In episode 12 of Full Stack Journey we take a small detour from technology to talk more about people and process.
Our special guest for this diversion is Bob Stampfle (@bobbyfantast1c on Twitter), who works as a Senior Transformation Consultant at VMware, Inc.
Show Notes
- Bob’s focus is on helping customers “run IT as a business” and helping them make the most of new technologies.
- A lot of focus is placed on people and process, and how that relates to technology.
- Trying to help companies answer the question: how can we work better, faster, more effectively across IT silos?
- Operational transformation is about changing people, process, and procedure to get more from technology
- How does operational transformation interact with (if at all) the idea of full stack engineering?
- Bob believes full stack engineering is very complementary to operational transformation
- Understanding how the various silos interact to provide a desired outcome is critically important, and full stack engineering helps cultivate a view across multiple silos
- What are the recommendations Bob is making to customers with regards to employee development?
- It starts with better understanding how the IT department operates, and this is something that every IT department member should know
- IT professionals should have “skin in the game” at every step
- Partnership—including trust and accountability—is crucial
- Partnership (among/within the IT organization) starts with a conversation. Strike up a conversation, talk with other IT organization members, and communicate. Meet your teammates.
- How do you deal with the fear that comes with change and growth?
- It comes down to motivation to embrace change
- Find other IT professionals who embrace change and start working together
- In Bob’s view, “DevOps” is a mindset and a mentality of working together. It is not a SKU you can buy!
- Culture is important!
- Internal (internal to the company/business) marketing is often overlooked
- IT organizations need to “advertise” their capabilities and services
- Showcase the talent the IT organization has
- This will help spark interest in what the IT organization is doing and can do
- Key theme so far is communication: if IT knows what the business is doing and the business knows what IT is doing, you’re going to have a greater chance for success
- Are there some common patterns in career development that have been successful?
- You must first ensure the person has the desire to grow/learn
- Asking “Why?” is a good start
- VI admins are adjacent to a lot of different technologies (storage, networking, applications), so moving to any of those technologies is a natural progression
- VI admins can also serve as natural “facilitators” to connect different IT silos
- The formation of a “cloud team” is often a precursor to career development
- This idea of a “cloud team” to help with private cloud adoption is a very common pattern
- Comes back to culture and helping to get people interested in change and growth
- Teams have to work more closely in order to achieve the speed that the business needs from IT
- IT needs a well-communicated strategy on how they’re going to help support the business
- “Business-first mentality” means understanding that your actions in IT directly affect revenue coming into the company
- Often IT pros get too involved in the technology and don’t bother to understand the goals of the business
- What is the “one thing” that truly defines a full stack engineer?
- Automation is a key part of this journey
- Automation has to exist
- Understanding how to read and interpret code is a great place to get started on an automation journey
- Automation is only going to become more and more prevalent
- Automatically, programmatically, repetitively, successfully!
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