The importance of ‘Why?’ by Pavel Chunyayev, 30-6-2016

DevOpsDays Amsterdam, Pakhuis de Zwijger

* This is a special web version of the ignite talk

@PavelChunyayev

‘Why?’ is the most important question• But not the blaming ‘Why?’

• Not something like:

• Why on Earth would you do that?

• Why didn’t you try to restore from the backup?

• Why don’t you ever read the notifications?

@PavelChunyayev

The higher purpose ‘Why?’• The belief that drives you.

• The goal of your company, department, tribe, squad, team.

• Your strategy.

• Who are you doing it for and why are you doing it?

@PavelChunyayev

not ‘What?’• You start with ‘What?’ and you are thinking on the level of ideas. But how to

compare different ideas?

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not ‘How?’• You start with ‘How?’ and get immediately into tools and implementations.

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Why?• How are my every day actions going to help my users?

• If we are going to implement idea or start using particular tools, does it get us closer to the goal of the company or promise of our product?

@PavelChunyayev

Don’t tell what to do and how to do

• As a manager or a more senior team member it’s easy to tell you team members what to do and how to do to.

• Nobody can do it better than me, so I’ll tell you how to do things!

• But it’s a trap.

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It’s a trap!

• No one likes to receive orders. They will leave

• Or people will stop making their own decisions.

• And you actually can never control how your fellow engineers can implement things. You need to trust.

@PavelChunyayev

Situation can change• Situation can change. And what was the best choice today, might

not be the best choice tomorrow.

• If you only communicate ‘What?’ and ‘How?’ you will do wrong things.

• But you need to share the vision so people could adapt to the situation.

@PavelChunyayev

Vision• What are we doing here? Why are we doing this?

• What will it look like to succeed?

• What motivates you to wake up each morning?

• Not exact steps and not the technology to use. The vision.

@PavelChunyayev

Communication• You need to communicate the vision often.

• Everything is about communication

• Servers

• OOP

• Microservices

• People

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We fail to communicate ‘Why?’• We fail to communicate on ‘Why?’

• Either to ask

• Or to tell ‘Why?’

• We fail to establish such alignment.

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Improvise

• It’s hard to make right decisions if you don’t know why are you doing this.

• You need to improvise in a lot of cases during your work as an engineer. But how to select the right action?

• This is why alignment is needed

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Alignment is needed• Alignment with you company’s value. Or the purpose.

• Department

• Tribe

• Squad

• Team

• You need to be able to validate your actions against something.

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Don’t just copy others• Without understanding ‘why?’ and alignment you are doomed to

copy others and be just a copycat.

• You might have different situation or different needs. What worked for others may not work you. You never know why they were doing something.

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Find your own way• But you can know why you are doing something. And if you do, you

can find out things that suit you perfectly.

• Find what suits your particular situation.

• Find your own way.

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Why? What? How?

@PavelChunyayev

Why?• Disrupt the world of …

• Make someone’s life simpler and easier.

• Inspire and enable creativity in people.

• Provide best-class service.

• Be a replacement for brick-and-mortar …

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Why? What?• Implement

• DevOps

• Continuous Delivery

• Lean IT

• Build the right culture

• Automate everything

• Measure and monitor everything

• Share the knowledge

@PavelChunyayev

How?Why? What?• Up to you :) Looking forward to Open Spaces to have all sorts of

discussions.