Dealing with IRQ conflicts in 2018

In this talk, I've explained the approaches our tiny web operations team takes to manage "unplanned work" such as system outages and tech support without losing steam with our projects.

Transcript

2. IRQ conflicts in 1988 @geewiz @freistil
3. Jochen Lillich → Founder and CEO, freistil IT → @geewiz → jochen@freistil.it @geewiz @freistil
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6. Life in web operations @geewiz @freistil
7. "Engineers are a scarce resource at even the largest organizations. Engineering time should be invested in the most important characteristics of the most important services. Striking the right balance between investing in functionality that will win new customers or retain current ones, versus investing in the reliability and scalability that will keep those customers happy, is difficult." Niall Richard Murphy et al., "The Site Reliability Workbook" @geewiz @freistil
8. Too Many Projects @geewiz @freistil
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15. Things had to change @geewiz @freistil
16. What we did @geewiz @freistil
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18. Make work visible @geewiz @freistil
19. It's not about tools. It's about making conscious decisions and being accountable. @geewiz @freistil
20. Create accountability → Weekly WIPR → Small work items → Ruthless prioritisation @geewiz @freistil
21. Fight perfectionism @geewiz @freistil
22. "The throughput of any system is determined by one constraint." Eliyahu M. Goldratt @geewiz @freistil
23. Eliminate bottlenecks → Technical debt → Knowledge silos → Snowflake infrastructure → Toil @geewiz @freistil
24. What is toil? → Manual → Repetitive → Automatable → Nontactical/reactive → Lacks enduring value → Grows at least as fast as its source @geewiz @freistil
25. Corral unplanned work → Ops on-call → Support on-call → Libero = business hours ops and support @geewiz @freistil
26. Tools don't solve process problems, but a good process can benefit from good tools. @geewiz @freistil
27. ChatOps @geewiz @freistil
28. "You have to provide a compelling vision for people to follow and believe in. [...] Sometimes it’s a challenge to keep all the balls in the air at the same time, but there’s no shortage of vision. That translates into missions that we carry out day to day." Nick Caldwell, VP of Engineering at Reddit @geewiz @freistil
29. Stop starting. Start finishing. @geewiz @freistil
30. Just ask! jochen@freistil.it @geewiz @freistil
31. Become a Drupal contributor Friday from 9am → First timers workshop → Mentored contribution → General contribution @geewiz @freistil
32. Image credits → Pastry Chef: https://flic.kr/p/4dMyx → Dodgeball: https://flic.kr/p/cZZFPj → Types of Ops: Pete Cheslock @geewiz @freistil