BambooHR & Blameless: “Setting people free to do great work”

Starting From Core Principles

Dave Petersen, the Director of IT Operations at BambooHR, appreciates the complexity of building and maintaining complex systems. Dave’s experience in ITOps and system administration stretches back to the mid-90’s. In joining BambooHR, he’s discovered an interesting alignment between his role as an IT leader and his company’s mission.

‍

{{quote1}}

‍

BambooHR was founded in 2008 by Ben Peterson and Ryan Sanders to empower HR pros, employees, and organizations everywhere to simplify complicated processes and streamline time-consuming tasks so they can focus on supporting their people and thriving in their roles. If there ever was a corporate mission that aligns better with the philosophical goal of an IT Operations leader, we haven’t heard it.

Of course, Dave isn’t alone. With the help of process engineer Jordan Jones and systems engineer Weston Sundwall, The IT Operations group at BambooHR is on its own mission to set its engineering organization free to do great work by making incident management a mechanism for continuous improvement rather than a never-ending process of fighting fires.

‍

Understanding The Challenge Confronted by BambooHR

The last several years have been a period of rapid growth for BambooHR. In 2022, they became the #1 HR solution in EMEA and APAC for tech customers.1 This rapid growth brought forth some significant new challenges in incident management for Dave Petersen and the team.

‍

{{quote2}}

‍

That pain Dave describes was felt across the entire engineering group as system engineers like Weston Sundwall and on-call engineers for customer-facing microservices battled with a growing number of disruptions.

‍

{{quote3}}

‍

The company recognized the need for a suite of tools that automate workflows around incident management and create better feedback loops for incident learning in the process. This need became acute as the frequent context switching between engineering and firefighting modes was disrupting innovation and development schedules, while the lack of a process for tracking minor incidents was leading to repeated, unaddressed disruptions.

‍

{{quote4}}

‍

Hunting For The Right Solution

The first phase of the incident program was an in-depth assessment of BambooHR's current incident management processes. This stage was crucial for understanding the gaps in their existing system and identifying specific areas where a tool could bring immediate improvements. The assessment was spearheaded by Jordan Jones, process engineer, and project and program manager for the incident management program.

‍

{{quote5}}

‍

In their opening assessment, it was clear to Dave and Jordan that for them to be successful in transforming incident management at BambooHR, they needed to foster a culture of continuous improvement. To do that, they were going to need the right tools. In particular, a set of incident management tools that helped:

‍

{{tools}}

‍

It was also clear to Dave that if they were successful, it would mean a dramatic reduction in the negative impact incidents were having on the team.

‍

{{quote6}}

‍

Blameless Setting Incident Responders Free To Do Great Work

In response to these challenges, BambooHR chose Blameless, a tool designed to transform incident management into a mechanism for continuous improvement. The decision was driven by Blameless's ability to automate incident response tasks like acknowledgment, creation of channels, assembly of the team, routine stakeholder updates, and data collection.

‍

{{quote7}}

‍

Blameless's retrospective functionality was also a major factor in the team's decision, as it promised to automate the more time-consuming elements of data collection while making it easy for the team to set standards around and collaborate during the retrospective process.

‍

{{quote8}}

‍

Like the retrospectives function, being able to integrate broadly across the rest of their engineering tools and scale to support teams working both on internal IT and the customer-facing product weighed heavily in the team's final decision to choose Blameless.As part of the rollout, BambooHR also planned for the future scalability of the incident management system. The goal was to have Blameless used not just for internal IT incidents but also for managing incidents related to the customer-facing product. This broad scope required a flexible and scalable solution that could adapt to the growing needs of the company.

‍

{{quote9}}

‍

Finally, the Blameless team showed up to support BambooHR in their evaluation process every step of the way. Offering guidance on best practices during evaluation and implementation.

‍

{{quote10}}

‍

The Blameless & BambooHR Partnership Bears Fruit

As the BambooHR team has begun applying Blameless to their incident management program, The primary goal is to enter a continuous improvement cycle where incidents, big or small, are consistently recorded and analyzed. This approach turns every incident into an opportunity for learning and improvement, thus reducing repetitive incidents and enhancing overall operational efficiency. The integration of Blameless with existing tools like Jira streamlines the process further, ensuring seamless management of action items and improvements post-incident.

Additionally, automating the detection and initiation of incident management is a crucial objective. This move is expected to reduce the time to recovery and minimize errors or misclassifications in incident handling. The broader goal is to shift from manual to automated incident creation, which will serve as a key metric of success for the implementation of Blameless.

‍

{{quote11}}

‍

In terms of communication, Blameless is expected to bring alignment across the organization regarding incident management progress. By providing clear visibility and reporting on the state of incidents, the tool will help reconcile differing perceptions about the severity of the incident management problem within the company.

‍

{{quote12}}