Overwhelmed by Ambiguity: DevOps, Innovation, and the Search for Clarity with Daniel Lemire (3/4)

What happens when there is too much change at once after making a job change? Daniel Lemire had learned the principles of DevOps and combined it with his experience as an infrastructure architect to advocate for the adoption of new technologies and processes within a large enterprise. But when Daniel changed roles to focus on innovation and became a senior manager at the same time, there were many challenges for which he was unprepared. In fact, at times it was overwhelming.

In the 3rd installment of Daniel Lemire’s story in episode 325, you’ll hear Daniel’s reasons for focusing on innovation in the first place, why he continued to persevere through challenges, the stress and impact of layoff events, and the unexpected way he found clarity amidst the ambiguity.

Original Recording Date: 03-20-2025

Daniel Lemire is an AI Consultant working for ServiceNow. He’s also the creator of AI Mistakes. If you missed parts 1 or 2 of our discussion with Daniel, check out Episode 323 and Episode 324

Topics – A Personal DevOps Value Story, Planting Seeds of Innovation, The Challenges of Impactful Innovation, Progressing from Overwhelm to Clarity

3:33 – A Personal DevOps Value Story

• Daniel needed a reset and to determine how he could contribute to the organization where he worked. That’s about the time he discovered DevOps.
  • After a recommendation from a colleague within the security organization, Daniel read The Phoenix Project, and it has changed his career trajectory for the better. He read the book not long after its release.
  • Reading the book also changed the way Daniel thinks so he is able to help companies create value.
  • “…When I read it, I didn’t understand what was so great about it. I just knew there was something there that I needed…. I read it and I got really excited about it. But I didn’t really know what to do with it.” – Daniel Lemire
  • Not long after reading The Phoenix Project, Daniel recommended the book to a colleague who worked on the security and compliance team. There was a character in the book named John who starts off being very stressed but for whom things improve greatly during the course of the story.
    • “After he finished the book, he came back to me and he’s like, ‘let’s do something with this….’ I still didn’t know what to do with it.” – Daniel Lemire
    • Daniel’s colleague recommended they start by meeting and having a conversation.
    • After their initial meeting, Daniel and his colleague started meeting on a weekly basis. They started talking about The Three Ways and how these could be applied to make things better. Daniel and his colleague gave a presentation to a large portion of the IT Operations team to share thoughts on the way people do work and how to improve it.
    • “It really helped them think through some of their organizational challenges and the things that needed to be done because that was also a difficult time across our technology organization because of the big changes that were being made. But the lightbulb didn’t really all the way come on for me until The DevOps Handbook came out and I got the concrete ‘these are the things that matter to