tao-of-system-engineering

1. Make the golden path easy.
2. Identify and maintain the canonical example.
3. Use a canary application that exercises system interfaces.
4. Prioritize maintenance with entire days or weeks dedicated to the task.
5. Take a tour of duty on a different team.
6. Make all technical discourse public. (thanks sam of samver.org)
7. Elect leaders from within when possible.
8. Teach what you know. Hire interns.
9. Leave helpful comments and other gifts for those that follow.
10. Test your documentation by watching a new user use it.
11. Once you create something, destroy it and recreate it with automation.
12. If you can't automate it, create a well documented manual process.
13. Use conventions to enable automation and reduce cognitive load.
14. Do not pursue answers without first declaring the right question.
15. Create, run, and automate system tests.
16. Define and test backout procedures. Make them easy.
17. Design and test disaster recovery scenarios.
18. Define, measure, and report metrics for things you care about.
19. Delete things that are no longer used.
20. Find the balance between simplicity and rigorous engineering.