Slight Reliability

Send us a textWhat is operational intelligence and how is it different from observability or BI?This week I'm joined by SquaredUp's VP of Innovation Adam Kinniburgh to answer that question and many more including...❓ What is operational intelligence?🙈 Relating observability back to customer, business, or revenue😎 The value of giving stakeholders confidence🌉 Who bridges the gap between tech and business or engineers and leadership?🦋 Correlation VS causation and our innate desire to build connections...and much more.You can find Adam on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamkinniburgh/...and the Operationally Intelligent podcast here:https://squaredup.com/operationally-intelligent/You can find the Slight Reliability merch store here:https://slightreliability.digitees.co.nz/You can find Stephen on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/slightreliability.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SlightReliabilityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/slight_reliability/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_kiwi_sre

Send us a textHow does leading platform teams differ from leading product teams?This week I'm joined by experienced technology leader Dinesh Sukhija to answer that question and many more including...❓ What is a platform team?⚽ Coaching engineers to focus on outcomes☀️ Connecting platform initiatives to business goals✋ Identifying the limiters in your team🎤 Spreading knowledge and avoiding single points of failure...and much more.You can find Dinesh on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dinesh-sukhija/You can find Stephen on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/slightreliability.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SlightReliabilityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/slight_reliability/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_kiwi_sre

Send us a textHow has my first two years as a manager in tech been? What have I learned? What do I need to work on?This week I share my experiences over the past couple of years. I cover:🔥 My recent close call with burnout🫶 How I attempted to build a team culture💪 The importance of tough conversations🥱 How roles and responsibilities might be boring to think about but is critical❓ What's next?...and much more.You can find me on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/slightreliability.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SlightReliabilityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/slight_reliability/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_kiwi_sre

Send us a textHow could AI help human beings negotiate the mountains of telemetry we collect to get simple and fast insight?This week I'm joined by Ottermon AI CEO and founder Checo Pacheco about the lifecycle of observability coverage and tooling within organisations and how AI is helping to find signals amongst the noise and reduce cognitive load for SREs. We discuss...🎂 The need for a layer of logic on top of our telemetry data🚲 The observability lifecycle of a DevOps team🎶 How most orgs have many observability tools, and how we might make that work🤯 Reaching the limits of what humans can comprehend as a reason for AI📕 How poor documentation may become AI's downfall in the future...and much more.You can find Checo on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/checopacheco/You can find more about Ottermon AI on their website: https://www.ottermon.ai/ or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ottermon/You can find Stephen on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/slightreliability.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SlightReliabilityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/slight_reliability/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_kiwi_sre

Send us a textWhat is chaos engineering and how is it being used in 2025?This week I'm joined by Gremlin CEO and founder Kolton Andrus to discuss...🌪️ What is chaos engineering and what is its origins?🪴 How has it evolved over the year?🤖 The role of AI agents in SRE work💰 Justifying the value of chaos engineering🏃‍♀️‍➡️ How do I get started?...and much more.You can find Kolton on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kolton-andrus-77315a2/And you can find out more about Gremlin's new reliability intelligence platform here: https://www.gremlin.com/technologies/reliability-intelligenceYou can find Stephen on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/slightreliability.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SlightReliabilityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/slight_reliability/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_kiwi_sre

Send us a textWhat are Team Topologies? How can they be used to deliver value simpler and more effectively (and in a more humane way)?This week I'm joined by Luke McManus to discuss...⛰️ What are the four team topologies?🏆 Can we have too much collaboration?⌚ Team interaction models🌏 Cognitive load🏃‍♀️‍➡️ Value dynamics mapping...and much more.You can find Luke on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-mcmanus-agile/Check out the recently released second edition of the Team Topologies book by Matthew Skelton and Manual Pais here: https://itrevolution.com/product/team-topologies-second-edition/Or Unbundling the Enterprise by Stephen Fishman and Matt McLarty here: https://itrevolution.com/product/unbundling-the-enterprise/You can find Stephen on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/slightreliability.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SlightReliabilityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/slight_reliability/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_kiwi_sre

Send us a textHow do you begin contributing to an open source project? What's it like? What do you get out of it?This week I'm joined by Wendy Ha who shares her unique story of joining the Kubernetes project and becoming a contributor. We explore...⛰️ What it's like working on one of the biggest open source projects in the world🏆 The benefits of contributing to open source⌚ How much time and effort does it take?🌏 The unique challenges of contributing from APAC (and the need for more contributors in Australia and New Zealand)🏃‍♀️‍➡️ How to get started...and much more.You can find Wendy on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendyha-sut/Ways you can get started contributing to Open Source:CNCF from Zero to Merge Program: https://project.linuxfoundation.org/cncf-zero-to-merge-applicationLFX Mentorship Program: https://mentorship.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/#projects_allOutreachy Mentorship Program: https://www.outreachy.org/mentor/Google Summer of Code: https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/Kubernetes Release Team Shadowing: https://github.com/kubernetes/sig-release/blob/master/release-team/README.md#release-team-shadowYou can find Stephen on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/slightreliability.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SlightReliabilityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/slight_reliability/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_kiwi_sre

Send us a textAs an #SRE how do you influence senior leadership to get support and priority for the things you care about?To answer this question I'm joined by Nora Jones, founder of Jeli and now Head of Pricing, Product Strategy and Growth at PagerDuty. Our conversation touches on...🤝 How understanding needs to flow both ways (between engineers and leaders)🎨 Reliability is as much an art as a science📝 Using napkin math to start conversations🧠 Understand the system (your org) before trying to change it💬 Using micro-interactions to gradually implement change...and so much more.You can find Nora on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/norajones1/You can find more about PagerDuty here: https://www.pagerduty.com/nlp/trial-sign-up/You can find Stephen on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/slightreliability.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SlightReliabilityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/slight_reliability/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_kiwi_sre

Send us a textThis week I do a retrospective on the Slight Reliability podcast.👂 How many people listen to it?❤️ How do I feel about the show?🎉 What's going well?🪴 What could be better?❔ What's next for the show?If you want to check out the podcast that came before Slight Reliability, you can find Performance Time archived on YouTube here:https://www.youtube.com/@performance-timeYou can find Stephen on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/slightreliability.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SlightReliabilityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/slight_reliability/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_kiwi_sre

Send us a textHave you burned out at work? What was your experience? How did you work through it?This week I'm joined by the incredible Colette Alexander to discuss what burnout is, what it means, and we both share our personal experiences burning out at work. We cover...🔥 What is burnout?❓ Why does it happen?🫀 What are the symptoms?🥊 Fight, flight, or freeze🧑‍🚒 Advice on how to recover...and much more.Resources from the show...Why you're so angry at work (and what to do about it) by Natalie Rothfels https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-youre-so-angry-at-workBurnout (book) by Amelia and Emily Nagoski https://www.burnoutbook.net/ How to do nothing (book) by Jenny Odell https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600671/how-to-do-nothing-by-jenny-odell/You can find Colette on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colette-alexander-4168267/You can find the This Is Fine! podcast here: https://www.thisisfinepod.com/You can find Stephen on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/slightreliability.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SlightReliabilityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/slight_reliability/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_kiwi_sre