Minimise the tentacles on the OctopOSS. Keep it simple
“Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.” Mike Tyson. The great thing about Engineers is the solution is always black and white. It has to be perfect or it’s not complete. Well, I’m a qualified Engineer, but I’m not qualified to be an Engineer by these generalisations. You’re probably sick of […]
“If you were able to shrink the Earth to the size of a billiard ball, it would be the smoothest sphere ever created. Hard to believe this if you live near the edge of the Grand Canyon.” Seth Godin here. Great analogy above from Seth. The same goes for data. We’re constantly hearing about Big […]
The Changing Landscape of Operational Support Systems (OSS): Technologies, Solutions, and Organizational Impacts I’m proud to announce that my latest publication has been released today. Click on the image (or here) to find out more about the document published in conjunction with Mind Commerce. Operational Support Systems (OSS) are the essential set of tools required […]
“A core component of Lean Startup methodology is the build-measure-learn feedback loop. The first step is figuring out the problem that needs to be solved and then developing a minimum viable product (MVP) to begin the process of learning as quickly as possible. Once the MVP is established, a startup can work on tuning the […]
“With more success comes greater problems along with greater ability to solve them.” Mark Victor Hansen. Paul Graham’s essays are a great read. There is something unique about the way he views his subject matter (usually startups) and then has the ability to break it down into highly insightful chunks of wisdom for his readers […]
“Today, the FBAR service [Facebook Auto-Remediation] is developed and maintained by two full time engineers, but according to the most recent metrics, it’s doing the work of approximately 200 full time system administrators. FBAR now manages more than 50% of the Facebook infrastructure and we’ve found that services have dramatic increases in reliability when they […]
“The airline industry is notoriously brutal. As Warren Buffett once wrote in a letter to shareholders, “[I]f a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.” Yet Southwest Airlines just recorded its 39th consecutive year of profitability—in a business sector where profits […]
“User experience is everything. It always has been, but it’s undervalued and underinvested in. If you don’t know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board.” Evan Williams, Co-Founder, Twitter. Question for you all. Is user-centred design under-invested in within the […]
“Start small, think big. Don’t worry about too many things at once. Take a handful of simple things to begin with, and then progress to more complex ones. Think about not just tomorrow, but the future.” Steve Jobs. This is a really interesting snapshot of Steve Jobs’ mode of thinking roughly 8-10 weeks after re-joining […]
“While its [Docker] use (superficially) resembles that of virtual machines, it is much more lightweight as it operates at the level of a single process (rather than an emulation of an entire OS layer). This also allows it to start almost instantly, require very little resources and hence permits an order of magnitude more deployments […]
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” Henry Ford. I have an interesting question to pose to you today dear readers, one that I don’t think has a perfectly right or wrong answer, but one you’re bound to have an opinion on. Let me put the contrasting views to you. Let’s […]
“People are too eager to say “This legendary person had flaws!” instead of, “Wow, this flawed human being managed to do something legendary.”” Mishell Baker. Interesting perspective from Mishell above, one which I concur with. As usual, I have a take on this in relation to OSS. I think we often spend so much time […]
“…the term Lowest Common Denominator means appealing to as many people at once as possible. There are varying interpretations on what this implies. Taking an upbeat viewpoint, it might be admirable; making stories that most people can relate to” TVropes.com It has been said that television programming caters to the intellect of an 8 year […]
“Intent doesn’t change as a result of a link going down, a server crashing, changing cloud providers, changing switch vendors, upgrading firmware or any other change to the infrastructure.” David Lenrow, chair of the ONF Northbound Working Group, who recently hosted the Intent-based Summit, which has passed a proposal to commence work on the Network […]
“Employees should never be told to protect valuable assets. If they’re told this, they usually protect an object that may be expensive to replace but is not what creates or could destroy value. How value is created is a business’ most important asset, and that is what people must focus their protection resources on.” Scott […]
“You can think of Docker [a container technology] as a shipping container for the online universe, a tool that lets developers neatly package software and move it from machine to machine. Today, when running large online applications such as a Google or a Twitter or a Facebook, developers and businesses often spread software across dozens, […]
“Essential: Document with just barely good enough detail. Valuable: Document only when we actually need it, not when we want it. Timely: Documentation should be done in a just-in-time (JIT) manner, when we need it.” Ashish Sharma, here The Manifesto for Agile Software Development values “working software over comprehensive documentation”. This ethos is particularly relevant […]
“Do you think that such a role (a Chief Simplification Officer or Project Simplification Officer) is justified? If so, what do you think are the essential traits that this person would need?” I posed these questions in a recent article entitled, “Chief Simplification Officer,” so rather than just leave you with an open question, today […]
“By seeking and blundering we learn.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In the grand scheme of OSS and all its constituent pieces, no one person knows very much at all. That’s why we have to build learning (and teaching) into everything we do in OSS, as individuals, as organisations and as products. It’s for this reason […]
“What simple action could you take today to produce a new momentum toward success in your life?” Tony Robbins. Complexity is the single biggest challenge that stands in the way of us delivering OSS masterpieces. As described in, “The triple constraint of complexity,” the reduction of any complexity should have a multiplier effect towards the […]
