As a Frontend Engineer turned DevOps Engineer, I've learned the importance of optimizing team productivity and efficiency. But let's face it, DevOps is not just about mean time to recovery or continuous integration pipelines, it's about making work fun and playful. So, in collaboration with my colleague Karl Monney, we've come up with four simple questions that will help streamline processes and keep things playful.

The Four Questions

1. What's your endgame, and how does this task fit in?

Tell me what you want to achieve with this task and how it fits into your grand scheme of things. It's like playing a game of chess. We need to know your strategy so we can help you execute your moves.

2. What can you offer to speed things up?

We know you're busy, and so are we. So, let's make things more efficient. What do you have that can help us get the job done faster? Screenshots, links, or code snippets, you name it. If you want it fast, give us the tools to do it.

3. How is this affecting you right now, and how can it help us establish priorities with our own work?

We get it. You're under pressure, and we don't want to add to it. So, tell us how this task is impacting you right now, and we'll make sure it gets done with the urgency it deserves. Not only does this help us understand your pain points, but it also helps us establish priorities with our own work. We want to make sure that we're addressing the most critical issues first, so your feedback is critical.

4. How will you know when it's done?

It's all about setting clear expectations. So, let us know what "done" means to you, and we'll make sure to hit the mark. We want you to feel confident that when we say it's done, it's done.

Conclusion

These four questions are easy to use and will keep things playful while helping us streamline processes, establish priorities, and define completion criteria. Whether you're a designer, developer, or a DevOps engineer, these questions can be used by anyone, anytime, anywhere. So, let's get playful and make work fun again!