Failing Fast - An Autopsy of a Failed Release
I’ve been lucky enough to be selected to speak at Agile Cambridge 2015. My talk is titled “Failing Fast - An Autopsy of a Failed Release”, please read more about this talk on the conference site.
I attended the same conference in 2013. I very much enjoyed the conference and I was inspired enough to submit a proposal the following year. Fortunately this was accepted and I enjoyed the pleasure of speaking about DevOps in the Fellows Dining Room at Churchill College, Cambridge. (A dining room? It’s an impressive room with no doubt an invaluable collection of artwork on the walls, including some very eye-catching Andy Warhol pieces on the walls!)
Speaking about DevOps proved to be a little controversial, but it did prompt some good discussion - kind of my aim for the talk. Essentially I was saying DevOps is a way of thinking, not a separate team. I wanted to define the title “DevOps Engineer”, something I found very difficult to do because of the wide skill-set and level of experience required.
This year I decided to be a little “safer” in my proposal so I decided a case study was the way to go. But then I used the word “Failed” in my title and I seemed to stir-up a few emotions! I can understand that “failure” has negative connotations, but surely not admitting failure early is even worse! “Failing fast” is seen as a benefit of agile practices and adopting such practices is supposed to make catastrophic project failure a thing of the past.
I’ve written a few blog posts now, loosely around agile practices (of course!). Please see my section on the Capgemini Engineering blog to find out more, or indeed to find other posts from my fellow bloggers.
