But problems, like dog poop left in the rain, rarely get better just by ignoring them.

In another area of the room, an engineer is talking heatedly to somebody on the phone, “Yes, we copied the file that you gave us… Yes, it’s version 1.0.13… What do you mean it’s the wrong version… What? When did you change that?… Copy it now and try again… Okay, look, but I’m telling you this isn’t going to work… I think it’s a networking problem… What do you mean we need to open up a firewall port? Why the hell didn’t you tell us this two hours ago? Goddamnit!”

“The First Way helps us understand how to create fast flow of work as it moves from Development into IT Operations, because that’s what’s between the business and the customer. The Second Way shows us how to shorten and amplify feedback loops, so we can fix quality at the source and avoid rework. And the Third Way shows us how to create a culture that simultaneously fosters experimentation, learning from failure, and understanding that repetition and practice are the prerequisites to mastery.”

You must figure out how to control the release of work into IT Operations and, more importantly, ensure that your most constrained resources are doing only the work that serves the goal of the entire system, not just one silo.

“a ‘change’ is any activity that is physical, logical, or virtual to applications, databases, operating systems, networks, or hardware that could impact services being delivered.”

I’m excited that we’re meeting to analyze the situation, instead of just reacting to the daily fires.

As the saying goes, if your colleague tells you they’ve decided to quit, it was voluntary. But when someone else tells you they’ve decided to quit, it was mandatory.

Do not assume blogging means that you think people care about what you have to say. They don’t, trust me.

Understand the difference between a cost reduction and cost avoidance. You cannot claim to be saving your household millions of dollars a year by not buying diamonds, could you?

Never confuse logic with business intelligence.