Velocity 2014 - From Hero to Zero

Incremental change and release often is the new mantra. A team of one may handle the operability implementation for an application. Work arounds are done to get things out the door “on time” to meet the agile requirements. This person is in the center of changes ensuring that monitoring, configuration, and service expectations are coordinated. As the velocity of change increases, this single point of failure leads to slow downs. The operations engineer is viewed as the “hero” due to working late nights or weekends to keep the service running as needed. This false hero role is not sustainable and creates a rigid environment of change aversion.

In this talk, Jennifer will describe paths to supporting complex project deployment and configuration from manual heroics to minimal intervention. She will describe tools but the concepts will be applicable regardless of environment. This is not a one size fit all solution but guidelines presented should help shape direction towards success.

Topics Covered:

Where are we?
Defining the job of Operations
Identifying achievable goals
Choosing tools
Measuring for success
The key takeaway from this talk will be to help practitioners see how to create a plan towards building a more reliable, consistent, and high-quality service.

Transcript

1. From Hero to Zero Velocity 2014 Jennifer Davis @sigje Automation Engineer June 25, 2014
2. Goals • Communication – Conversations, Email, Twitter • Email: sigje@getchef.com • Twitter: @sigje • DevOpsDays Silicon Valley Open Spaces • Twitter: #coffeeops Chromatic Coffee • Collaboration • http://burnout.io
3. Agenda • What – Current Industry Practices? • Why – Impact of working heroically? • Mythology • Changes
4. Hi. I’m Jennifer.
5. Formula for Suc(str)ess • Start new job • Work hard to prove self • Become more efficient, take on more responsibility • Locked in to expectations built on past performance
6. The Cure? • Documentation • Checklists • Shell scripts for situation X
7. I was wrong.
9. Zero to Hero + DevOps
10. Hero •  Someone who in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness displays courage and the will for self sacrifice for some greater good of all humanity.
11. Hero •  Someone who in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness displays courage and the will for self sacrifice for some greater good of all humanity. •  An ordinary someone who in extraordinary circumstances overcomes challenges.
12. Hero •  Someone who in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness displays courage and the will for self sacrifice for some greater good of all humanity. •  An ordinary someone who in extraordinary circumstances overcomes challenges. •  Someone who performs extraordinary deeds for the benefit of others.
13. “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” Joseph Campbell
14. Workplace Usage •  Gone the extra mile •  Worked really late hacking up a solution •  Spent all weekend •  Virtue of the quality of brain numbing work
15. Results in .. • Degradation in relationships
16. Results in .. •  Degradation in relationships • Sleep deprivation • Degradation of productivity • Degradation of creativity • Mental acuity • Loss of empathy
17. Results in .. •  Degradation in relationships •  Sleep deprivation •  Degradation of productivity •  Degradation of creativity •  Mental acuity •  Loss of empathy • Dissatisfaction with job
18. Results in .. •  Degradation in relationships •  Sleep deprivation •  Degradation of productivity •  Degradation of creativity •  Mental acuity •  Loss of empathy •  Dissatisfaction with job • Loss of self confidence
19. Results in .. •  Degradation in relationships •  Sleep deprivation •  Degradation of productivity •  Degradation of creativity •  Mental acuity •  Loss of empathy •  Dissatisfaction with job •  Loss of self confidence NOT HEROISM!
20. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research study • Sleep deprivation impacts the brain consistent with mild prefrontal lobe dysfunction • Affects emotional intelligence, self-regard, sense of independence, empathy, quality of interpersonal relationships, positive thinking
21. Loss of Self Confidence •  Erin Callan, Lehman Brothers CFO September 2007 – June 2008 •  “I did not know how to value who I was versus what I did. What I did was who I was.” •  “drug addiction – except you’re getting tremendous positive reinforcement for what probably is really extremist behavior”
23. 6 Areas resulting in Burnout •  Work overload •  Lack of control over work •  Insufficient rewards •  Workplace community problems •  Lack of fairness – inequality of pay, promotions or workload •  Conflict between personal values and requirements of job. Sources: Christina Maslach,Ph.D. Professor of Psychology UC Berkeley, Michael Leiter, Ph.D., Director of the Centre for Organizational Research & Development
24. Fatigue Syndrome – Marie Asberg
25. Exhaustion Funnel Marie Asberg Senior Professor, Karolinska Institute in Stockholm
27. Metrics of Fatigue Syndrome? • # of bottles of hard alcohol/week purchased
28. RescueTime – Successful Vacation!
29. Why 40 hour work week? •  “8 for work, 8 for sleep, 8 for what we will” •  12 years of experimentation by Henry Ford •  <40 hours people weren’t working enough •  >60 hours gives a small productivity boost in short term •  Source: Laws of Productivity, 8 Productivity Experiments you don’t need to repeat. http://lunar.lostgarden.com/Rules%20of%20Productivity.pdf
30. Productivity over Time
31. Crunching
32. https://www.secret.ly/p/oucqgddjyxfsmwyzromgzwjqrx
34. Workplace Environment “The biggest issue with railroad workers is fatigue, not pay. We are paid very well. But we sacrifice our bodies and minds to work the long hours it takes to make the money, not to mention the high divorce rate, self- medicating, and stress.” John Paul Wright
35. NTSB Asiana Airlines Flight 214 Why did this airplane crash while executing a visual approach on a clear day? • Increased Complexity • Reliance on automation • Lack of understanding http://www.ntsb.gov/news/speeches/hart/hart140624o.html
36. Celebrate being Wrong • It’s human. No need for humiliation. • De-escalation of all our holy wars. • Freedom to experiment. • Shared experiences.
37. Rites of passage – Junior to Senior • Ability to listen. • Freedom to speak. • Creation of open and transparent environments. • Encourage everyone to have a voice.
38. Exploring Our Myths
39. Superman
40. Flash
41. Aquaman
42. Hulk
43. Steel
44. Michael Donovan:https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnmcnab/5499490056/ Batman
46. EMPTY
47. • Relating through role. • Defining a person by a role. • Handing off expectations. • Siloing!
48. Our Path
49. 5 conditions of “happy” work environment • Freedom • Challenge • Education • Positive atmosphere • Personally meaningful contribution “Follow your Bliss”: A process for Career Happiness Sheila J Henderson http://www.angelpersonnel.com.au/assets/Uploads/HendersonFollowyourbliss.pdf Journal of Counseling and Development Summer 2000 Volume 78
50. The Path
51. Communication – Identify your Team • Common goal. • Different roles. • Diversity of views. • Same objective.
52. Identify YOUR state Explicit Vision/Mission Statement • Have you evaluated the options? • EVERYONE on the same page?
53. Vision Statement • Clear statement about the problem • Direction • Identity management • Team cohesion https://www.flickr.com/photos/victor_lee/51041504
54. Identify YOUR state • Work Visualization • Method of tracking work • Communicate status • Measure progress • Identified boundaries
55. Identify YOUR state • Artifact Repository • Source Control
56. Identify YOUR state • Infrastructure as code • Subject Matter Expert? • Bus number?
57. Identify YOUR state • Documentation as code Evan Goer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEvvc80ZYU8
58. Identify your state • Local development •  Vagrant •  VMWare or VirtualBox •  Chef (or configuration management of choice)? •  Team enabled?
59. Identify your state • Testing • Monitoring • Actionable?
60. Identify your state • Pipeline • Local development • Tested locally • Commit only_if works • Jenkins (or other continuous integration software)
61. Individuals empowered to do work and understand consequences. •  Freedom •  Challenge •  Education •  Personal meaningful contribution •  Positive environment
63. Summary
64. Review •  What – Current Industry Practices? •  Why – Impact of working heroically? •  Mythology •  Changes
65. And now for the AH...
66. AH – Your app makes me fat “My goal for Serious Pony is to help all of us take better care of our users. Not just while they are interacting with our app, site, product, but after. Not just because they are our users, but because they are people.” Kathy Sierra http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013/7/24/your-app-makes-me-fat
67. EMPATHY
68. Thank You •  #coffeeops •  Linda Laubenheimer •  Dave Dash •  Greg Connor •  Adele Shakal •  DevOpsDays Pittsburgh
69. Thank You Twitter: @sigje Email: sigje@getchef.com
70. More Presentations •  Jeff Hackert “There I fixed It – Building Humane Automation Systems” Chef Conf 2014 •  Adam Jacob Keynote – Chef Conf 2014 •  Evan Goer – Thinking of Documentation as Code https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=mEvvc80ZYU8
71. References - Books •  Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error Kathryn Schulz •  What makes a Hero? The surprising Science of Selflessness •  Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions Gary Klein •  The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business Ben Horowitz •  Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and creating a life of well-being, wisdom, and wonder Arianna Huffington
72. References - Web •  http://railroadworkersunited.blogspot.com/2013/12/its-time-to-end-crew-fatigue- and.html •  http://railroadworkersunited.org •  “Follow your Bliss”: A process for Career Happiness Sheila J Henderson http://www.angelpersonnel.com.au/assets/Uploads/ HendersonFollowyourbliss.pdf Journal of Counseling and Development Summer 2000 Volume 78 •  Sleep deprivation reduces perceived emotional intelligence and constructive thinking skills. Killgore WD http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17765011 •  Your app is making me fat. Kathy Sierra http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013/7/24/your-app-makes-me-fat •  Burnout: The exhaustion funnel - http://mindfulnext.org/burnout-the-exhaustion-funnel/
73. References - Web •  High Tempo, High Consequence. John Allspaw. http://www.kitchensoap.com/2014/03/13/high-tempo-high-consequence/ •  Why Germany Dominates the U.S. in Innovation Dan Breznitz http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/05/why-germany-dominates-the-u-s-in-innovation/ •  Is there Life After Work? Erin Callan http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/is-there-life-after-work.html? smid=pl-share&_r=0 •  Former Lehman CFO Erin Callan’s Never Going Back. Sheelah Kolhatkar http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-12/former-lehman-cfo-erin- callans-never-going-back •  Why Crunch modes doesn’t work: Six Lessons. Evan Robinson. http:// legacy.igda.org/why-crunch-modes-doesnt-work-six-lessons
74. References - Web •  Laws of Productivity - http://lunar.lostgarden.com/Rules%20of%20Productivity.pdf •  Psychology and Industrial Efficiency Hugo Munsterberg 1913 http:// psychclassics.yorku.ca/Munster/Industrial/chap17.htm