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I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think you really need "discovery and user interviews" to tell you that app developers need to be able to see

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think you really need "discovery and user interviews" to tell you that app developers need to be able to see their deployment logs, or that having your deployment code spread out across 3-4 repos with frequent changes makes it harder to troubleshoot. I think a lot of people might read this comment as blameshifting, where obvious flaws in the engineering and reliability of the system are blamed instead on a failure to define the specifications properly ahead of time.

ethbr0 5y ago
Here's the reason, 9 out of 10 times, this situation persists -- no one realizes it's happening. No one realizes some dev teams can't see their own deployment logs. No one realizes teams don't have the correct Jenkins access. No one realizes there's a mysterious gatekeeper to use the corporate time series database as a service. No one realizes all new containers are transferred to a few people who have the rights to publish them. And when I say "no one realizes", I mean two things. One, the people who do know, because they're the ones trying to do it, have given up bitching about it, because they did for years and nothing happened. Two, the people who can actually change things don't know, either because they actively ignored / forgot or because the requests never reached them (usually because a middle transport manager didn't understand what was actually being asked). And so... the status quo prevails, and everyone has a vague sense that something isn't working, but doesn't know what to do about it. And to that problem, the best solution I've found is to get the fixer and the problem user as close as possible, wherein the problem is usually revealed as a relatively simple change or feature oversight. And for that, discovery and user interviews are the most reliable method.
- croon 5y ago
  > And to that problem, the best solution I've found is to get the fixer and the problem user as close as possible You mean put development and operations together, into some kind of dev..ops.. :) I'm sorry for the snark, it was not meant as disagreement with what you said. The whole idea of the role was to try to remedy that exact issue, but old habits die hard and sometimes things just change names but stay the same. I shouldn't throw stones, I'm struggling at our shop to steer outside of that behavior as well.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    devops is the new agile
    - inkeddeveloper 5y ago
      The only good thing that has come out of the rise of devops is all the conferences I have been able to attend.
- inkeddeveloper 5y ago
  This is why I pushed for a developer advocate role at my last place. The idea was shit on pretty quickly.

ethbr0 5y ago

Here's the reason, 9 out of 10 times, this situation persists -- no one realizes it's happening. No one realizes some dev teams can't see their own deployment logs. No one realizes teams don't have the correct Jenkins access. No one realizes there's a mysterious gatekeeper to use the corporate time series database as a service. No one realizes all new containers are transferred to a few people who have the rights to publish them. And when I say "no one realizes", I mean two things. One, the people who do know, because they're the ones trying to do it, have given up bitching about it, because they did for years and nothing happened. Two, the people who can actually change things don't know, either because they actively ignored / forgot or because the requests never reached them (usually because a middle transport manager didn't understand what was actually being asked). And so... the status quo prevails, and everyone has a vague sense that something isn't working, but doesn't know what to do about it. And to that problem, the best solution I've found is to get the fixer and the problem user as close as possible, wherein the problem is usually revealed as a relatively simple change or feature oversight. And for that, discovery and user interviews are the most reliable method.

croon 5y ago
> And to that problem, the best solution I've found is to get the fixer and the problem user as close as possible You mean put development and operations together, into some kind of dev..ops.. :) I'm sorry for the snark, it was not meant as disagreement with what you said. The whole idea of the role was to try to remedy that exact issue, but old habits die hard and sometimes things just change names but stay the same. I shouldn't throw stones, I'm struggling at our shop to steer outside of that behavior as well.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  devops is the new agile
  - inkeddeveloper 5y ago
    The only good thing that has come out of the rise of devops is all the conferences I have been able to attend.
inkeddeveloper 5y ago
This is why I pushed for a developer advocate role at my last place. The idea was shit on pretty quickly.