Nigel Small

This year, I are be mainly posting at @[email protected].

[Derek Devicemanager @IT_unhinged]

Security called me at 6:12 AM today.

"Patch every PHP server immediately."

I asked what happened.

"Two critical vulnerabilities. Remote code execution. No authentication required."

Cool.

How many PHP servers do we have?

According to inventory: 12

According to reality:

Nobody knows.

We found one running WordPress.

Three running old internal tools.

One under someone's desk.

Two inside vendor appliances.

A forgotten employee directory from 2016.

And a server named:

PHP-OLD-DO-NOT-TOUCH

Naturally, that one runs payroll exports.

Then we found a PHP 5.6 box.

I asked who owned it.

The documentation said:

BRIAN.

Brian left in 2019.

We called Brian.

He said:

"Oh wow, that's still running?"

Excellent.

By 8 AM, leadership joined the incident call.

CEO:

"Can hackers actually get in?"

Security:

"Potentially yes."

CEO:

"Without a password?"

Security:

"Yes."

CEO:

"Then why do WE need passwords?"

Not the lesson.

Finance asked if we could wait until the weekend to patch because downtime affects revenue.

Security explained that the alternative was letting strangers execute code on our servers.

Finance asked for a cost comparison.

At 9:17, someone suggested temporarily taking the vulnerable websites offline.

Marketing refused.

"Our campaign is live."

So for the next hour, the company officially decided maintaining a landing page for 20% off webinar registration was more important than preventing remote server takeover.

We finally patched everything we could find.

Then our scanner discovered another PHP server.

Hostname:

TEMP-PHP-2014

Uptime:

4,512 days.

Nobody knows what it does.

Nobody owns it.

Nobody can shut it down.

But every time we block network access, the warehouse stops printing shipping labels.

Security has classified it as critical infrastructure.

It is running PHP 5.4.

The vulnerability has existed longer than half our employees.

The emergency patch took four hours.

Finding out what PHP actually runs took eleven.

The internet isn't held together with code.

It's held together with servers everyone is afraid to turn off.

[Anthony Ronning @anthonyronning]

@sarahwooders brb reverse engineering a markdown file

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

The company hired me to lead their "Agile Transformation."
I don't know what Agile means.
Nobody does.
That's why it works.

I make $425,000 a year.
To move sticky notes.
From left to right.
On a board.
The board is digital now.
The sticky notes cost $80,000 in Jira licenses.
Progress.

Day one, I said "we need to break down silos."
Everyone nodded.
Silos are bad.
I don't know why.
But destroying them is a career.
My career.

I introduced "squads."
Squads are teams.
But disrupted.
We disrupted the teams into teams.
Different names.
Same people.
Same problems.
But Agile problems now.
Agile problems are strategic.

A senior engineer asked what we're actually changing.
I said, "The mindset."
He asked what that means.
I said, "It's a journey."
He asked where we're going.
I said, "Toward agility."
He asked what agility means.
I pointed at the sticky notes.
They were moving left to right.
That's velocity.
We have velocity now.

The VP of Engineering said two-week sprints don't fit their work.
I said, "That's waterfall thinking."
Waterfall is bad.
Like silos.
I don't know what waterfall is.
But I know it's bad.
She stopped talking.
Waterfall accusations end conversations.

We had a retrospective.
In the retro, we discussed what went wrong.
Everything went wrong.
We put it on sticky notes.
Then we moved the sticky notes.
Into a column called "Parking Lot."
The Parking Lot is where problems go to die.
It's full.
We don't look at it.
That's agile.

Velocity is up 40%.
I defined velocity.
I also defined the points.
I also defined the stories.
We're crushing it.
At the things I made up.
To measure.
Ourselves.

The CEO asked for ROI.
I showed a chart.
The chart went up.
Charts should go up.
This one did.
I didn't label the Y-axis.
Nobody asked.
Leadership is confidence.

We do standups now.
Every day.
We stand.
For 45 minutes.
Standing is agile.
Sitting is waterfall.
My legs hurt.
But we're transforming.

The transformation is now "Phase 3."
Phase 1 was assessment.
Phase 2 was implementation.
Phase 3 is "continuous improvement."
Continuous means forever.
Forever means job security.
I'm very secure.

My contract was extended.
Three more years.
For "cultural impact."
The culture is confused.
But impacted.

Agile transformation isn't about being agile.
It's about transforming.
Continuously.
Toward more transformation.
The destination is the journey.
The journey is billable.

[Guild Wars Reforged @GuildWars]

Demand for Guild Wars Reforged blew past our projections, causing long downloads for some non-Steam players. We’re adding servers & exploring new options to fix this before the weekend. Thanks for your patience!

[Nigel Small @technige]

@JudSawyer That, and it's just bad error handling. Uninformative and unhelpful. Wrong on so many levels.

[Nigel Small @technige]

@JudSawyer One can only assume he likes oxtail soup for breakfast.

[Nigel Small @technige]

@JudSawyer From a distance of one stairmaster away? I assume you didn't go along the row, sniffing everyone in turn?

If so, that's potent beef levels.

[Nigel Small @technige]

@rbramley I knew you were a dodgy driver.

[Nigel Small @technige]

@Reuters I literally can't process the triple or quadruple negatives in this to work out what's going on.

[Nigel Small @technige]

@rotnroll666 @ManningBooks @gunnarmorling @pramodsadalage @giswqs @jrdntgn @markhneedham @mesirii Oh, I love DuckDB. I didn't know you three had done this. Now I need to get a copy.

[Nigel Small @technige]

@angrypiln Not sure I fancy a viral hotdog.

[Nigel Small @technige]

@RogerQuimbly How many criminal convictions are considered too many when running for president?

[Nigel Small @technige]

@Redpeter99 More of a puddle.

[Nigel Small @technige]

@shayla__love This is me too. And, similarly, I only found out recently that I was different in this way. But it explains a lot for me, and why I've struggled to do things other people seem to find easy.

[Nigel Small @technige]

@Matt_Pinner @brockpierson Considerably older than that.

[Nigel Small @technige]

@bluxte @PredragGruevski :(

[Nigel Small @technige]

@George_Kurtz SorryNotFoundException

[Nigel Small @technige]

@PaulbernalUK *Looks up from #Linux machine*

What? Has something happened?