Jeff Sussna talks with Dave Rael about design thinking, the importance and meaning of empathy, and seeing what is important
Jeff Sussna is an internationally recognized IT consultant and design thinking practitioner. He is known throughout the DevOps community, especially for introducing the importance of empathy in building effective DevOps practices. Jeff has nearly 30 years of experience in software development, QA, and operations, and has led projects for Fortune 500 enterprises, major technology companies, and software service startups. He is the author of Designing Delivery: Rethinking IT In the Digital Service Economy, and is a highly respected teacher, writer, and speaker on topics across the Agile/DevOps/Design Thinking spectrum.
Chapters:
- - Dave introduces the show and Jeff Sussna
- - What is design thinking?
- - Empathy and it's different meanings and aspects and how it relates to design thinking
- - Empathy: The Essence of DevOps
- - Jeff's perspective having had many roles in organizations and how to gain perspective without that broad experience
- - Organizational structure and putting the pieces back together
- - Communication of different parts of organizations as speaking different languages and the utility of using the same tools
- - Jeff, the generalist as a restless multi-disciplinarian
- - Jeff's story of failure - conflicting inscentives
- - Jeff's coaching, guidance, and emphasis
- - Jeff's success story - the rewards of improving the quality of existence for real people
- - The things about which Jeff is most excited
- - Jeff the trainer
- - The things about which Jeff likes to geek out
- - Buddhism, mindfulness, and seeing what is important
- - Mindfullness practice
- - Jeff's top 3 tips for delivering more value
- - Keeping up with Jeff
Resources:
- Jeff's site, business, and blog
- Designing Delivery: Rethinking IT in the Digital Service Economy - Jeff Sussna
- Design Thinking
- Cybernetics
- How Empathy Fuels the Creative Process: Seung Chan Lim (Slim) at TEDxWellesleyCollege
- Jeff's Blog Post: Empathy: The Essence of DevOps
- More on Empathy and DevOps from Jeff's Blog
- The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts - Gary Chapman
- The Leadenhall Building
- ITIL Definition of Service
Jeff's book recommendation:
Jeff's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
- Shift your emphasis outward from what you're doing to what you customers are trying to accomplish
- Talk to each other
- Iterate