Supporting continuous deployment with aplomb

Providing support to a company that dogfoods itself and then ships its collective face off is ... complicatedly fun. The GitHub support team sees bugs, friction, user experience and :hearts:. By using logic+empathy, support and developers do right by our excellent user base. I'll tell you a bit about the unique and thoughtful ways we work that let us stay nimble (read: don't drag the devs down).

Video here:
http://youtu.be/5wg3cej5GGk

Transcript

1. Supporting
   Continuous Deployment
   or
   Let’s Ship
   Monday, June 10, 13
   

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2. 4 million users
   300 new requests/day
   550 replies/day
   14 supportocats
   Monday, June 10, 13
   

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3. Monday, June 10, 13
   

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4. I deployed https://github.com/
   github/github/pull/11824 which
   should fix some archive issues
   (zip / tar downloads). If you see
   any problems around
   generating repo archives in the
   next couple days ping me.
   foca
   Monday, June 10, 13
   

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5. Monday, June 10, 13
   

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6. Monday, June 10, 13
   

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7. GOOD BUG
   REPORTS
   * identify a bug (not user error, etc.)
   * recreate a bug, document well
   * include user data from support requests
   Monday, June 10, 13
   

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8. 0
   15
   30
   45
   60
   day 1 day 2 day 3 day 4 day 5 day 6 day 7
   Support Load
   Well, they
   noticed Took care
   of the
   bugs
   change is
   hard
   Edge
   cases
   none
   some
   a bunch
   a metric ton
   a shit ton
   Monday, June 10, 13
   

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9. GitHub Issues
   Monday, June 10, 13
   

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10. Monday, June 10, 13
    

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11. Sorting a lot of data
    Bugs and bugs and complaints and
    complaints and complaints.
    Data was emotional
    Users who care are users who swear.
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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12. Monday, June 10, 13
    

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13. Fuck YEAH,
    dossier
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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14. Squash bugs
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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15. Monday, June 10, 13
    

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16. Rows and rows:
    Hard to ignore.
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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17. Hits you right in the feels:
    “As a (partially) colorblind user, I
    find the new tags to be a lot
    more difficult to scan at a
    glance.”
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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18. Also in the feels:
    “Under the new label styles, instead of
    46 distinct colors, we can distinguish
    about six. All the reds/pinks/oranges
    look the same, all the black/light
    grey/dark grey look the same.”
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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19. Two hours later:
    “Damn, nice comprehensive list. I'm
    about to deploy fixes for the bugs
    pertaining to ‘can't delete labels’ and
    ‘can't add labels after removing all of
    them’.”
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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20. Two hours later:
    “You are my hero.”
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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21. Monday, June 10, 13
    

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22. Monday, June 10, 13
    

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23. low ego==fun people
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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24. low ego==fun people
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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25. Fin
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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26. Fin
    Monday, June 10, 13
    

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