Last week I learned once again how powerful and strong my team can be.
We had just upgraded the latest improvements, truly revolutionizing our architecture and the way things work (faster, much faster), when suddenly we started experiencing some strange phenomena.
When you have a production system up and running, and such things happen it can be scary, very scary. As all good software engineers are, we can also be a little bit of “control freaks.” Therefore strange phenomena make us feel nervous, out of control, somewhat unconfident. And this is where the amazing power of a good team comes to play.
A standard practice we have when we face these situations, is to immediately setup a task force, and get into action. We have frequent brain storming sessions, analyze all symptoms, identify leads, list action items, and assign them among team members. Every one or two hours we get together again, identify our situation, the progress we’ve made, insights we’ve gained, and go on to continue the battle.
And it never fails. Get a good team together, and the magic is bound to happen. Slowly the picture starts to get clearer. Strange phenomena are not that strange anymore. Things start making sense. And out of this blurriness comes the spark. Someone raises an idea, an ingenious theory that solves it all. This time it was Ze’ev (big kudos Ze’ev!) who came up with it, that final piece of information that solved the mystery. As a result, we found the bug of two 3rd party products colliding with one another and affecting the server in a delicate scenario.
Two positive outcomes emerged from last week’s happenings: first, we solved the problem. Second: we gained more confidence as a team. Every such event, every such experience helps us gain more confidence in our power as a group, and hence makes us a better team!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of the members of this amazing task force: Saffi, Ze’ev, Dario, Rami, Alex, Roy, Nir, Alik and Rona. Great job guys!
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