Hey folks - the fun question of how else you would label good old boring “*maintenance*” has been an interesting thread. I really appreciate everyone who shared their feedback and got involved so far. I’ve been collating the ideas and responses received from multiple Slack workspaces and the data shows that there are a few common themes - I’m wondering what you think of the top ones? For context, we’re launching an initiative that focuses on taking a preventative and proactive approach to maintenance. We embrace the fact that we can’t make it sexy, we’re not trying to cover that up but rather looking for a phrase which grabs attention and is less of a turnoff. Basically I’m looking for a way to get people to talk to me about this subject. “Hey, I’d love to talk you about XYZ.” If you have time, I’d love to know which names stand out to you (and fit the bill). 1️⃣ Reliability Engineering 2️⃣ Operational Sustainment 3️⃣ Technical Health 4️⃣ Preventative Maintenance 5️⃣ Operations Engineering 6️⃣ Sustainability Engineering

fwiw, Reliability Engineering makes me think about Site Reliability Engineering, which is a different domain, and not what you want to cover as I understand it

this is worth a lot and i’m glad you’ve raised it, @Jessica Ulyate is “Technical Health” something you use in your org? Or something that you think fits this initiative best?

We don't use Technical Health, but I liked the ring of it. As you said, maintenance and tech debt both have slightly negative connotations. I guess health could also have mixed sentiments 🤔

this is true - do you think there is a negative feeling towards “maintenance” activities? or they’re just not that high of a business priority, so folks don’t feel they’re worth chatting about?

I guess it depends on how much maintenance you have to do 😛 In one of my teams, they own a lot of different products, so maintenance is seen as something that is taking up all of their time (negative connotation). We seem to talk a lot about when is something maintenance, and when is something an initiative (a planned project). In my opinion, maintenance is a small task that doesn’t require a lot of planning. If you need to do a large amount of work to keep something up and running, or to ensure it scales, then you should treat it as a project with specific outcomes you want to achieve

I like it - so maintenance should be something “painless” I guess (or as pain-free as possible). A click-of-a-button upgrade (and then approve what it wants to change) versus a DB restore test for example. What would you consider a small versus large project (maintenance-wise) in your products?

If it's less than a week's effort it's not a project 😛 Or if the complexity is very low