I'm teaching a tutorial at Usenix LISA called "Evil Genius 101: Subversive Ways to Promote DevOps and Other Big Changes".
Whether you are trying to bring "devops culture" to your workplace, or just get approval to purchase a new machine, convincing and influencing people is a big part of a system administrator's time.
For the last few years I've been teaching this class called "Evil Genius 101" where I reveal my tricks for understanding people and swaying their opinion. None of these are actually evil, nor do I teach negotiating techniques. I simply list 3-4 techniques I've found successful for each of these situations: talking to executives, talking to managers, talking to coworkers, and talking to users.
Seating is limited. Register now!
Evil Genius 101: Subversive Ways to Promote DevOps and Other Big Changes
Who should attend:
Sysadmins and managers looking to influence the technology and culture of your organization.
When/Where
Monday, 10-Nov, 1:30pm-5pm at Usenix LISA
Description:
You want to innovate: deploy new technologies such as configuration management, kanban, a wiki, or standardized configurations. Your coworkers don't want change: they like the way things are. Therefore, they consider you evil. However you aren't evil, you just want to make things better. Learn how to talk your team, managers and executives into adopting DevOps techniques and culture.
Take back to work:
- Help your coworkers understand and agree with your awesome ideas
- Convince your manager about anything. Really.
- Get others to trust you so they are more easily convinced
- Deciding which projects to do when you have more projects than time
- Turn the most stubborn user into your biggest fan
- Make decisions based on data and evidence
Topics include:
- DevOps "value mapping" exercise: Understand how your work relates to business needs.
- So much to do! What should you do first?
- How to sell ideas to executives, management, co-workers, and users.
- Simple ways to display data to get your point across better.
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