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I'm not familiar with the "War Room" in the context of computer network operations specifically, but I have deep experience running military operations centers

I'm not familiar with the "War Room" in the context of computer network operations specifically, but I have deep experience running military operations centers and I'm reading this through that lens. >People figured out that yes, they had run the machines out of memory, specifically with the push - the distribution of new bytecode to the web servers. Other people started taking steps to beat back some of the bloat that had been creeping in that summer, so the memory situation wouldn't be so bad. I suspect some others also dialed back the number of threads (simultaneous requests) on the smaller web servers to keep them from running quite as "hot". Cross-functional information exchange. Who is coordinating or directing all these disparate actions? Who is fusing the knowledge gained from these actions? Who is disseminating a clearer picture of "what really happened"? Who is using that updated picture to frame new taskings for all the people doing these independent investigations? The answer to all those questions should be "the staff in the War Room", and the leadership in the War Room in particular. My take-away is that the author is arguing that their ability to pursue single-function actions within their domain of expertise was optimized in their work environment, and was degraded in the War Room. They aren't wrong. >I guess a "war room" might work out if you have a bunch of stuff that has to happen to deal with a possible "crisis" and then it's just a matter of coordinating it. You don't have people doing "heads-down hack" stuff nearly as much in a case like that. Exactly. Coordinating a bunch of stuff for crisis management = put those people in the War Room. Focused heads-down tasks = put those people where they can ...focus. Now that said....one thing I've come to HATE about working in a military headquarters is open offices for everyone who isn't the G-shop lead and his/her deputy. Everyone else is shoved into a cubicle farm, probably with ESPN blaring in the background on top of a half-dozen conversations and people constantly dropping by your desk to BS about cover sheets for TPS Reports. So even if you're NOT in the War Room, you can't focus.

icegreentea2 2y ago
I feel like some things that consistently gets in the way of the clean separation between (crudely speaking) deciders and doers, and keeping the doers out of the war room (so they can work effectively) are: Poor, or fear of poor communication. The "do-ers" become compelled to be in the war room to try to mitigate communication failures. Unclear decision making processes and ownership. People with high technical expertise (who would be top tier do-ers who maybe should be kept out the war room) are kept around because their immediate feedback in the war room can significantly shift the decision making process and decisions made. I should be more specific - I believe there's often a desire (and makes instinctive sense) to fall back to decision by consensus. Once everyone understands that this is how these things work, then obviously you want to pack the smartest, most competent people in the room, either because you're playing political games, and you want more "votes", or because truly you believe that you need the best people in the room to guide consensus. These are structural and cultural (non-cynical) issues that drive both doers and decision makers to -want- to keep smart, competent doers in the room, even though separation -should- lead to better outcomes.
- dasil003 2y ago
  There can’t and shouldn’t be a clean separation between deciders and doers. The whole point of incident response is you don’t know exactly what needs to be done, so you do need a mix of people to help figure it out. And the people proposing actions should be the most expert people (typically doers). It happens in a war room because we are prioritizing speed of communication and coordination. If individuals aren’t given space to focus, or no one is taking the role of incident commander, those are indeed problems but the solution is not to classify people as doers or deciders and separate them.

icegreentea2 2y ago

I feel like some things that consistently gets in the way of the clean separation between (crudely speaking) deciders and doers, and keeping the doers out of the war room (so they can work effectively) are: Poor, or fear of poor communication. The "do-ers" become compelled to be in the war room to try to mitigate communication failures. Unclear decision making processes and ownership. People with high technical expertise (who would be top tier do-ers who maybe should be kept out the war room) are kept around because their immediate feedback in the war room can significantly shift the decision making process and decisions made. I should be more specific - I believe there's often a desire (and makes instinctive sense) to fall back to decision by consensus. Once everyone understands that this is how these things work, then obviously you want to pack the smartest, most competent people in the room, either because you're playing political games, and you want more "votes", or because truly you believe that you need the best people in the room to guide consensus. These are structural and cultural (non-cynical) issues that drive both doers and decision makers to -want- to keep smart, competent doers in the room, even though separation -should- lead to better outcomes.

dasil003 2y ago
There can’t and shouldn’t be a clean separation between deciders and doers. The whole point of incident response is you don’t know exactly what needs to be done, so you do need a mix of people to help figure it out. And the people proposing actions should be the most expert people (typically doers). It happens in a war room because we are prioritizing speed of communication and coordination. If individuals aren’t given space to focus, or no one is taking the role of incident commander, those are indeed problems but the solution is not to classify people as doers or deciders and separate them.