Greater Than Code
Greater Than Code
191: Sitting Down Together with Amy Tobey
02:14 - Amy’s Superpower: Looking at a mess and seeing the potential for what it could be.
03:40 - Generalists vs Specialists
“The job description should describe the capabilities that the team needs, not that the individual needs.”
15:28 - Finding a “Beautiful” Mess in Technical Systems
“The biggest impediment to change is your users.” – Jessica
22:40 - Artisanal and Industrial Modes of Production
- Systems are indelibly stamped by the experience of the people who built them
28:25 - Design, Use, and Reliability
32:30 - Convincing Executives to Care About a Thing
- Now vs Later
- Where do we spend our attention to maximize value?
- Viable System Model
- Context Over Control / Communication Without Authority
41:08 - Whistleblowing is Good Because Misuse of Authority is Bad
51:33 - SRE (Site Reliability Engineering)
“The goal of SRE is to change the way your organization relates to the systems it runs.” – Rein
Reflections:
Jessica: Bonus question: Amy, why do you hate the word, “mature”?
Rein: “A problem is an abstraction extracted from a mess via analysis.” – Russel Ackoff
Amy: Models: We keep trying the same patterns and complaining about the same outcomes.
- Thinking by Machine: A Study of Cybernetics
- Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile
- Greater Than Code Episode 093: BOOK CLUB! Cybernetic Revolutionaries with Eden Medina
- Brain of the Firm
This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode
To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.
Special Guest: Amy Tobey.
Sponsored By:
- strongDM: Today's show is sponsored by strongDM. Managing your remote team as they work from home? Managing a gazillion SSH keys, database passwords, and Kubernetes certs? Meet strongDM. Manage and audit access to servers, databases, and Kubernetes clusters, no matter where your employees are. With strongDM, easily extend your identity provider to manage infrastructure access. Automate onboarding, offboarding, and moving people within roles. Grant temporary access that automatically expires to on-call teams. Admins get full auditability into anything anyone does: when they connect, what queries they run, what commands are typed. It's full visibility into everything. For SSH, RDP, and Kubernetes, that means video replays. For databases, it's a single unified query log across all database management systems. strongDM is used by companies like Hearst, Peloton, Betterment, Greenhouse, and SoFi to manage access. It's more control and less hassle. strongDM. Manage and audit remote access to infrastructure. Start your free 14-day trial today at strongdm.com/SDT
- An Event Apart: Attention UX and Front End Experts! For years, An Event Apart conferences have been the best way to level up your skills, get inspiration from world-class experts, and learn what's next in web design. Now, An Event Apart is proud to introduce Online Together, a single-day online conference focused on Human-Centered Design. And it's all coming to a device near you, Monday, July 20th. Featuring insights from Margot Bloomstein, Ron Bronson, Scott Jehl, Farai Madzima, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, and Aarron Walter, you'll learn how to handle unexpected design scenarios and unusual situations as our users face unprecedented challenges and stress. You'll come away not only inspired but ready to put new techniques and ideas immediately into practice. Greater Than Code listeners can save 50 dollars off registration with promo code A E A G T C So grab your spot and join us online this coming Monday, July 20th. Visit An Event Apart dot com to see the full agenda and register now. Promo Code: AEAGTC
