DevOps at is the heart of modern software systems. In my regular newsletter, I dive into the human factors that make successful engineering organizations where teams and platforms thrive at the heart of your socio-technical systems. From leadership to team setup, maximizing performance, tools and techniques.
Friday 22nd December - It's a Wrap
So what else is there to say at the end of 2023 other than "Phew, we made it!"?
What did you learn this year? I learned that microservices architectures can be punishing for inexperienced teams and that monolithic architectures, while simpler, can be similarly perplexing when you mix cloud build cycles and tool integrations. In our modern hybrid-cloud enterprise, we increasingly need network chops to make sense of the connectivity of our solutions and the tooling that supports them. My network knowledge is and has always been on a strictly "look it up when I need it" basis. I'm a product developer first, a sys admin and tools guy second, and networks are just one of those things that stand in my way rather than truly enable my way of working. Perhaps next year, I need to work on a philosophy of 'just enough' networking for DevOps happiness..?
Something to think about.
I've included a few of the latest blog links. In a flurry of end-of-year reading, I summarised a few books I read or started to read in 2023 and rounded up a recent Backstage Proof of Concept.
There's not much more to add other than to say I've just been confirmed as a speaker at two events for next year, so it seems that I'm going to be hitting Belgium (ConfigManagementCamp in Ghent in February) and (Agile) Manchester in May next year to keep spreading the message of human-oriented DevOps and the inevitability of socio-technical systems.
Wishing you a very end-of-year break, I hope you get to spend some restful time with your loved ones.
Best wishes for 2024.
-- Richard
What you need to know before running a Backstage Proof of Concept
Published on December 20, 2023
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This article is a jumping-off point to understanding what Backstage is and how you would run a proof-of-concept with it for your organisation. This is based on the work that I’ve done with my clients and from talking to those who have been through the process themselves in other organisations. Before I started, the main… Read More »What you need to know before running a Backstage Proof of Concept
New Books in 2023
Published on December 18, 2023
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Books and research formed a large part of my work in 2023 and will continue to play a large part next year. There is a lot to be said about reading a good book, and there are plenty of them out there. When you stumble upon one, you tend to find a few more and… Read More »New Books in 2023
Navigating the Labyrinth of Technical Leadership
Published on December 12, 2023
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If you have ever been frustrated by your day job – I feel you. This stuff is hard. I’ve been doing it professionally for nigh-on 30 years, and the bad news (and also the good news) is that it doesn’t get any easier. Year on year, project on project, company on company. And the worst… Read More »Navigating the Labyrinth of Technical Leadership
Human DevOps
DevOps at is the heart of modern software systems. In my regular newsletter, I dive into the human factors that make successful engineering organizations where teams and platforms thrive at the heart of your socio-technical systems. From leadership to team setup, maximizing performance, tools and techniques.
Did you know that Kate Bush was only 19 when she embarked on her first solo tour of the UK? Not only had she been writing music from a very young age but at that point she had been working on some of the songs on her first album "The Kick Inside" for more than four years. Clearly even at 19 she is a driven person and has been from a while - creating and forming the world around her as she goes - a force of nature. How do we choose to impose ourselves on the world? As we head to the end of...
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September took me to London to attend a couple of conferences. The first was the Team Topologies-aligned Fast Flow conference , preceded by a workshop with the Team Topologies core team. I also popped into the Design Museum when I was in the area, an inspirational space if you're ever in London. The Design Museum in Kensington, London. As part of the work I do, I sometimes bump into like-minded folks. While I didn't catch up with them at Fast Flow Conf, a few days ago I enjoyed chatting with...