devopsy.kinsta.cloud

Author: Sabine Bernecker-Bendixen

The complexity of communication: Are we all Masters of Disaster?
To better the communication between people in tech teams is one important issue in daily work. Although we all grew up with communication from our early childhood on, we know, that communication often fails. But what do we all do about this discrepancy? Why do we accept eyes wide open these frequently painful failures? Why don´t we really care about misunderstandings and their consequences? Are we all Masters of Disaster?

The answer is: Communication is a very complex topic on both sides of the game – on the sender´s side as well as on the receiver´s. To get aware of what is going wrong in our communication we have to do some very hard stuff: self-reflexion (which is indeed sometimes painful and hard to bear), changing familiar behaviors and leaving the comfort zone. This is really hard work besides all the tasks of our daily job! Additionally to a strong will, we need persistence, patience and most of the time aid from the outside to be successful in changing our communication! But in the end this entire struggle is worth it!

In DevOps teams, where “ship fast” is taken over from “ship faster” to fulfill the goals of “continuous of everything”, a well accepted and effective, but appreciating communication is the basic skill for success. This means that building a successful team is comparable with building a house: if you spend enough in a strong and solid fundament, it will carry the house you want to build on it for a long, long time. But you have to consider, which kind of house you want to build to develop the fundament.

In cross-functional teams with high demands – those teams we actually find in the tech industry – communication is the fundament of whatever is built on it. Communication is part of the culture and it is the tool
- people get in contact with each other
- knowledge is shared
- goals and visions are shared
- feedback is given
- failures and success are shared
- appreciation is shown.
People in such demanding environments need to trust and rely on each other. Or do you want to share your knowledge with someone you do not trust? The success of the team depends on the relationships between all teammates including the leader. Relationship and trust are built among other things through the way we communicate with each other. No it is time to say, that communication is not only what we are saying with the words we are using. Communication goes far beyond the meaning of the words. Remember “Cce” – Communication causes emotions! Even in the tech world, which is still a male dominated world, communication causes emotions and feelings – although lot of people may refuse this.

With speaking about the complexity of communication it means that there are on the one hand three different parts of sending a message and the impact on the receiver. On the other hand there are lots of possibilities how to interpret the messages. Lots of possibilities – this seem to be a source for many misunderstandings! Now be aware that an immense part of our communication – sending as well as receiving – happens in our subconscious!

Most probably you have heard about the three different parts of communication: the verbal communication and the nonverbal communication with its subitems ´paraverbal communicationand ´body language.

The verbal communication is about the wording, the language, the syntax, the grammar and yes, it is also about the logic! There you are: “Things have to be logical, then everything is fine, isn´t it?” Sorry, but: “No, it isn´t!” It is even not half of the truth. Here is the reason, why so called one-track specialists often have problems to convince others, although everything they say is absolutely right and logical. At this point the nonverbal communication appears on the human playing area! The paraverbal part of communication contains facts like the volume, the speech rate and melody, the intonation and articulation and at least the tone of the voice. This is completed by the body language with the fascial expressions the gestures, the body posture, eye contact, body chemistry and the clothing. If the expression of all three components is the same – then everything is fine! If the verbal communication says “YES” and the nonverbal communication “NO” – then people tend to believe in the nonverbal communication because its impact is much higher than the impact of the words.

Just one example at the end: at one of the DevOpsDays I have joined this year, I saw one young speaker. I guess, he is really an expert in his topic and the idea and content of his talk was excellent. But he didn´t manage to appear convincing and convinced: a wrinkled shirt, a loose jeans, unkempt hair, barefoot in his sandals, a lousy body posture and a bored facial expression. You can say that this is a superficial point of view. Maybe – but that is the way it works! Communication always needs a holistic approach – and seemingly superficial points of view are influencing the our feelings and the way we interpret messages! Or to say it the other way round: if you want to convince somebody and make her/him trust you, you have to focus on all parts of communication! It is the same when you want

to share knowledge, give feedback or want to lead a team. Communication is more than just the words!

In the next blog post you will read about the chain of communication!
October 22, 2015
Well-being in tech – Who really cares?

As a freelance consultant for more than 15 years I skip from company to company of different sizes in different industries. For the last two years I have been very close to the IT-tech industry. I love to work with the “Nerds” and “Geeks” and I like the atmosphere on the devopsdays I have attended. But I am really confused about one important problem, which never ever occurred to me in this big mass before than it does in the tech industry: problems with health, psychosomatic disorders and mental illnesses.

Whenever I talk with some of the tech folk, sooner or later hints of these problems appear and with asking the right questions, lots of people start talking about their problems in the past. They talk about back problems, a lot of headaches and neck tensions. At first glance this seem to be very clear because of bad body posture combined with a lack of physical activity and perhaps bad nutrition. But the roots for these problems can also be psychosomatically. These are by the way just the “light problems”.

So many people told me about their burnouts, depression and other mental illnesses; they have also told me about being “out of job” for a year or more! And they have talked about the need for liters of coffee to get through the day, caffeine pills, energy-drinks and cigarettes! At devopsdays Amsterdam @botchagalupe talked about some talented and enthusiastic young techs and their Karo jisatsu – their suicide from overwork!

My job in companies is to coach employees and leaders on topics like communication, team culture and leadership. And with these topics the question of well-being is always involved. So when I started with my first clients in the IT industry I did a lot of research and I found some studies about health problems in Germany. These studies said that tech people do not often stay at home because of common colds or something like that. But it told that there are above average problems in matters of nervousness, insomnia, stomach problems, mood swings, depressions and burnout. And there is an extremely outstanding usage of anti-depressants and other psychotropic drugs.

There are other studies about pharmacological neuroenhancement and brain doping – the consumption of drugs to increase the “brain power” without medical necessity – which are frightening to me.

What really puzzles me about this is, that all the people talk about colleagues with some kind of these problems or about their own experiences; that they know about it – and then they go on and “do business as usual” – nothing happens!

Like a neon sign there is one big question in my head: Who really cares about well-being in tech?

But why are there that many health problems in the IT-industry? On the one hand it is because of the nature of IT: faster and better is the credo of IT-projects. Continuous or daily delivery put a lot of pressure on the employees. Management systems like Scrum or Kanban and methodologies like Devops try to meet the requirements of the market. But are the single individuals really fit for it? What is done to enable the employees to meet these systems or methodologies on eye-level so that they feel well with it?

Special management systems and methodologies need special skills – technical skills as well as soft skills. The companies´ focus is a lot on technical skill education, but mostly they don´t care about strengthening the soft skills! Employees are left alone with issues of bad communication, misunderstandings in the team, leadership full of pressure and – caused by this all: bad emotions and feelings!

Now let´s have a look at the people working in the IT industry! One big skill, you really need to work successfully in IT is the ability to concentrate and focus on one special issue, to submerge into one task and fade out the rest around you. I experience this at home once a while, because my companion in life is a software architect and CEO. Being in a demanding project his head is working 24/7 and it seems as if nothing else could reach him. The ability to fade out everything which is not important for the project is on the one hand a gift but on the other hand it could be a really dangerous demon if even the physical and mental needs of oneself are faded out! This will perhaps be okay for a period of three months or so. But reality could be that project is followed by project and the period is no period any longer; it is the norm! People start with too much coffee every single day, caffeine pills or energy drinks or even worse with brain doping! Being tired or headaches often are signals, the body is sending us in case to stop us. But with ignoring the signals and working against them with some kind of drugs, situations will get worse! A downward spiral is started.

What kind of life is it, if we do not care for our own well-being?

The next point is, that the IT and tech-industry is still mostly a men´s world – sorry ladies, hope that will change some day! And even in modern times, in a men´s world you do not talk about emotions, excessive demands and mental illnesses, because lot of people believe that these are signs of weakness! So the risk is very real that people try to hide their problems until it is too late.

So, who has to care for the well-being? WE ALL DO!

At first everyone has to take care of their own individual well-being and pay attention to what our bodies are telling us! If we don´t care for ourselves, how will we be able to take care for others?

Then there are colleagues, who should have a closer look at each other and talk about emotions and problems. Communication is a very important key for the well-being and the recognition of health and mental problems.

Last but not least there are the leaders who play, to my opinion, a vital role in this issue. They are responsible for the success as well as for the employees. But what will happen to the success if the employees are insane or out of job for a long time?

A paradigm shift is the only way! You all know about the problem! So please start to take care of yourself and of others! This will boost yourself personally and the team´s and company´s success!

August 21, 2015
Communication: Who is to blame for misunderstandings?

Communication is everywhere and it is far more than only the spoken word and its origin meaning. Communication is one of the most complex and also complicated topics in human relationships: most of the time very thrilling, sometimes frightening but always important!

As we all grew up with communication, you might think, we should be used to communicating very well. But daily life shows us that misunderstanding is the companion of communication. We all know from our own experience how hard it is to clear up such misunderstandings and how much precious time is wasted on them!

The more people with different personalities are trying to communicate with each other, the higher the probability of misunderstandings.

To take a closer look at all those cross-functional teams like devops or agile scrum teams you will recognize at once that there are lots of individual issues because of misunderstandings in every team. Each single issue on its own is disrupting daily work, something we all know from personal experience. Now try to imagine how much of a team´s efficiency is taken away by the sum of all issues caused by bad communication and misunderstandings! It is unimaginable!

Communication is the link between all stakeholders: it determines the atmosphere in a team, the relationship between all parts, the understanding as well as the knowledge and information transfer. It influences the project times, the employees´ identification with the company or their work, individual responsibility and how to deal with mistakes. This list could go on and on.

Time in IT projects is one of the limiting factors. To save time and avoid mistakes, new tools are be developed again and again. Companies invest money in these tools; sometimes tools are integrated in the teams, sometimes the teams are arranged around the tools or systems. But the very human part – the communication – which is important for every team, no matter which tools or which systems are used, is seldom the focus of IT education! You can changes methodologies, systems and tools, but if you do not get beyond bad communication, you won´t reach the full potentials of all those efforts. No matter if you have already chosen your tools or systems or if you are still searching for the right way for your team, you should always think about the communication within your team. Instead of always asking what the ROI of communication courses will be, you should better ask what the ROI of all those tools and systems could be with optimized communication!

Before optimizing the communication you first have to find the bugs in the individual and in the team communication and eliminate them. Due to the inherent complexity, the support of an expert is sometimes useful. Just as not all people using computers are IT experts, not all people are experts in communication – even though they are communicating the whole time, sometimes even by saying nothing. Some are more gifted than others, some are able to learn by studying on their own and others need a little more time and support. Changing communication mostly means to change personal habits and this is always an extremely challenging requirement. Particularly for “brain-workers” like developers or other people from IT, it is very helpful to have some background information in combination with practical applications given by experts. First little steps of debugging the communication will soon be honored by success.

“First do it right, than do it fast!”, is a developers wisdom. Concerning the communication this wisdom could be changed into: “First debug your communication, then optimize it!”

Coming back to the question in the headline, it is not important to blame anybody for a bad communication. Everybody is responsible for it and instead of searching for the guilty one, you should start working on it. Be brave, start debugging you communication!

May 12, 2015
Social Skills for DevOps: Whose responsibility?

In his post “DevOps developers; don´t be a DevGoof” on devopsy.kinsta.cloud Parker Yates pointed out, that developers have to become more social. Devs should better realize that they need to become a normal part of the business social structure. That is really true and extremely necessary to make DevOps more efficient.

But is this the whole truth? And who is responsible for the social structures and the relationships?

First let´s have a look at the devs. For me as a consultant working with people from IT I always get the impression that developers are creating a cult in being a “nerd”. They use being “nerds” as an excuse for not being compatible with the “others”! To be honest, this is a very cheap way of remaining within their own comfort zones! But perhaps we should take some time to ask for the “why?”! Developers are human beings, too. As is the case for all human beings, there is always a reason, why someone acts and behaves the way they do! So what could the “why?” be? Often experiences in our past are the reasons for our behavior and our actions. But perhaps it is a little bit different with the devs. Most of the devs start sitting in front of PC´s and producing code mostly at the age of puberty, at a time when their own personality is being shaped. This time in front of PC´s is not used to improve their own social skills and interaction with other people. So why do they sit in front of the PC at that age? This could be simply because they are really thrilled by the tech stuff or because they like to deal with PC´s much more than interacting with other kids, perhaps because of experience. Additionally, along with the possibility that they do not like to interact with others they also have a lack of time in practicing social skills and communication. But this lack will have the effect that when “contact happens” the result could be disappointing on both sides. And for the later developers a formative experience is made. All that stuff about being the only smart person in the room could be some kind of self-protective mechanism for not being responsible!

And now, what about the “others”? They call themselves “the experts in social skills” in comparison with the “nerds”. One very important part of social skills is empathy. But empathy doesn´t mean to blame other people for a bad relationship. Rather, it means to change the point of view for a better understanding! To point a finger at the developers and make jokes about them is not the way, somebody with good social skills will act! The reason for their ways of acting and behaving would also lay in experiences and preferences. A relationship always depends on both parts!

When people choose their profession they look for jobs, which fit with their interests and personalities. And with bringing different professions together, different types of personalities are brought together, so of course there could be a gap between them. And this gap often is filled up with stereotypical thinking leading to prejudices!

One important requirement to bridge this gap is, that all parts are made to feel responsible for building up that bridge. The attitude of “I am okay – you are okay” is the only useful way! It is a process of a personal change, which has to start!

When I once started my work on IT and DevOps I was awestruck that all people were talking about tools, but nearly no one was speaking about how to train people to improve communication and social skills! When someone has a backlog in such important personal spaces, how can we expect more of this person without giving support? And why do we expect that a team full of different personalities will grow together and will reach its full potential that easily without any support from an expert?

I have made the observation that developers especially are very interested in ways they can improve their social and communication skills and would really enjoy it if their companies would offer them, for example, workshops or team supervisions.

All parts of stakeholders are responsible for their success; and in particular the company which wants to run DevOps! So do not always think about technical tools; think of the human contribution!

May 5, 2015