Professional Development

“Presenting” at #SQLSATATL – #LeanCoffee #DevOps

My supplies for my workshop!

On Saturday, May 19, 2018 at SQL Saturday Atlanta, I won’t just be an organizer; I’m a presenter! My session, “All (Data) Things Considered: The Lean Coffee Workshop” is something I’m very excited to “present”. I use that term loosely, because the whole point of a lean coffee workshop is that it’s a structured, but agenda-less discussion. I participated in one of these at the DevOps Enterprise Summit in 2017, and it was a fun, and inspiring way to engage with other people who were facing very similar problems as I was.

The way it works is that there will be a brief introduction at the beginning of the session, but people are expected to form several small groups. A seed topic will be presented, but each small group will have a moderator (and thanks to my volunteers) who will make sure that their group stays on track. Every group will:

Set up a personal Kanban board.
Identify topics
Vote & discuss.

That’s it. Easiest presentation I’ve ever done, but the goals are really deep. I want to encourage people to engage with each other; that’s one of the original goals of SQLSaturday, and I think traditional classroom settings don’t do enough of that (conversations are usually instructor -> audience, or audience -> instructor). This puts people around a table in a small, safe environment, and that leads to long term possibilities for relationships.

Second, I’m more interested in conversations about improving work, rather than just how to do work. I think coffee talks foster that because you’re not looking at a tool or a piece of code; you’re talking to a person, and hearing what they think. That sharing of perspective can spark new ideas, and new ways of looking at the forest, rather than individual trees.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

One Weird Trick to Build a #DevOps Culture

I know it’s clickbait, but I really did want to reinforce the simplicity of this post. I think building a DevOps culture can sometimes be daunting for most folks from traditional IT backgrounds because, well, people aren’t systems. You see, both developers and system engineers are comfortable with technology; it’s usually predictable, and it’s relatively easy to manipulate.

People (and processes) are messy. The social aspect of a sociotechnical environment is full of friction: different backgrounds, different perspectives, differences of opinion. It all creates a challenge for solving business problems quickly because it takes energy to build and maintain a relationship. However, once those relationships are established, the benefits multiply. When you are challenged by a peer you trust to defend an idea, it makes the idea better. The old adage of “iron sharpens iron” is true; smart people make smart people smarter.

But how do you build trust? The first step is easy.

Be thankful.

That’s it; acknowledge when people take a risk, and thank them for stepping of their comfort zone. Be thankful when they offer an opinion that’s different than yours, even if you don’t take the advice. Specifically acknowledge their contributions that make your job easier, and let them know why. It takes some time (and occasionally some effort), but it establishes a pattern of trust. This is particularly important when you’re in a leadership position, and they are not; the best ideas come from people who feel like they can contribute on a regular basis, especially to people in power.

Take the extra time to say “Thank You”, and establish a foundation of trust.

2018-03-28 by Stuart Ainsworth Professional Development 0

Goal – 52 blog posts a year

I’m sure nobody but me has noticed, but you may have seen an uptick of blogs on my site lately. Most are short (like this one will be); many of them have little of interest to anybody but me.

It’s all part of a goal of mine to get out of a writing funk. I’m trying to blog at least 52 time this year, even if it’s only a few lines. I figure writing SOMETHING is better than sitting in a stupor, and letting my brain rot. Creativity is mostly inspiration, but there’s also some discipline required. So bear with me (if you want) as I struggle to find something interesting to write about. Hey, at least it’s better than the alternative.

2018-02-13 by Stuart Ainsworth Blogging is FUN! 1

Friend of Red Gate 2018 – @redgate

I’m super excited to have been named a Friend of Red Gate again in 2018; I often wonder why they keep letting me back in because they do so many super awesome things with so many super awesome people. However, I’m grateful as always.

They are an amazing company, and have always been very supportive of the SQL Server community. Thanks so much for bringing me along on the ride, y’all.

2018-02-12 by Stuart Ainsworth Blogging is FUN! Professional Development SQLServerPedia Syndication 0

Finally hanging up the shingle (part time)…

Let me get this out of the way first; I haven’t quit my day job. I’m VERY blessed to work at a great company that lets me work from home, balance work & life responsibilities, and has great pay and benefits.

However, I’ve had side gigs for the last 15 years or so; at first it was to make extra money, and then after my divorce and child support payments kicked in, the side hustle became crucial to my financial survival. Once I satisfied those obligations, the side gig is not really necessary, but man, it’s nice to have to spring for the extra vacation here or there. As such, I finally decided to make it real, and have now established myself as an LLC in the state of Georgia.

I feel so grown up.

The real irony of this is that shortly after I filed the paperwork, I was notified by my longest running bread-and-butter side gig that they had been bought out, and my services would be phased out by November. I went ahead and filed for the LLC anyway, but it just strikes me as funny that now that I’ve finally got a “real” business, I don’t have any clients.

I’ll just keep on keepin’ on, but there is a small sense of satisfaction knowing that there’s now a CODEGUMBO, LLC. Anybody need a SQL slinger for hire? Project Manager?

2018-01-28 by Stuart Ainsworth Blogging is FUN! Professional Development SQLServerPedia Syndication 1

#DOES17 San Francisco – Things I Learned

Just spent the last few days at a technical conference that focused more on cultural change and workflow than bits and bytes, the DevOps Enterprise Summit. It was enlightening, and for the first time in a while, I’m leaving a professional conference energized and hoping to implement some of these ideas. The DevOps community reminds me a lot of the SQL Server community; passionate people who just want to help each other grow. There’s so much good content, and I think most of it will be available via YouTube later.

Armed with my handy dandy Rocketbook (I left my laptop in my hotel room each day purposefully), I scribbled notes fast and furiously. At the end of each day, I tried to capture three things that struck me as important, based on everything I’d heard. Here’s my list, broken apart by day:

Day 1 – Nov 13, 2017

You are on the right path, do not fear. Change only happens when you take risks.
I’m not sure why this struck as so important, but it was a feeling of general acceptance of ideas. I often struggle with being a leader because I think too much about the challenges ahead; that’s fear, pure and simple. The truth is that every challenge in technology has a solution; it may not be obvious, it may not be immediate, but it’s there. Fixate on the goals and successes, and don’t worry about the challenges.
Value Stream Mapping is key to continuous improvement.
This came out of the workshops, based on the Lean Coffee format; one of the discussion points that came up was the value of value stream mapping. I already liked the concept, but I tend to drift into thinking about the software components, whereas the discussion focused more on the people & process aspects of it. You can’t improve until you know where you are starting from.
T-shapes are the best shapes.
I had come across the term T-shaped professionals only a few days before flying out to San Francisco, and I was surprised to hear it mentioned in at least 4 sessions today. It aligns well with my vision for Service Reliability Engineering; people can (and should) be experts in a key area, but have some depth in additional necessary areas.

One of the amazing graphic facilitation artifacts done by Christopher Fuller of Griot’s Eye at the conference.

Day 2 – Nov 14, 2017

Start with what you can do, but don’t be afraid to ask what other people are doing.
This ties back into the first message from day 1 a bit, but it’s a little bit of a twist. Often when I see good ideas, I think “I can’t implement that”, and I may be right; I don’t have control of my infrastructure anymore, for example. However, just because I can’t do it, doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t tell people about something I’ve seen, and ask if it fits into their mental model of where we’re going.
The SRE model works when you focus on people, not technology, and reliability (what you can measure and improve).

Site Reliability Engineering talks were in short supply at this conference, but it permeated throughout. The fundamental truth of focusing on people, rather than technology still holds true with this model; technology breaks because of people. That’s not intended to be a statement of blame, but rather an understanding that technology does what it’s told to do; when things go awry, there’s an opportunity to understand what humane choices to make; is it a misunderstanding of purpose? Was there a missed signal of pending change? Was a change implemented riskily?
Service Level Objectives (SLO’s) are crucial to monitoring.
Operations folks are inundated with logs and other metrics; understanding what the expectations are for the business service is key to understanding what metrics to observe (and what to ignore). You cannot measure reliability effectively without some understanding of what up-time means.

Day 3 – Nov 15, 2017

Foundation of journey is based on a three-legged stool: Service Level Objectives, Value Stream Mapping, and Technical Architecture Map.
I know, the whole DevOps is a journey thing is a bit tired, but it’s an attempt to represent the fact that everybody’s experience with these principles yield different results, and paths. However, for my current work situation, we’re not going to get far without these three things. We need to understand what the Service is supposed to do, how the people interact with the technology, and how the components of the technology are supposed to work together.
DevOps brings joy to technology; don’t quibble over details, but focus on bringing humanity into technical work.
Gene Kim’s closing comments reminded me a lot of my #sqlfamily; everybody brings a different perspective on technology, and a different method of solving problems, but the people that impact me most are the folks that do so with joy. They have a passion about what they do, and their goal is to encourage others to move forward (rather than focusing on rigid solutions based on their own experiences).
Patience – all change takes time, and the road is uncertain. Don’t expect overnight successes.

Finally, my head is full of things to think about, and books to read. However, there is no magic pill for implementing change in my organization. It has to happen slow, and it has to be organized by every member of the team who wishes to contribute. It takes time to light a fire, but it is crucial to the success of any DevOps initiative.

2017-11-15 by Stuart Ainsworth Conferences Development DevOps Professional Development 0

Using @AnyDo for tasklist management

Trying to stay in the habit of writing, and this seemed like a quick post, so here goes; I’m not really in the habit of writing product reviews, but I’ve found this one to be useful, so I thought I’d share.

Task management is something I’ve always struggled with; I’ve tried various systems from Trello to LeanKit to Kanbanflow, and they’re hard for me to use consistently. At work, I use a homegrown SSRS report connected to our helpdesk system as a kanban board, but it’s clunky for ad-hoc requests. It takes way too many clicks to create a ticket for a simple to-do item like “set up a meeting”.

I recently got an Amazon Echo Dot (and later a Tap), and I was intrigued by the to-do list functionality; suddenly it became quite easy to jot down a quick task for either business or personal work. I just shouted out “Alexa! Add do something awesome to my to-do list”, and was immediately gratified with a task appearing in the Alexa app on my iPhone. Excellent. Except for when I was away from my desk (and my Echo Dot). I could open the Alexa app and add a task item manually, but typing seems so old school. And then I remember, Siri could do reminders too. Guess what? Integration with Any.Do.

Long story short, I can now manage nearly all of my to-do items by voice. If I have a brilliant idea while sitting at my desk, I ask Alexa to note it for me. In the car? Siri’s my friend. The beauty is that they both go to the same repository in Any Do, and I can mark them as completed as I knock them out. The only downside is that the app places them in different lists, but I can view them in one combined list (see screenshots below).

Visibility is only part of the battle; organization is equally important. One of the features that I really like about this product is the “Plan My Day” option. Basically, if you have several tasks scheduled for today, you can run a little wizard to cycle through all of them and decide if they’re really going to get done today (or not), and schedule them accordingly:

I try to keep it to 3 tasks a day; this gives me the flexibility of responding to issues as they come up, and still feeling like I’m getting somewhere. I usually add more tasks as I work, but if I finish with a clean slate (three planned + x unplanned), it’s a good day. Lots more features to explore, including calendar integration, subtasks, and task assignments, but I try to keep it simple. I’ve been pleased with how well the voice integration works, and how natural it is to manage my to-do list now.

2017-08-11 by Stuart Ainsworth Professional Development SQLServerPedia Syndication The Social Web 0

#DevOpsDays & #SQLSaturdays

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, but life rolls on, as it always does. I had the privilege of attending DevOpsDays Atlanta back in April. This was my second DevOpDays event to attend (the first being Nashville), and overall, I’ve enjoyed the events. However, as a long-time organizer and speaker with the SQL Saturday events, it’s hard for me not to compare my experiences between the two conferences. They’re both community-run, low-cost, voluntary technical events; however, there were some things that I really like about the DevOpsDays format (and some things I wish were different).

Cost

The cost models of the two conferences are different; in short, SQLSaturday’s are free to the attendees (although a lunch fee is usually provided as an optional service), and DevOpsDays charges a small fee ($99-$150). Both rely on sponsors to pick up the tab for the bulk of the expenses (usually location fees). Speakers are volunteers, as well as event management staff. The benefit for the attendee is guaranteed swag (an event t-shirt is typical) and a great lunch (food was fantastic at DevOpsDaysAtlanta).

Charging a higher fee does a couple of things; it allows organizers to get a more accurate attendance estimate; if an attendee pays more to go to a conference, it’s more likely that they’ll show up. This has a trickle effect on luring sponsors; it’s easier to justify sponsoring an event if you know that you’re going to get a certain amount of foot traffic. A fee also guarantees amenities that are important to technical folk; good Wifi, and livestreams (although sessions weren’t recorded at the Atlanta DevOpsDays event). You can also direct some of those funds to getting a premier meeting space.

On the other hand, a free event with a nominal lunch has the potential of bringing in a much larger audience; DevOpsDays Atlanta was hosted in a 230-seat theatre, so attendance was probably around 250 (with standing room, vendors, and speakers). Last year’s Atlanta SQL Saturday had over 600 attendees, and this year’s event had slightly over 500 attendees. Attendance counts shouldn’t be considered a metric of superiority, but it does provide a different incentive for pursuing sponsors. As an attendee, I like the SQLSaturday model; as an organizer, I like the DevOpsDays model.

Parent Organization Involvement

DevOpsDays is a highly decentralized model (true to the agile underpinnings of the movement). The parent organization appears (from the outside) to be very hands off; local event organizers handle their own sponsorships, registration, and other details. This allows for a lot of fluidity when it comes to branding, networking, etc. For example, see the differences in advertising logos for the DevOpsDays organization, the Atlanta 2017 event, and the upcoming Nashville 2017 event:

DEVOPSDAYS (GENERIC)	ATLANTA 2017	NASHVILLE 2017

In contrast, PASS (the Professional Association for SQL Server) retains tight control over the marketing of SQLSaturday; registrations and event planning are handled by their internally-developed tools, and the branding has recently evolved to provide a more consistent association with the parent organization (although not without some concerns).

PASS LOGO	SQLSATURDAY LOGO

From an attendee perspective, branding probably doesn’t make much of a difference; however, the tools used for registration are highly visible. Both DevOpsDays events I attended used EventBrite, a well know tool for managing, well, events. SQLSaturday relies on a custom registration site that has improved over time, but still often leaves attendees confused (despite all the best guidance from organizers). Furthermore, if a SQLSaturday event has a precon, those events are usually managed by EventBrite, which leads to an additional disconnect between the precon event and the actual SQLSaturday. Despite my love for SQLSaturdays, I think the DevOpsDays approach to branding and tooling is better.

Educational Delivery Format

One area that SQLSaturday feels more comfortable to me is the format of the sessions. SQLSaturdays typically follow the traditional multi-track model in a single day (not counting pre-cons), where attendees can choose from multiple sessions at the same time; for example, SQLSaturday Atlanta 2017 had 10 concurrent tracks, each with sessions lasting about an hour. Note that this format is not required; smaller events may only have a single track, or have multiple tracks with longer sessions.

In contrast, the DevOpsDays standard of delivery is multiple days, with a single track in the morning of longer talks, followed by a single-track of short talks (“Ignites“), and then open-space sessions in the afternoon. For me, this is a mixed bag of effectiveness; bringing everyone in the conference together to hear the same discussion can (in theory) promote better cross-communication between the various stakeholders in the DevOps audience. For example, having managers and deployment specialists hear a programmer discussing pipelines may promote perspective-taking, one of the fundamentals of good communication. In reality, however, my experience has been that many presenters don’t do a great job of relating to all of the stakeholders in the audience, making it difficult to bridge that gap. Granted, I’ve only been to two events, but of the 16 main talks that I heard across the two events, about half of them seemed relevant to me. Ignites have some of the same limitations, but the time constraints mean that they hold attention spans for longer.

Most people either love or hate open spaces; letting the audience drive discussions is a great concept in theory; in reality, discussions are typically dominated by a few extroverts in the group, and most people merely observe. Although there are usually self-appointed moderators, the dynamic selection of topics just prior to the discussion makes it difficult to engage or guide. When they work, they work well; however, too often open spaces lend themselves to the seven-minute lull Ideally, I think the most effective method of delivery would be a blended approach; a couple of keynote sessions in the morning, followed by a few Ignite sessions. Do multiple tracks in the afternoon, including open-space discussion, both free-form and guided. However, this is mostly a matter of personal preference; I’d love to try it and see what people think of it.

Conclusion

I’m enjoying the transition of my career away from being a SQL Person to a DevOps person; both communities seem vibrant and engaged, and I plan on attending more DevOpsDays conferences in the future (and perhaps even help with planning one). Events like these offer a lot of opportunity to learn high-quality material in a low-cost setting, and I only expect them to get better (or I’ll get better) over time.

2017-07-27 by Stuart Ainsworth DevOps Professional Development SQLServerPedia Syndication 0

The Technical Manager

I used to present a session called Managing a Technical Team: Lessons Learned (Alexa: Remind me to update and submit this session again); the point of it was to reflect on some of the lessons I learned early in my career transitioning from a database developer into a management position. I was trying to give a view from the trenches, mostly to help other folks get a perspective on what it’s like to fumble through a career change. Management, like development, is a process of learning and continuous improvement; the difference is that other people have some expectation that you know what you’re doing (and often, you don’t). Inevitably, I’d get asked some version of this question:

“Can I still be technical and manage a team effectively?”

I used to have a quasi-canned answer, something along the lines of “at some point you must choose your path; management is about people, not technology”. I still kind of believe that, but recent experiences in my own career path have caused me to reconsider giving an answer. Instead, I’ve started asking the questions:

“Why does it matter? What’s your goal for your career? What do you think you should do?”

The truth is, I don’t know what’s best for you, but I trust that you do (that satisfies my libertarian soul). Everybody’s got different experiences, different beliefs, different goals, and different circumstances. When you bundle those things together, it makes for a very complex decision tree; even a simple question about how you want to conduct your day-to-day affairs becomes overwhelming for someone sitting on the outside to answer. That being said, I still want to help, so I thought that I would share some of my decision factors using the four buckets above.

Experiences

Here’s some of experiences that have gotten me to this point:

I don’t have a technology-related degree; I have a BA in RadioTVFilm Production, a MA in Communication, and a MEd in Instructional Technology. I got into database work when I flunked out of a PhD program in Health Communication (and salvaged some of those hours into the MEd). I had failed my comprehensive exams twice, and had a meeting set up with my advisor to discuss a third attempt. She never showed; I drove off campus that night, bought some books on SQL and relational design (having done stats work as a grad student), and started looking for a job.
In my first IT job, I worked for a good manager (a developer running a support organization). When he left, I worked for an awful manager (a project manager who had no clue about anything related to computers). I try to emulate the former and check my actions to make sure I’m not acting like the latter.
I’ve been with the same company for almost 15 years since then. Different roles, different responsibilities, different owners.

Beliefs

These are some of the core beliefs I have about management and technology; these will be tough to change.

Management is more about people than tools.
Management should be more strategic than tactical. While a team may be responsible for specific operations, the manager of that team should understand the unit’s role in the bigger picture.
Technology is used to solve business problems; a good manager will focus more on solving the problem than on the tools used at any point in time. SQL Server is the tool I’m accustomed to using, but the problems I’ve been focused on lately aren’t database problems (they’re IT infrastructure and networking issues).

Goals

Goals are tough for me, because I believe they should be a mixture of both long-term and immediate. As such, they change more often than you would think (at least for me).

I want to be forward-thinking; I want to keep being exposed to new tools and technologies.
I want to be compensated well, and I want to continue gaining new responsibilities.
I want to feel like I’m making a difference; I’m not interested in continually addressing the same problems over and over again. I want to make a change and move on.

Circumstances

Everybody’s got different external factors that influence their decisions; managers are no different. For me, the following things are true:

I’ve been a remote worker for the last 8 years; it would be tough for me to go back to having a daily commute.
I’m project focused, not time-focused. I like having flexibility to get things done without a set schedule.
I’m a dad, and time with my kids is critically important. That means that I’ve had to pass up on opportunities because I’d rather take time for them.

What does this all mean?

For me, it means that I don’t want to be a single-technology manager; I want to figure out how to make technology work for business, even if it’s a technology that I’m unfamiliar with. The logistics of scale means that I can’t be the single source of authority when it comes to implementing technical solutions. I scale out by relying on my team to be the experts, and I want to keep building teams that can handle lots of different problems.

More to come later.

2017-05-08 by Stuart Ainsworth Professional Development SQLServerPedia Syndication 0

My Challenges with #DevOps

As I’ve alluded to in earlier posts, my career goals have transitioned away from database development and administration into DevOps implementations; it’s been a bit of a challenge for me, because I feel like a stranger in a strange land all over again. Looking at familiar problems turned on their sides isn’t for me, and my day job has some particular challenges that I need to figure out appropriate solutions for. All of that being said, I’ve enjoyed it. However, in an attempt to help me wrap my head around things, I wanted to list out the struggles I’m facing, and include my current “solutions”; these may change over time, but it’s where I’m at today.

It is what it is…

One of the challenges of describing DevOps is that it’s a conglomerate of technical and cultural changes. System and software engineers can easily understand the technical components of iterative software deployment, but it’s tough to describe the organizational and procedural changes necessary to implement a rapid deployment environment (“You want the developers on pager duty? How will they administer the system?”). Most engineers have a tough time interpreting The Phoenix Project, because it’s not a technical manual; they’re used to step-by-step guides, not cultural strategies.

My solution is to describe DevOps as a philosophy, not a methodology. Philosophies have general principles that you agree to abide by (such as seeking efficiency through automation, increasing feedback, and documenting problems without blame); methodologies are strategies for implementing philosophies. What this means is that as a manager, my method of implementing DevOps is probably different than yours, and there may even be differences within the organization; the key focus should be on reducing or eliminating silos through communication. Where those silos must remain (say, in a highly regulated environment where development and operations need to be separate), workflow in each silo needs to be as transparent as possible.

Brownfield change is harder than greenfield development.

Greenfield projects are new software projects or initiatives; brownfield development is a revitalization of an existing project. While each has challenges from a DevOps perspective, the technical and cultural debt that is associated with brownfield development often slows down adoption of DevOps practices. It’s tough to maintain a system while making suggestions for improvement, particularly when multiple departments are involved, all with their own goals.

For me, it all goes back to two principles: tight focus, and increased communication. As a change agent, I need to carve out time each week to focus on one small, incremental change that I can make to increase efficiencies; for example, I’m currently working on developing a standard postmortem practice for tracking issues with our business service (using this free guide from VictorOps). The point is that I may not have opportunity to make sweeping changes, but I can do a little bit at a time (and encourage my team to do so as well).

Compliance is a constraint.

Working in the financial industry brings some unique challenges to implementing DevOps; while philosophically the ideal DevOps process is to build automation pipelines from development through deployment, regulatory policies are written to dictate separation and control between environments. The thicker the wall, the more likely you are to successfully pass an audit, but those walls make it tough to attain rapid development. If your developers have one set of goals (deploy new features) and your operations team have another (keep the system stable with few changes), you’ve got to figure out a way to reconcile those.

Communication is key, and that includes have a common issue tracking system to report operational issues to development as soon as they occur; I don’t manage the developers in my business unit, so I can’t set their priorities. But I can make them aware of the pain points, and the expenses associated with those struggles. I can also find ways to make our infrastructure more predictable so that developers can develop code faster, and our QA teams can automate tests with some assurance. It’s tough, but it’s my goals.

Summary

I realize that this post may not be that insightful, but I’m looking at it as an effort to keep writing and thinking about these issues. Expect more from me in the future as I continue to try and learn something new.

2016-12-12 by Stuart Ainsworth DevOps Professional Development SQLServerPedia Syndication 0