7 Things Executives Can Learn From Software Engineers
A presentation at INS1GHTS2021: Build the Better Future by Matt Stratton
7 Things Executives Can Learn From Software Engineers Matt Stratton Staff Developer Advocate • Pulumi @mattstratton
The power of iteration
Small teams move fast
Small teams move fast ● ● ● ● Glue work between the teams Black box squads (input/output) Conway’s law Software contracts extend to teams (“this api does x” etc)
Fast feedback
Fast Feedback ● ● ● ● Set success criteria that is measurable Get changes in front of users/consumers quickly Create a process to share all feedback as soon as possible Automate feedback where possible
Trust but verify
Trust, But Verify ● ● ● Guardrails are good! Make the right way the easy way People want to do the right thing, but mistakes can happen
Collaboration over competition
Collaboration over Competition ● ● ● ● Power structures can create unintended consequences Ownership/fiefdoms “Who moved my cheese”? (or who touched it) Resource guarding
Westrum Model
Community spirit
Community Spirit ● ● ● ● Developers love to work in communities Communities can be internal and external We can learn from our peers - and help them as well Fewer things have to be secret than we think
Learning culture
Learning Culture ● ● ● Learning from Incidents Shadow rotations (not just for juniors and not just for tech) Blamelessness
Incidents are unplanned investments; their costs have already been incurred. Your org’s challenge is to get ROI on those events. - John Allspaw, Adaptive Capacity Labs
RCA != learning
Shadow Rotations
The impulse to blame and punish has the unintended effect of disincentivizing the knowledge sharing required to learn from incidents
Resilience and Organizational Dynamics
Blunt / Sharp End Blunt End Removed from experience Upstream decision makers Sharp End People directly engaged in the work “Chop wood, carry water”
Sharp End Constantly building and destroying systems Strong signaling Improve systems based on strain Will do so naturally if given ownership
[Psychological safety is] a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up Amy Edmondson, Professor, Harvard Business School
Radical candor? If you are asking for candor/blunt feedback, what are you doing to make this safe?
Thank you! Twitter - @mattstratton GitHub - mattstratton Slides - speaking.mattstratton.com LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/mattstratton Podcast - ArrestedDevOps.com DevOps Party Games - devopspartygames.com
Given that today every company is a tech company, the overlap between technologists and executives becomes greater and greater. Don’t worry - the CFO doesn’t need to be able to build a Kubernetes cluster! However, many of the well-known practices in engineering can apply to organizational leadership skills. In this talk, Matt Stratton will take you on a journey through the lessons that an executive team can absorb from the disciplines of software engineering and operations.
