I remember finding Clapton at the animal shelter near the San Antonio zoo. He was pacing around his small area, it looked like he had a lot of energy. I was looking for a dog who would be, in part, a running buddy. I took a couple dogs out for a walk that first day, but out of all of them Clapton struck me as “the one”.
I came back the following two days and took different dogs for a walk, each time also taking Clapton. At one point there were children playing in one of the dog play areas, and I decided to see how he’d do around them. They wanted to play with him and he was interested in playing with them, it seemed like he liked kids well enough, although he was generally indifferent about people.
Working through a course on “International Security Studies”, I got absorbed in some reading about methods of analyzing international relations. I dove into a rabbit hole and am now able to put my own beliefs and worldview on this into concrete terms.
I’m annoyed by Google’s Analytics. It works great, but it’s heavy and overkill for my needs. Not to mention that it’s very privacy-intrusive. It’s not like I don’t give Google all my data already, but perhaps you don’t make that same choice, and you shouldn’t be forced into it simply by visiting my website.
I’ve been looking for a solution that lets me see what content folks are looking at and where they’re coming from, while being extremely cheap, and easy to maintain. All while reducing the privacy impact. I toyed with building something, but got lost in the “what is the cheapest way I can leverage AWS for this” trade-space.
“Disruption” is commonly thought of as a bad thing…
Disruption: disturbance or problems which interrupt an event, activity or process.
But to teams that yearn for change to their status-quo, like many in the 90th, disruptive innovation can be welcome.
Disruption: radical change to an existing industry or market due to technological innovation.
Disruptive innovation is something that many would not expect to exist inside the government, much less the Department of Defense. While we may occasionally drive innovative technological disruptions through investments, purchasing, or policy, it’s generally industry that is doing the innovative disruption.
This post documents some thoughts I have about accountability within my organization, and how I plan to speak to the team about accountability.
Accountability is vital in an organization. Within an organization members must be able to work together with trust. Trust often manifests as the belief that individuals will operate within a set of expectations. When behaviors deviate from those expectations, trust within a team is broken. When behavior deviates from expectations, accountability can bring team trust back into balance.
Almost everybody experienced the dreaded “team project” during high school. When the teacher picked the team members and you divvied up work you almost certainly had that one member, “Skip”, who did not pull their weight. Your team assigned them an entire section of writing, but the night before the project was due they didn’t turn anything in. They didn’t pick up their phone. They didn’t respond to email. You may have spent an all-nighter fixing the problem they caused just so your grade wouldn’t suffer.
I am fortunate enough to lead the 90th Cyberspace Operations Squadron, a unit that delivers software to enable cyberspace operations for combatant commands and the military services. Testing is a vital part of delivering software successfully, but there are many philosophies around how to do so. Our needs around testing are somewhat unique. This post describes how we need to shape our thinking for the future.
Today
Today we are in a fortunate position regarding test. We’ve got a history of delivering excellent capabilities that meet warfighter needs. We deliver them more quickly than anybody else, and our connections to operators mean they’re on target.
In the unit I am taking command of, we value an environment of continual improvement, agile delivery, and rapid innovation and risk-taking. These are the philosophies and behaviors that will enable us to win, and that will enable our customers to win in competition and conflict against our adversaries. Each of these philosophies and behaviors requires a diversity of thought.
Diversity of thought breaks through group-think. Diversity of thought raises issues early, and solves them more quickly.
I recently finished The Unicorn Project and found it compelling, as was The Phoenix Project. I wanted to document some of the lessons it teaches, because they’re something I hope to keep in mind while leading a software development unit. These lessons are “the three ways” and “the five ideals”.
The Three Ways
My thoughts here are expansions of some of the excerpts at IT Revolution.
Flow/Systems Thinking
Amplify Feedback Loops
Culture of Continual Experimentation and Learning
Flow/Systems Thinking
Consider the performance of an entire system instead of just a part. One way to look at “the system” is the entire flow of work from product owner, through dev, test, and release into availability for employment. Another way to look at “the system” is as the literal system people are building.
Before a recent off-site the boss set the expectations for the event. This struck me as an extremely useful tool. I particularly liked the ROE - I think stating these early got everyone out of their normal mode of working and into the mode conducive to the event. It seems like developing ROE and purpose like this is good to consciously do for many types of event. It’s not unlike a normal meeting agenda.