People crave order. They especially crave order from services. They expect their fast-food orders to be correct and they expect the cable television installer to arrive within their scheduled window. They expect FEMA to help them when disaster strikes. They expect to be able to get 4G signal from anywhere on the planet. They expect their elected officials to keep the promises they made during their campaign (or worry that they might…), and to paraphrase Master Carlin, they expect people to drive like neither idiots nor maniacs.

All too frequently, they’re disappointed when these expectations aren’t met.

If you work in any automation-related field, the muggles will view you as a wizard. At least in the beginning. You’re automating their builds, but they still have to check the test reports. You automated the testing check, but they still have to push the button. You automated the deployment, but they’re still able to deploy things that break.

WHY CAN’T YOU MAKE MAGIC HAPPEN, WIZARD? DIDN’T YOU GET A MS IN CS FROM HOGWARTS?

Dealing with providing service to a automation-consuming user base, technically proficient or otherwise, has a number of challenges and this EXTREMELY TERSE talk will seek to address some of those challenges. It will attempt to cover

• Estimation
• “Done”-ness (aka LGTM)
• Needs for testing
• Recruiting your user=base to assist you in defining completeness