InfoQ ยท Dec 8 2020
Given the scale, complexity, and speed modern IT systems operate at, surprises are an inevitable part of managing digital infrastructure. Ongoing innovation, changes in company priorities and introducing new technology into the stack means that engineers who work on continuously available services are in a constant state of learning and adapting. Because of this, well-calibrated leaders make on-going, continuous investments in supporting their teams to safely adapt under conditions of uncertainty and time pressure.
Several studies (Allspaw, 20151; Grayson, 20182; Maguire, 20203) have closely examined how software engineers respond to surprising service outages. While the authors may have stopped short of explicitly calling them resilient practice techniques, they represent classes of strategies used by engineers to sustain resilience. Less studied, however, are the strategies used by engineering leaders to help create the conditions for sustained resilience. This article begins to do that.
ResearchGate