GitLab Commit Virtual 2020
GitLab is a complete DevOps platform that allows users to not only develop software but also plan, manage, monitor, and anything else related to creating software on a single platform. GitLab Commit is an annual event held by GitLab for its user community throughout the globe, and this year they brought the experience inside our homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As an admirer of the company’s pioneering efforts in remote work as well as my interest to gain a deeper understanding of DevOps, I attended this live 24-hour virtual event and documented my experience in this article.
Opening Keynote & Learning/Teaching GitLab
The theme “You Belong Here” was infused throughout various talks as well as the whole experience, especially in the opening keynote by CEO Sid Sijbrandij. What stood out to me the most in this session were GitLab certifications. Through these certifications GitLab offers training in using its software (for non-developers) as well as remote work & management. These certifications are designed to demonstrate competency in these topics. I will be taking a deeper look at these courses and encourage others to watch this space as I suspect it will be expanding quite quickly in the near future.
Feu Morek’s session on Teaching the Basics About GitLab basics was quite insightful. Many free training materials were offered during this session:
- Netways Training & Repository
- Free Course by GitHub Learning Lab
Talks About Remote Work
Eimear Marrinan (Director of Culture) and Meaghan Williams (Remote Work & Inclusion Program Manager) from HubSpot talked about “How to Create an Inclusive Culture”. They defined culture as a concept that goes beyond the physical space; it is our personality, values, and beliefs fundamental to our organization and empowers people to make great autonomous decisions at scale. HubSpot has documented its culture in detail and you can learn more in HubSpot’s Culture Code Deck. They have also created a free resource to help others create their own company culture. Since HubSpot started out as a hybrid company much of its efforts were focused on switching from remote inclusive to remote first such as removing in-office biases and assuming a hybrid environment at all times when planning meetings/events. Additionally, the importance of having a powerful knowledge management system was emphasized. GitLab’s handbook is an excellent example of such a knowledge management system.
Daniel Pupius (Co-Founder & CEO) and Nicholas Walsh (CMO) from Range offered insight on “Stronger Remote Cultures — Rethink Your Work Week”. The current 9-to-5 work day designed by Henry Ford during the industrial revolution is outdated and not optimized for today’s high-skilled jobs. Organizations that limit flexibility create low-trust working environments in which productivity does not reach its true potential. Performance and well-being need to be balanced when it comes to structuring work schedules and people need to acknowledge the fact that everyone’s needs are different. For example, melatonin levels fluctuate at different rates and sequences (circadian rhythm) for each person, and this affects your focus and problem-solving ability. You can find out where you fall based on when you want to naturally wake up in the morning and when you want to go to sleep. If you find the midpoint, that can help you determine if you are a lark, owl or thirdbird.
- Lark: midpoint is before 3:30PM
- Third bird: middle area
- Owl: midpoint after 5:30PM
They introduced a concept called Windowed Work, which refers to breaking up work in multiple disjointed blocks. Since our needs are constantly changing, we should plan and update our schedules every week, communicate with our team to set expectations, and color code schedules to show availability (green = deep work, yellow = working but may have to step away, red = family/personal time).
Founder of Friday, Luke Thomas, in his talk “That Meeting Should Have Been an Email” mentioned the importance of asynchronous communication for remote teams. The key ingredient to remote work is flexibility; however, in order to create that flexible environment you need to reduce your dependency on the real time to get work done. Information sharing is something that can and should be done before any meeting. Asynchronous communication provides additional benefits such as:
- the ability to edit and revise information,
- it can be referenced at a later time, and
- it is skimmable and you can read what is most relevant in terms of status updates.
For each type of meeting you have, he suggested creating templates to ask questions before the meeting in an asynchronous format. This reduces the meeting time and allows for clear and efficient information sharing among team members. He also shared a handy chart to help you decide what communication method to choose based on your working relationship with the colleague and the conversation type (below).
Review
Topics ranged from GitLab tips and tricks to leading transformation to effective remote work strategies. I found the online platform to be a bit convoluted, and attending the sessions live could have been smoother if the schedule itself could link to the sessions. Since recordings were available later, I attended a few live sessions then watched recordings of other sessions at a later date. You can view recordings of the sessions on GitLab TV. The live experience allowed attendees to benefit from peer interactions, network, take part in giveaways, and directly connect with speakers. Overall, it was an enriching experience that allowed me to learn more about GitLab, DevOps, and effective remote work strategies.
