Are you familiar with the term resiliency?
Not the one used in psychology, the one used in technology.
Resiliency (as I discuss it here) is the quality of systems to not merely withstand assaults (defects, attacks, etc) – that would be robustness. A very desirable trait of course.
But perhaps it would be even more desirable to create systems which are more than robust: they might be designed such that they will actually grow more robust when exposed to disturbances or attacks: they learn, and grow to be more robust.
How does one create robust systems? This can only be done by incorporating both feedback and creativity into a system.
For a technical system (say, an online shop), feedback will be technical in nature: monitoring, logging, all the things we use to learn what’s going on.
Creativity, on the other hand, I view as an innate human quality. So, in consequence, humans must be part of a resilient system (“the shop”), and be enabled to bring their unique capabilities to bear.
To me, this is the definition of DevOps: to put humans in the center of our efforts, and give them the tools to concentrate on what they do best, delegating the more mundane tasks to the machine.
How do you create resiliency in your organisation? Please write me – I’d love to know!