SREcon16 Europe

General Stanley McChrystal led the Joint Special Operations Task Force in Iran in the mid to late 2000's. While in command of the Task Force, he was responsible for transforming an organization which was dominated by Taylorist reductionism into an agile, responsive network which could dynamically adapt and win in the threat landscape around them. In his book Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, he outlines the key learnings that emerged from that process. The same issues and challenges face site reliability engineers and managers for SRE teams as we cope with the complexity of our own and partner ecosystems. In this talk, I will highlight the key points fromTeam of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World and show how the solutions that helped make the Task Force successful can be applied to make SRE teams succeed too.

Outline:
Taylorism: Efficiency and Command Structure
Teams: Purpose Over Procedure
Shared Awareness: Democratizing Information - Everyone "Needs to Know"
Empowered Execution: "Eyes on - Hands Off"
Lead Like a Gardener: Fostering and Cultivating Organizational Culture