Sometimes you just run into a situation you have to blog about. This time, I want to talk about the fun error messages that everyone is supposed to be watching out for.
Whenever a process errors out, in most corporate environments there is usually one of two things that happen:
- Someone manually notifies a specified group of people of the error message from the process.
- The process automatically notifies a specified group of people of the error message from the process.
This notification can be done via email, Slack, Teams, phone calls, carrier pigeons, or various means. (I don’t think the broken process will use a carrier pigeon but you never know…)
As a leader in your group, be sure to make sure that the error in that process is fixed as quickly as possible – mainly to make sure it doesn’t happen again the next time the process runs. If the team does not check on these processes each time or work towards a solution so that the process doesn’t break again – there is a problem.
Everyone should be held accountable to make sure that Production is fixed quickly. That’s not just the developers. It’s the PMs, the POs, the Directors, and even the Scrum Masters’ task to make sure Production is running smoothly.
If Production is not being fixed – even with the smallest of errors – then there is something fundamentally wrong with the process.
There are many reasons to make sure it’s fixed:
- The processes are in place to let you know there is an error with the data or process and should be fixed to complete the process.
- Until the error is fixed, then you are known to be running a broken process in Production. This does not look good for you or anyone on your team.
- The group that monitors the processes can see that your process has failed several times in a row. That gives them little confidence in the next time that it runs – which is not a good thing for anyone.
Hopefully, it never gets to the point where a process fails so often that other groups are laughing at your team’s inability to even get one process working consistently.
And with that, I will get off of my soapbox. Hopefully, more people understand that it’s not just one person’s responsibility to keep processes running in Production – it’s an entire team’s responsibility. If the team can’t do it for some reason, reach out to others until it’s fixed.
Until next time my friends!