Building Platforms with empathy and yaml at the lego group

Very nice kids playing with lego intro analogy about creativity, sharing and colaboration.

The golden brick

  • The brick could get picked up and sometimes picking it up is mandatory
  • Devemopment in close colab and trust with users
  • Focus on good enough instead of perfect but everyone is unhapy

Guidelines

  • API first: Define a speration beween users and services with abstractions
  • Self services: Freedom of choice and combination
  • Constraints that are soft and can be modified on feedback

Offers

  • Kubernetes as a service
  • Runtime as a Service: NAmespace as a service with argo and without cluster access
    • Problem: Users want kubeapi access
    • Method: Talk with the users
    • Solution: Zero Trust proxy that provides operational access to kubeapi via OIDC
  • There are multiple APIs that can be combined -> You need constraints

What’s needed

  • Conversation
  • Trust
  • Striking a balance

The human aspect

  • Treat people as colleagues instead of customers
  • Build empathy to reach a ballanced “good enough”
  • Lead with transparency: Publish your metrics
  • Visit their context
  • Explore unknowns together
  • Create a shared understanding of challenges

Team culture

  • Know who you are helping an who helps you
  • Empower them to shine by getting to know their context
  • Hear them out in small meetings ore in person

Platform maturity

TODO: Steal maturity chart