Link: When Culture Doesn’t Translate

Unfortunately, the Thai manager told me, his U.S. colleagues usually didn’t send the agenda until an hour before the call, so his team was unable to prepare. And it struggled to understand what was said during the call, because the U.S. participants spoke too quickly. He also said that the Americans rarely invited comments from the Thais, expecting them to jump into the conversation as they themselves would. But that kind of intervention is not the norm in Thailand, where it is much less common to speak if not invited or questioned.

Link: When Culture Doesn’t Translate

Unfortunately, the Thai manager told me, his U.S. colleagues usually didn’t send the agenda until an hour before the call, so his team was unable to prepare. And it struggled to understand what was said during the call, because the U.S. participants spoke too quickly. He also said that the Americans rarely invited comments from the Thais, expecting them to jump into the conversation as they themselves would. But that kind of intervention is not the norm in Thailand, where it is much less common to speak if not invited or questioned.

Link: Cyber Airmen fuel innovation

Any problems discovered in the software can be more easily corrected, a small failure being preferable to correcting the shortfalls of an entire software suite. Changes requested by the customer can sometimes be delivered in just a couple days. Prior to Jigsaw, the tanker mission planners would use whiteboards to plot out their fueling rendezvous. “Rather than taking hours to run the calculations by hand for the hundreds of sorties scheduled each day to find a feasible plan,” Tatro said.

Link: Cyber Airmen fuel innovation

Any problems discovered in the software can be more easily corrected, a small failure being preferable to correcting the shortfalls of an entire software suite. Changes requested by the customer can sometimes be delivered in just a couple days. Prior to Jigsaw, the tanker mission planners would use whiteboards to plot out their fueling rendezvous. “Rather than taking hours to run the calculations by hand for the hundreds of sorties scheduled each day to find a feasible plan,” Tatro said.

The one minute pitch at DevOpsDays

As a DevOpsDays sponsor you’re often given the chance to give a one minute pitch to the entire audience. Back stage at DevOps Rex, this week, I was talking with a first timer. One minute seems like such a small amount of time: how could you say anything consequential in 60 seconds? You’re presenting in front of the full audience, anywhere between 150 to 500 people. They probably also loath vendors, or, at least are bored by them.