As devops practitioners we focus on improving the culture of collaboration so that others play nicely with us & we play nicely with others - but what if the biggest thing holding us back from change is our own brains?
Cognitive biases can deeply affect our behaviours towards others by herding us towards mental shortcuts that are optimised for timeliness over accuracy, at the expense of rationalising irrational behaviour.
You are probably pushing these biases onto other people every day but don't even know it. Does that idea make you feel unconfortable? You are probably experiencing the Semmelweis reflex kicking your confirmation bias right now.
Knowing is half the battle. This talk will delve into some of the well-known and less well-known biases that may be affecting your ability to work with your peers, and your team's ability to work constructively with other teams.
Attendees will leave the talk with an overview of biases they run into every day, how to hack their brains to use these biases to their advantage, and some tips on how to mitigate the effects of the limitations baked into their wetware.
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Speaker:
Lindsay Holmwood
Lindsay Holmwood is a engineering manager living in the Australian Blue Mountains. He is the creator of Visage & cucumber-nagios, and organises the Sydney DevOps Meetup. He runs a distributed infracoders team at Bulletproof Networks, that builds hassle free tools, and was responsible for ensuring 100% uptime for the 2010 + 2011 + 2012 Movember campaigns. In his spare time, Lindsay organises the monthly Sydney DevOps Meetups. He also won third place at the 1996 Sydney Royal Easter Show LEGO building competition.
27. Pattern matching
Heuristics are simple, efficient rules often used by people to form judgements and make
decisions.
Involve focusing on specific information, and ignoring others.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/buttim/1297081125/sizes/o
44. Who is clueless enough to think
Colbert is a conservative?
•
Why do conservatives like
Stephen Colbert?
•
Ohio study finds conservatives
believe Colbert dislikes liberalism
•
http://althouse.blogspot.com.au/2006/05/who-is-clueless-enough-to-think.html
http://www.alternet.org/story/137918/why_do_conservatives_like_stephen_colbert
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/ohio-study-finds-conservatives-believe
54. Take opposing
viewpoints
In studies of stock markets, investors made more profit when the resisted bias.
To combat the effects, investors can adopt a contrary viewpoint "for the sake of argument".
Krueger, David; Mann, John David (2009), The Secret Language of Money: How to Make Smarter Financial Decisions and
Live a Richer Life, McGraw Hill Professional, pp. 112–113,ISBN 978-0-07-162339-1, OCLC 277205993
55. Is your conclusion
negative?
It could be biased.
Cognitive therapy is a type of psychotherapy developed in the 1960's that has become a
popular approach to combating cognitive biases.
As new data tends to reinforce existing opinions, cognitive therapy teaches people to
interpret new data impartially.
57. Good collaboration?
Free pass on infractions
When people are given feedback that conflicts with their self image, they regard it as
unreliable and are less likely to act on it.
78. Asiana pilot "couldn't see runway before crash"
•
Pilots in Asiana crash relied on automatic equipment for airspeed
•
Asiana says crash pilot was in training
•
Inexperienced pilots may be cause of Asiana jet crash
•
Asiana pilots "stayed silent until two seconds before crash"
•
Fears pilots' manual flying skills eroding after Asiana crash
•
•
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2013/07/10/12/43/asiana-pilot-couldn-t-see-runwaybefore-crash
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/17940112/asiana-flight-crew-saw-troubleat-500-feet-u-s-safety-board-says/
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/crash-pilots-wanted-to-abort-landing-asboeing-777-approached-airport-too-low-investigators/story-e6frg6so-1226675762698
http://www.theguardian.com.au/story/1628513/inexperienced-pilots-may-be-cause-ofasiana-jet-crash/?cs=5
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/asiana-airline-pilots-stayed-silentuntil-two-seconds-before-crash-at-san-francisco-airport-8698477.html
http://www.news.com.au/world-news/fears-pilots-manual-flying-skills-eroding-afterasiana-airlines-crash-in-san-francisco/story-fndir2ev-1226676769126
94. Act on data,
not feelings
Scientific method works great for experimentation, but things fall down once you publish
your evidence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias
95. Explain in terms
of foresight
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias#Judicial_system
120. Minimal training
Improved self-assessment
DevOps in a nutshell
grossly incompetent subjects improved their ability to self-assess own skills level after
minimal training
regardless of an actual improvement in that skill
123. Ethnic diversity
most of the studies of dunning-kruger have been in western cultures
preliminary research suggests there may be an opposite effect in east-asian cultures
130. How vulnerable to
these biases are you?
Quick show of hands - given everything you've just heard about these biases, how vulnerable
to them do you think you are?
131. •
"I'm aware of my biases"
•
"These don't affect me"
•
"I am better than average"
178. •
Further reading
•
You Are Not So Smart - David McRaney
Sway: The irresistible pull of irrational
behavior - Ori Brafman
•
•
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
•
Checklist Manifesto - Atul Gawande
The field guide to understanding
human error - Sidney Dekker
•
http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-So-Smart/dp/1592407366/
http://www.amazon.com/Sway-Irresistible-Pull-Irrational-Behavior/dp/0385530609/
http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555/
http://www.amazon.com/The-Checklist-Manifesto-Things-Right/dp/0312430000/
http://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error/dp/0754648265/