Brian talks with Dave Zwieback (@mindweather; Head of Engineering @NextBigSound) about his book “Beyond Blame”, the challenging cultures of web-scale and DevOps, understanding complex and chaotic systems and how to lead through problems.

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Show Links:

"Beyond Blame" book

Dave’s Blog - Simple Thoughts on Complex Systems

Topic 1 - Tell us about your background and the things you’re doing at NextBigSound.

Topic 2 - You’re at VelocityConf this week. What topics are you really interested in or focused on?

Topic 3 - Let’s talk about your book “Beyond Blame”. What was the motivation to write it and why choose the storytelling model (similar to The Phoenix Project)?

Topic 4 - Is there a “journey to better post-mortems”  or “learning review” model, or is this an all-or-nothing approach?

Topic 5 - The book talks a lot about accountability, and there is an area where “accountability” is defined very differently than we tend to use it today (“blame”). It’s one thing to discuss empathy, because that’s not really taught in any formal courses or via team/group things (e.g. sports). How to you expand or redefine a well-understood concept?