So what else is there to say at the end of 2023 other than "Phew, we made it!"?

What did you learn this year? I learned that microservices architectures can be punishing for inexperienced teams and that monolithic architectures, while simpler, can be similarly perplexing when you mix cloud build cycles and tool integrations. In our modern hybrid-cloud enterprise, we increasingly need network chops to make sense of the connectivity of our solutions and the tooling that supports them. My network knowledge is and has always been on a strictly "look it up when I need it" basis. I'm a product developer first, a sys admin and tools guy second, and networks are just one of those things that stand in my way rather than truly enable my way of working. Perhaps next year, I need to work on a philosophy of 'just enough' networking for DevOps happiness..?

Something to think about.

I've included a few of the latest blog links. In a flurry of end-of-year reading, I summarised a few books I read or started to read in 2023 and rounded up a recent Backstage Proof of Concept.

There's not much more to add other than to say I've just been confirmed as a speaker at two events for next year, so it seems that I'm going to be hitting Belgium (ConfigManagementCamp in Ghent in February) and (Agile) Manchester in May next year to keep spreading the message of human-oriented DevOps and the inevitability of socio-technical systems.

Wishing you a very end-of-year break, I hope you get to spend some restful time with your loved ones.

Best wishes for 2024.

-- Richard

​What you need to know before running a Backstage Proof of Concept​

Published on December 20, 2023

This article is a jumping-off point to understanding what Backstage is and how you would run a proof-of-concept with it for your organisation. This is based on the work that I’ve done with my clients and from talking to those who have been through the process themselves in other organisations. Before I started, the main… Read More »What you need to know before running a Backstage Proof of Concept​

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​New Books in 2023​

Published on December 18, 2023

Books and research formed a large part of my work in 2023 and will continue to play a large part next year. There is a lot to be said about reading a good book, and there are plenty of them out there. When you stumble upon one, you tend to find a few more and… Read More »New Books in 2023​

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​Navigating the Labyrinth of Technical Leadership​

Published on December 12, 2023

If you have ever been frustrated by your day job – I feel you. This stuff is hard. I’ve been doing it professionally for nigh-on 30 years, and the bad news (and also the good news) is that it doesn’t get any easier. Year on year, project on project, company on company. And the worst… Read More »Navigating the Labyrinth of Technical Leadership​

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