Josh Atwell

Are you being the right person for DevOps?

Are you?

Yes? No? Let's talk about it for just a little bit.

This talk kind of kicked off for me because of my wife. She has a sign in our kitchen that says, "Marriage is more than finding the right person. It's being the right person." Which led me to do some thinking.

Healthy relationships require a little bit of give and take, and it made me wonder: are we being the right people?

Because as we saw in The Phoenix Project, the relationship between a CAO in the business and the CIO in IT is like a dysfunctional marriage. That's what Erik taught us in The Phoenix Project.

And it's kind of similar between development and operations, or has been. Because on the development side, we're accustomed to hearing, "Why does it take so long to do the things that I need to do? Why can't you give me what I need? If I wait for all of your processes, I'll never be able to get anything done."

Now, I'm an operations guy, so from my standpoint, it's always, "Why can't you be a little more patient? Why can't you use what I've provided? I worked hard on that." Without these processes, we're going to have risk and availability, and we might have manageability issues, so we can't just kind of freeform everything.

So, the key thing is, being the right person for DevOps is being more than what your job function is, whether or not you're a developer or an operations person. Your role should not define what type of person you are. You're supposed to be working together to find common cause.

So we can do this with a few different ways.

Start with communication. Learn about your partner. This is good with your spouse as well. Ask questions. Learn about getting to know them. What are their interests? What are their communication styles? Very important, understand that.

Also, talk less. Make room for listening. I'm not very good at this. I work very hard on it. Not very good at it.

We love talking about ourselves. It's something that we enjoy doing. We like telling our stories. But we've got to make room to listen to other people's stories as well.

Remember that hearing is not listening. My kids tell me all the time, "I hear you, Dad. I hear you, Dad," but you're not listening to what I'm saying.

Just because you heard them say something does not mean you internalize it and can act on it. And this becomes really, really important because without actually listening, you lose opportunities for empathy.

So listen actively. Hear what they're saying and what they're communicating to you. And be able to respond selflessly, and we'll talk more about that in just a moment.

Because if you're thinking of others, you realize that it's not always about you. It's not always about the role or the task that you're playing. You start thinking about how you impact other people and how what your work does impacts them.

And it also gives you opportunity to do for other people. When you see someone struggling to adopt a technology or having an issue with something, jump in there. Help. Dedicate time to help.

When you're courting someone, you take time to do for them and spend time with them.

Teach other people. Because you know something, that makes you valuable. Share that knowledge with other people.

There are no such thing as stupid questions. There kind of are stupid questions. But in the relationship, there are no stupid questions.

This also goes to being trustworthy. Be honest. Be your true self. Be transparent about what you're doing. Don't be doing work behind a curtain, because you are affecting other people. They need to be able to trust you.

Now, in a relationship, you also have to take care of yourself. This is a lesson I've had to learn more recently.

Keep and share your interests. Be your own person and your own identity. Be more than just work, and apply your interests into the work that you're doing.

Take time for yourself. I enjoy taking mental health days. I don't really want to have to take mental health days, but they're really important. Just like your body gets sick, your spirit and your mind can be sick. So take those times. You're no good to other people if you're not good for yourself.

You should also invest in yourself. This is going to make you stronger in the relationship. You expand your knowledge. Increase your depth in the things you're good at, because then you can then share with your partners throughout the organization, and you can improve your empathy with other people.

And as you work together and you're defining goals and expectations, acknowledge the successes that other people have. Don't just wait for you to get praised for something. Acknowledge the work that other people have done and be very vocal in that praise. Because people are motivated by that.

Take time to celebrate. All work and no play makes Josh a dull, dull boy. Celebrate milestone achievements. Let's say this week we got 10 deploys this week. This is exciting. It's a milestone.

But then re-sync. Figure out what your next goals and objectives are. Because you have to keep in mind, being the right person is about always becoming more than you were before the needs of others and yourself.

A relationship is built on two or more people. And you have to make sure you're doing what is needed to invest in both.

Thank you very much.