DevOps

I have been leading infrastructure and security teams for over a decade, and one problem keeps coming back: knowledge does not spread on its own. Unlike a development team where everyone shares a stack, an infrastructure team is a collection of specialists, each owning a different product. When that specialist takes a vacation – or leaves – their knowledge often walks out with them. In this post I share what I have learned about why knowledge management is harder in infrastructure teams and the practices that have helped my teams keep knowledge in the room. ...

When I started leading an IT infrastructure team and introduced Kanban, I quickly realized that adopting agile methods would be far from trivial. Most Kanban guidance assumes a development team shipping features, but infrastructure work is heterogeneous, interrupt-driven, and partly executed by contractors – a mix that a standard board does not accommodate without adaptation. I faced several challenges and, over time, found a few adjustments that helped the team align around shared goals and keep work moving. ...