(3.5) Some very actionable stuff, some disappointing lack of precision, an underlying assumption that ops and devs are separate populations, skip all (3.5) Some very actionable stuff, some disappointing lack of precision, an underlying assumption that ops and devs are separate populations, skip all of Part I
From the volume of notes I took here (most of which are of the "good idea" nature), this was a helpful read. It was way too long for what I took from it, however, and I also felt compelled to disagree or object to the imprecision in many places. So it's far from perfect and a condensed version could be far more helpful. In addition, there's a lot of time devoted to topics that are only relevant if there is a separate role for operations vs development. If your org doesn't do this, that stuff is skippable (and I'd prefer a little more discussion of the debate of the relative merits of the two approaches--there's a little, but quickly take the perspective that it's optimal to have distinct roles, then spends a lot of time creating subtle mechanisms to align developers with operational pain). So I can't say I recommend this to every engineer.
See my notes for what's worth extracting. Do check out Appendix A as well in particular (how to objectively assess health of service/operations).
For distributed system design, see https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... instead (there is coverage of this topic here, but not nearly as good of a treatment, and there may actually be some misleading recommendations here). Skip those chapters if you read this book (pretty much all of Part I).
Call me pedantic, but these precision failures were disappointing and make you concerned about other areas where they : * saying an SSD's failure rate is /caused/ by how many the manufacturer says each block can be written. * mixing up 'positive feedback loop' and 'negative feedback loop' * talking about exponential growth (correctly) and then saying it's O(n^m) rather than O(m^n) * some horrible atrocity of probability about mean time to repair / fail that i don't want to look back at again to relive the pain to accurately capture here...but tied to poor assumption that a mean completely defines a probability distribution....more
(3.5) Little formulaic and contrived business cases, I enjoyed the demonstration of leadership principles in military setting
The structure of this boo(3.5) Little formulaic and contrived business cases, I enjoyed the demonstration of leadership principles in military setting
The structure of this book is interesting: each chapter is a particular principle that great/extreme leaders demonstrate with three sub-parts: * military (often combat) narrative demonstrating the principle (this is the meat, ~75%, of each chapter) * quick summary of the principle and why it's relevant in combat * short, somewhat generic narrative showing principle in a business context, ostensibly from authors' consulting experience - almost always includes a, "back in Iraq, we couldn't do X, we had to do Y" and a "really?" - the executives always come around in a paragraph or two, making it feel contrived - these were a lot less convincing than the military narratives I thought (though perhaps to someone from the armed forces, they may sound generic, contrived too?)
The lessons are good ones:
* extreme ownership (you own everything that goes wrong, especially when it's the fault of someone in your organization) * no bad teams, only bad leaders (your teams are probably made of good people, if you have a bad leader, however, they can underperform) * believe (you must understand and believe in the larger mission behind a decision in order to lead others. Ask if you don't believe) * check the ego (it's about team success, not you being right or receiving credit) * cover and move (teams must work together with teamwork; no rivalries, competition, finger-pointing) * simple (keep it simple) * prioritize and execute (what is most important thing to decide or do? do that first, then move to the next thing; don't paralyze by doing many things at once) * decentralized command (you can really only manage about 6 people: larger organizations need decision-makers below you) * plan (have a repeatable planning process) * leading up and down the chain of command (give information up to help your leaders trust you; convey big picture to the chain below you so they believe and can operate with decentralized command) * decisiveness and uncertainty (be decisive with the data you have when you need a decision--not deciding is a decision, often not the right one) ...more
(3.0) Overpriced leaflet with some good advice in parable form
It's a parable of a young professional looking for good managers to try to learn the sec(3.0) Overpriced leaflet with some good advice in parable form
It's a parable of a young professional looking for good managers to try to learn the secrets to good management. He finds the "One Minute Manager" who, with the help of his subordinates (themselves becoming One Minute Managers), reveal the secrets to One Minute Management.
Basically: * Have employees set explicit goals that are terse, understandable and agreed-upon by both manager and managee * Give praise immediately when managee does something well; include how it makes you feel * Give praise immediately when an experienced managee makes a mistake they had the skills to avoid making; include how it makes you feel * Make sure your employees are always growing confidence, know where they stand, and take charge of their responsibilities
It would've been a lot more valuable if it were an actual case study in a good manager. As it is we just take it all on faith that the system works. I do give them credit for only turning a 5-page book into a 100-page book instead of 300 like most business books do....more
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