructure is totally great,

696
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:08,199
But a anything outside of that, like, keep that far

697
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:10,679
away from my organization because it's just going to.

698
00:36:10,679 --> 00:36:11,440
Speaker 2: Make people unhappy.

699
00:36:11,639 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 3: Or maybe they'll be great at project managing other teams,

700
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:17,440
but that starts to get into a dangerous area where

701
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:21,000
your team members feel that they're responsible for someone else

702
00:36:21,079 --> 00:36:25,440
outside of their loki of control to do work. You know,

703
00:36:25,599 --> 00:36:28,239
they need to get their stuff done in order to

704
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:29,559
be successful in your eyes.

705
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:32,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good idea. I'm going to have to

706
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:35,599
go back through the way I worded these epics with

707
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:38,440
that in mind, because I know some of them stayed

708
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:40,960
exactly that go ahead, Julian, I was just going to.

709
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:45,280
Speaker 5: Say, so, this conversation kind of raises two questions in

710
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:50,360
my mind that I've had, you know, maybe personal experience

711
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:51,199
with that I don't want.

712
00:36:51,119 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 4: To get into, but I suppose.

713
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 5: So the questions are like, one, how do you know

714
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,920
when it's time to you know, sit back and re

715
00:36:59,039 --> 00:37:02,639
evaluate and say like, hey, there's something there's something amiss

716
00:37:02,679 --> 00:37:05,559
in the way that we're managing things. And then two,

717
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:08,239
how do you, like, how would you get buy in

718
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:12,159
from the higher ups if you're kind of meeting some resistance,

719
00:37:12,159 --> 00:37:14,239
So I know, for example, like there's kind of one

720
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:16,840
project in particular, and thinking of that, we were all

721
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:20,559
just so in the weeds, firefighting all the time. That

722
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:24,639
kind of getting buy in to be able to say like, hey,

723
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:26,960
there's there's something strange going on, like we need to

724
00:37:27,079 --> 00:37:29,599
you know, be able to sit down and make a plan,

725
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:31,760
and that of course takes time, right, So then that

726
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:33,440
was going to be you know, a few days, a week,

727
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:35,239
a few weeks, however long it was going to be

728
00:37:35,559 --> 00:37:37,840
to be able to sit down with all the necessary people,

729
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:42,199
get these requirements, make this plan, and I know you know,

730
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:44,039
and like the person who was in charge was very

731
00:37:44,119 --> 00:37:46,960
much against taking that time to do that. It was

732
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,000
more just like no, no, no, just just keep pushing

733
00:37:50,039 --> 00:37:52,519
through these things and get them done. So how do

734
00:37:52,559 --> 00:37:55,320
you guys propose dealing with both those scenarios? One?

735
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:56,280
Speaker 4: How do you know? And two?

736
00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 5: What do you do when you're like, I definitely know

737
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:01,119
that we need to do something, but you just get

738
00:38:01,119 --> 00:38:01,920
too much push back.

739
00:38:02,599 --> 00:38:05,159
Speaker 3: I really this is not the answer, But I will

740
00:38:05,159 --> 00:38:08,159
say ignorant ignorance is bliss here because once you know,

741
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:13,599
you will definitely be frustrated. If you can that cannot

742
00:38:13,679 --> 00:38:15,159
then affect the circumstance.

743
00:38:15,679 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is probably an extreme example, but very

744
00:38:21,039 --> 00:38:26,880
relevant to me. One way, you know is whenever like

745
00:38:29,159 --> 00:38:34,880
senior level execs reach into your team and start making

746
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:37,320
decisions for you.

747
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a good one.

748
00:38:40,679 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 3: There's a canonical term in the industry called a hippo

749
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:50,039
the highest paid person in the room or organization. Uh yeah,

750
00:38:50,199 --> 00:38:53,159
that that that that's particularly one. I mean, realistically want

751
00:38:53,159 --> 00:38:55,760
to push decision making down to where the information is

752
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:59,480
and not push information up to another place that supposedly

753
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:02,519
can make the decision. So I mean I find that

754
00:39:03,599 --> 00:39:06,519
if you have an opinion here on a team that

755
00:39:06,639 --> 00:39:10,079
something isn't working effectively, then technically it's not right. There's

756
00:39:10,079 --> 00:39:11,559
a mismatch of expectations.

757
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:12,760
Speaker 2: So if you feel like.

758
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:16,639
Speaker 3: Something's not working, then it is probably not and it's

759
00:39:16,679 --> 00:39:21,199
worth in investing that. Now, I that's not that's sort

760
00:39:21,199 --> 00:39:23,800
of a cop out answer. I feel like to how

761
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:25,039
do you know if things aren't working? But I think

762
00:39:25,039 --> 00:39:27,199
that this is where you can go out into the world,

763
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:30,039
you know, listen to podcasts, read some books about different

764
00:39:30,039 --> 00:39:33,159
ways of working. I think one metric here can be

765
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:36,480
when was the last time you experimented with changing this

766
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,800
aspect about your organization. If the answer is we've always

767
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:43,760
done it this way, then you should absolutely make a change,

768
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:46,119
even if it's like, we know this is going to

769
00:39:46,199 --> 00:39:48,880
be worse, but let's do it anyway so that we

770
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:51,639
can see the impact and remind ourselves of why we

771
00:39:51,679 --> 00:39:54,679
didn't do that. And this is where like ADRs or

772
00:39:55,079 --> 00:39:58,480
architecture decision records or if you have some other measurement

773
00:39:58,599 --> 00:40:01,480
or documentation system, to remind the organization of, oh, we

774
00:40:01,519 --> 00:40:03,920
did try this. Here were the problem, Here were the problems,

775
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:06,000
here were the benefits. You know, we probably won't do

776
00:40:06,039 --> 00:40:09,440
it again because maybe the reason why it didn't work

777
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:12,880
was had some blocker which is now gone. Right, like

778
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:15,760
the tools you weren't using weren't mature enough, or you

779
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,199
didn't have the cash flow to execute on it, or

780
00:40:18,199 --> 00:40:19,199
the right people at the time.

781
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:20,639
Speaker 2: If you write that.

782
00:40:20,639 --> 00:40:22,760
Speaker 3: Down, then you can remember, oh, look at this decision

783
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:25,800
we made. We didn't go down this path, or we

784
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:27,159
didn't like it because we had the wrong people.

785
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:29,559
Speaker 2: Well now we have different people. Maybe now we can

786
00:40:29,559 --> 00:40:32,000
get the benefit out with all the negative without the negatives.

787
00:40:33,559 --> 00:40:37,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's something to be said about that

788
00:40:37,639 --> 00:40:40,039
comment you made. If you feel like it's not working,

789
00:40:40,119 --> 00:40:45,440
then it's not working. And I think I think there's

790
00:40:45,639 --> 00:40:50,559
a lot to that. You know, like you mentioned, you know,

791
00:40:50,599 --> 00:40:55,280
there's either like an expectation alignment or a misunderstanding. But

792
00:40:55,519 --> 00:40:59,280
if you start with it at that level, it feels

793
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:04,039
like that might be some early indicators if nothing else,

794
00:41:04,199 --> 00:41:06,679
you know, and then if you choose not to act

795
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:08,199
on those, you end up in an example that I

796
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:11,679
was bringing up, where the hippo comes in and starts

797
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:14,400
making decisions in your team without consulting you.

798
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:18,039
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I mean there was this terminology that

799
00:41:18,119 --> 00:41:21,239
I think came from Amazon Disagree and Commit, and I

800
00:41:21,280 --> 00:41:23,599
absolutely hate it. What Like, it's one of the worst

801
00:41:23,599 --> 00:41:28,559
things from my standpoint ever, because realistically, everyone should be

802
00:41:28,599 --> 00:41:31,480
in agreement of what the context is. So if you

803
00:41:31,519 --> 00:41:35,400
feel like something's wrong, then it's wrong because you don't

804
00:41:35,519 --> 00:41:37,519
understand like you should be able to be someone should

805
00:41:37,519 --> 00:41:39,920
be able to justify it to you. Why it's one

806
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,280
particular way versus another one. And if you don't understand that,

807
00:41:43,639 --> 00:41:45,599
then that's where the missing gap is. And if you

808
00:41:45,639 --> 00:41:48,480
do understand it, then why do you understand that it

809
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:49,920
should be different but someone else doesn't?

810
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:50,000
Speaker 5: Like?

811
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,800
Speaker 3: Why is there still a misalignment there? So I think

812
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,480
that's usual. Like sometimes the answer is just additional information.

813
00:41:55,599 --> 00:41:58,719
You're missing context, so go out and get that context

814
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:02,519
for sure? What to do about it? Though, Julian asked

815
00:42:02,519 --> 00:42:05,880
that challenging follow up question there.

816
00:42:08,079 --> 00:42:10,360
Speaker 4: If you like, get more context, I mean, that's someplace

817
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:11,599
to start that could.

818
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,800
Speaker 3: Only wrong answers. I mean, fire a bunch of people.

819
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:17,960
That definitely solve the problem.

820
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 2: You know.

821
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:21,639
Speaker 5: Different if we're going to assume for this scenario, I

822
00:42:21,679 --> 00:42:24,880
have no power to either hire or fire anybody.

823
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:28,079
Speaker 3: You can you can definitely always leave That's another one

824
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:33,079
I found that as a leader with with insufficient authority

825
00:42:33,119 --> 00:42:37,239
in an organization, one question I love to push people

826
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:40,920
on is to ask or have the conversation why don't

827
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:41,880
I have the authority?

828
00:42:42,039 --> 00:42:43,119
Speaker 2: Like what has to like?

829
00:42:43,159 --> 00:42:46,199
Speaker 3: Not demand like I should be able to fire this

830
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:50,960
person I don't like working with, but instead like what hey, leader,

831
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,239
hey boss, what would have to change so that I

832
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:55,920
could make the decision here rather than you making the

833
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:59,400
decision or someone else making the decision? What's the expectation here?

834
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:01,440
Is it ID be at a different level, Like it's

835
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:04,760
my title that's stopping me, the role that I play

836
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:07,679
on the team that's stopping me from doing that? Is

837
00:43:07,679 --> 00:43:11,239
it you know something about the context, the org, the business,

838
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:12,039
et cetera.

839
00:43:12,119 --> 00:43:13,239
Speaker 2: So that gives you.

840
00:43:13,199 --> 00:43:16,400
Speaker 3: The ability to get additional knowledge, but it also shows

841
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:19,039
you where the timeline is, or the line is that's

842
00:43:19,079 --> 00:43:22,440
being drawn where your responsibility ends. Because then if this

843
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:24,320
happens a couple of times, you can say, hey, like

844
00:43:24,599 --> 00:43:27,480
we're at this line, like we said, you know in

845
00:43:27,519 --> 00:43:29,599
six months, you know, or once I got this promotion

846
00:43:30,079 --> 00:43:33,679
that of course, this role makes this responsibility. It's written

847
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:36,440
down in the job description, which represents what I'm doing,

848
00:43:37,199 --> 00:43:39,559
and I should be able to do that, like I'm

849
00:43:39,599 --> 00:43:40,320
responsible now.

850
00:43:40,519 --> 00:43:42,280
Speaker 2: And if you're not making a decision, then.

851
00:43:42,199 --> 00:43:44,599
Speaker 3: You're basically being lied to, right, you know, someone says, hey,

852
00:43:44,599 --> 00:43:46,400
you know, you can't do this today because you're not

853
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:48,760
at the right level or the right role. But once

854
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:50,719
you are, then of course this would be your decision.

855
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:53,320
And then when if that's if you're okay with that answer,

856
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:55,599
then it's a matter of being at that role, like

857
00:43:55,639 --> 00:43:57,760
what Then the conversation becomes what does it take for

858
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:00,079
me to get to that role? What's missing? Like why

859
00:44:00,119 --> 00:44:03,880
might not already staff engineer or principal engineer? Who is

860
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:05,960
responsible for that? And why are they saying no, like

861
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:08,119
I would like to know because it's promotion based, then

862
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:10,280
maybe it's something else, you know, maybe it's regional or

863
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:13,639
cultural based. And for sure, this only works in organizations

864
00:44:13,679 --> 00:44:17,880
where transparency is highly valued. There are definitely cultures around

865
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:21,559
the world where it's not, and you have to understand

866
00:44:21,599 --> 00:44:23,960
the subtleties of that culture, which has nothing to do

867
00:44:24,119 --> 00:44:27,159
with anything I can advise you with on this call.

868
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 1: In any way, I love the professionalism and that approach, though,

869
00:44:32,039 --> 00:44:36,360
instead of bitching about the problem you approached it from Hey,

870
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:40,480
what would I have to change to get to do this?

871
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:46,480
You know? And it's like, instead of putting the problem

872
00:44:46,559 --> 00:44:50,800
on someone else and saying why isn't it this way,

873
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,360
you're taking ownership of it and saying, how can I

874
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:54,119
make it this way?

875
00:44:55,519 --> 00:44:58,639
Speaker 5: I think generally taking trying to take some accountability is

876
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:02,800
usually a better plan then, you know, pointing fingers and blame.

877
00:45:03,039 --> 00:45:04,639
Speaker 4: It's much more productive conversation.

878
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:09,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, excellent, Thank you both for your input.

879
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:11,840
Speaker 4: Thank you. It's an interesting topic.

880
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:13,119
Speaker 2: It was.

881
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: It's been very helpful for me, hopefully helpful for all

882
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:18,199
of our listeners as well.

883
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:22,239
Speaker 2: But should we move on to some picks?

884
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:23,400
Speaker 5: Sure?

885
00:45:24,199 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: All right, Chillian, what'd you bring?

886
00:45:26,559 --> 00:45:29,519
Speaker 5: I forgot to pick something, so maybe skip me from

887
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:38,239
you like, look at my kindle lin see romance novels, though, Like,

888
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:39,440
what am I going to pick for the show?

889
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:43,159
Speaker 3: I mean, if you really like one of them, it

890
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,159
could definitely be one at one of those?

891
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:49,280
Speaker 5: And yeah, what the hell the new series by Lindsay Barroker.

892
00:45:49,519 --> 00:45:52,320
It's fantasy romance. It's the usual level of unhinged that

893
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:52,800
I read.

894
00:45:54,519 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 4: I don't know, that's that's it. That's what I got I'm.

895
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 5: Sure that will I'm sure that will really appeal to

896
00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:01,719
the demographics of the show.

897
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:04,960
Speaker 1: Well, it might, it might.

898
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 3: I've definitely read some fantasy romances in my time, so.

899
00:46:09,599 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 4: Well, there we can't say.

900
00:46:11,039 --> 00:46:12,559
Speaker 3: I can't say they're at the top of my list.

901
00:46:12,679 --> 00:46:15,440
And I feel like once you've run read one, you

902
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:20,199
read the mall where all empires. Uh, you know that's

903
00:46:20,199 --> 00:46:23,679
sort of the end of the story, the point. Well, then,

904
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:25,559
I mean, I've read one, so I guess I've read

905
00:46:25,559 --> 00:46:25,880
them all.

906
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:31,440
Speaker 4: There might be like a little bit of room in there.

907
00:46:32,639 --> 00:46:36,320
Speaker 1: Changed characters names right on Warren. But you bring for

908
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:38,199
a pick, did you bring a trashy romance novel?

909
00:46:38,679 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 2: I didn't romance novels, I know.

910
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 3: And now I'm gonna have to go look through my

911
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:47,079
I mean, my my fiction list is is growing on

912
00:46:47,159 --> 00:46:49,119
things that I read that I haven't shared on this podcast,

913
00:46:49,159 --> 00:46:52,320
So I think that it may it may be coming

914
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:55,800
very soon once I run out of actually useful things

915
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:59,599
that I want to share. So my my my share

916
00:46:59,639 --> 00:47:04,639
this week is uh going to be QCon and San Francisco,

917
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:07,840
which if I'm right when the episode drops, it will

918
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:09,599
be it will be uh, it will be this week.

919
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:12,039
Speaker 2: So lots of good talks.

920
00:47:12,559 --> 00:47:16,960
Speaker 3: My CEO of Authors is talking the only security related

921
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:21,320
talk at the conference about security versus convenience, And I

922
00:47:21,639 --> 00:47:25,039
think that we sacrifice a lot of convenience for quote

923
00:47:25,119 --> 00:47:28,599
unquote security and don't even get that, especially when we

924
00:47:28,639 --> 00:47:32,599
know fishing is so critically the problem that many organizations face,

925
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:35,800
and the ridiculous things we run on our machines and

926
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:39,480
corporate spy where we put in our offices has very

927
00:47:39,639 --> 00:47:40,559
negligible impact.

928
00:47:40,639 --> 00:47:42,400
Speaker 2: So, uh, if you want to be.

929
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 3: Triggered, there is absolutely a conference stock waiting for you

930
00:47:46,119 --> 00:47:46,440
right on.

931
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:50,840
Speaker 1: I love that topic, and I think your stance on

932
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:54,599
that I agree with it. But it's very rare to

933
00:47:54,639 --> 00:47:59,079
hear that from someone with a security background. You know.

934
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:03,719
Speaker 2: I think I heard a great.

935
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:08,280
Speaker 3: Thing phrased recently, which is if everyone does something, by definition,

936
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:12,920
it's mediocre. So in order to be exceptional, you actually

937
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:16,360
have to do something different. And I think that's maybe

938
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:19,719
one of the biggest problems with quote unquote security best

939
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:23,559
practices today. There's actually this mentality that goes around a lot,

940
00:48:23,599 --> 00:48:27,559
which is you will have a security incident, and when

941
00:48:27,599 --> 00:48:30,880
it happens, if you get breached and you lose some data,

942
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:34,519
or lots of money, or customers or trust people will

943
00:48:34,519 --> 00:48:37,760
look at what you did and they'll say, oh, you

944
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:40,159
didn't do all these things that we said were best practices.

945
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:44,039
That's too bad. I guess you deserve to get hacked.

946
00:48:44,639 --> 00:48:47,199
And and if you did all those things, they're like, oh,

947
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:49,199
that's too bad. I guess you couldn't have done anything

948
00:48:49,199 --> 00:48:53,760
about it anyway. So I really hate this mentality. So

949
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:56,039
I'm all about the threat model. I'm all about you

950
00:48:56,079 --> 00:48:58,719
know what you're actually trying to protect against specifically, And

951
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:01,519
I can say, thankfully in Switzer and at least right now,

952
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:07,800
we haven't had any uh far East Asian state sponsored

953
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:11,920
actors attempting to breach into our company, but I know

954
00:49:12,039 --> 00:49:15,519
that at huge sizes it can absolutely be a problem

955
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:16,440
for sure.

956
00:49:18,039 --> 00:49:21,840
Speaker 1: All right, well my pick. I also am not picking

957
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:24,840
a trashy romance novel, but.

958
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:28,079
Speaker 4: With you guys, what are you doing with your lives?

959
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:31,360
Speaker 1: That's definitely for this podcast.

960
00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:34,000
Speaker 3: You know, if you're going to play that card, Julian,

961
00:49:34,199 --> 00:49:37,639
then I would like you to send us your favorite,

962
00:49:37,679 --> 00:49:41,360
like the best trashy romance novel you've ever read, Like, Wow,

963
00:49:41,519 --> 00:49:43,079
I can't believe other people haven't read it.

964
00:49:43,119 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 2: And I will read that.

965
00:49:44,639 --> 00:49:45,880
Speaker 4: I don't know that's that's gonna take.

966
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:47,559
Speaker 5: I'm gonna have to think about that and then and

967
00:49:47,599 --> 00:49:49,440
then I'm going to hold you to it, though I will.

968
00:49:49,519 --> 00:49:53,039
Speaker 2: I will absolutely read it, yeah, next week, all right.

969
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: And it's important. It's important to be comfortable when you're

970
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:01,519
reading it, which leads us to my pick. I got

971
00:50:01,599 --> 00:50:07,119
the Ultra Ideas Black Bear Pause slippers from Amazon, and

972
00:50:07,159 --> 00:50:10,679
they are the most comfortable slippers I've ever had. And

973
00:50:10,679 --> 00:50:13,800
they're like these big, huge, oversized slippers that look like

974
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:18,800
a bear's foot. And that is very fun, dude. I've

975
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:22,360
had so much fun with them, Like the number of jokes,

976
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:24,639
like whenever I walk into a room, my wife looks

977
00:50:24,639 --> 00:50:26,719
at me and I'm like, what, you barely heard me

978
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:29,920
come in? Or she'll look at me, I'm like what,

979
00:50:30,079 --> 00:50:34,039
I'm just walking around barefoot? And so the number of

980
00:50:34,119 --> 00:50:39,519
puns are just endless. She's kind of reached her limit.

981
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:40,559
Speaker 2: With them, though, but.

982
00:50:42,039 --> 00:50:44,719
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let up. I'm sticking with this.

983
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:47,199
Speaker 5: It's right.

984
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:47,840
Speaker 4: It's the winter.

985
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:54,880
Speaker 1: Absolutely is it cold there will it's getting there. Like

986
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:58,960
this morning it was down around freezing, so thirty two

987
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:01,719
degrees fair and high zero Celsius.

988
00:51:01,679 --> 00:51:03,719
Speaker 2: And you don't like have any heating inside.

989
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:08,199
Speaker 3: I just want to understand, like, you know, maybe you

990
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:11,679
keep your your your house much cooler than other people.

991
00:51:11,719 --> 00:51:14,039
And so I see your you know, flannel shirt and

992
00:51:14,159 --> 00:51:18,239
undershirt there, so I can fully understand, Yeah, we do

993
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:21,480
keep it cooler in here. Plus I just moved here

994
00:51:21,519 --> 00:51:25,440
from Arizona, so I'm not quite climatized yet. And and

995
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:29,000
then the big bear slippers. I don't care how warm

996
00:51:29,039 --> 00:51:31,000
it is, They're just cool as hell. So I had

997
00:51:31,039 --> 00:51:31,599
to get those.

998
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:33,199
Speaker 4: Those are staying well.

999
00:51:33,679 --> 00:51:36,559
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I always want to see a picture of this,

1000
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:39,280
you know, just for the you know, visual stream.

1001
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:43,119
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll get a picture. I'll bring it next week.

1002
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:47,559
Whenever Gillian comes with her trashy novel, I might.

1003
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:48,760
Speaker 4: Have to have a whole list. By the way, I

1004
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,760
don't know that, like, no, you got one one, only one.

1005
00:51:52,079 --> 00:51:54,960
Speaker 5: It's a series though, that you can't without reading the

1006
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:55,960
whole series, Like.

1007
00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:57,679
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's really chaos.

1008
00:51:57,840 --> 00:51:59,960
Speaker 3: If you say, if you say it's the first book,

1009
00:52:00,079 --> 00:52:02,000
I will read the first book. And if you say

1010
00:52:02,039 --> 00:52:04,159
it's the series, I will still only read the first book.

1011
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:06,519
So you got to be careful here, right, you know.

1012
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:08,599
It's that you got to make an impact on me,

1013
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:10,760
you know. And then after that, if it's great, maybe

1014
00:52:10,800 --> 00:52:11,719
I'll read the next one.

1015
00:52:12,119 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 5: You get one shot, Jilly, Maybe maybe I'll convert the masses.

1016
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:19,440
Speaker 1: Whether mom spaghetti's on your shirt or not, you get

1017
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:24,119
one shot. All right, excellent, all right, Thank you both

1018
00:52:24,119 --> 00:52:26,840
for joining me, thank you for listening to the show.

1019
00:52:27,079 --> 00:52:29,760
And I'll see everyone next week.