Hi,

You probably know this feeling. You want to make a Breaking-Change in your system. Maybe you want to change an API. Or you’d like to switch up your environments. Or you want to shut down a service because it’s no longer needed.

Whenever I face such a decision, I wonder about its consequences. Will it affect other stakeholders? The answer is often, yes.

This is the case now. I want to conduct deployments more frequently in an environment. It’s used to test the upcoming release. And, to keep the feedback loop short, I always want the current development status on the platform.

When I made the suggestion, there were major concerns in the team. Will it disrupt the QA department’s processes? What if the platform goes down for hours because something™️ doesn’t work?

It’s fear speaking

Better to stick with the current situation - after all, that’s how we’ve always done it.

But the truth is: With this attitude, we don’t make progress.

So, I pressed on and suggested to just go for it. We could start with nightly deployments. That way, at least no one gets interrupted during the day.

But even that wasn’t enough. What if we overlooked something? What if someone else is affected? And we just don’t know it yet?

And the QA, of course, was not amused. “What if we can’t work because of this?”

You can’t win these discussions. It’s a killer argument. Driven by fear. By uncertainty. Better no decision than a wrong one.

In such cases, I practice Scream-Driven-Development

There comes a time when you just have to go for it. Until someone screams.

Of course, you shouldn’t intentionally hinder others.

Of course, you should bring all interests together to the best of your knowledge and belief.

But in the end, there will always be uncertainty. Our work is too complex for you to have an overview of everything, all the time.

You have to establish facts at some point. And it’s best to do that without wasting hours and weeks in meetings where participants keep pushing away from the decision in a spiral of fear and apprehensions.

Just do it

You’ll be surprised how rarely there’s an actual outcry.

In most cases, everyone quickly realizes that the right thing was done.

Be brave - but not reckless.

ps. I’m on my way to Berlin right now. For the RabbitMQ Summit, to give the keynote “The Performance Mindset” . There will be a recording - and as soon as it’s available, you’ll definitely hear about it 😉.

Rule the Backend,

~ Marcus