Michael Kaufmann is the author of Accelerate DevOps with GitHub. We got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q. What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?
M: DevOps, GitHub, Git, Azure
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
M: I was in contact with one of the editors of Packt and we discussed the idea. He completely smashed my first outline and gave me very valuable feedback.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
M: I’m in the industry for more than 20 years – more than 15 years hands-on DevOps experience. A lot of this experience went into the book.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
M: Some parts of GitHub are in a very early state. I know how they will be in the future – but of course, I can only write about the product how it is today. Making these cuts was very difficult.
Q. What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
M: I see an enormous GitHub adoption around the world. I think GitHub will change the way how we develop software – away from local development environments to cloud based development using a AI based co-pilot that helps your write your code.
Q: Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
M: My book is a practical guide to DevOps – using GitHub as the platform. But the concepts would be the same – even if you would chose GitLab or another platform. Books about DevOps are often very theoretical and people struggle with practical implementation rather than the theoretical background. The practical books are often more for beginners and are boring for more experienced people. Accelerate DevOps with GitHub balances the WHY you should do certain things and the HOW you do it. That’s why also more experienced users can read it – they will learn a lot about new GitHub features. But people new to DevOps or that struggle with the DevOps transformation will get a practical guide that helps them to adopt DevOps in their team or organization.
Q. What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away from the book with?
M: DevOps can be simple if you do it right. But like in sports – you have to master certain skills for it to become easy. And, you have to resist the temptation to let old thinking block your DevOps adoption.
Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
M: Get help from good trainers or coaches. You also wouldn’t just buy golf equipment and try to shoot some balls in your garden. You safe time and money if you learn basics from coaches that not only know the tech, but also have experience in coaching others. Being good in something and being good in coaching somethings are two completely different things.
Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?
Q. Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
M: The process was very professional and the more time we spent in planning payed out later. I can recommend packt to other authors. It was a great team that supported me.
Q. Do you belong to any tech community groups?
M: I’m a Microsoft Regional Director (RD) and a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). I’m the organizer of meetup.com/GitHubMeetup and a co-organizer of Azure Stuttgart.
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
M: Too many sources to list them all 🙂 I keep a close contact to the product groups of GitHub and Microsoft. Thats the main source – together with the roadmap and the change log. I speak at a lot of conferences. That are also always a great source of inspiration.
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
M: I calculated 1 page per day – 7 pages per week. If I did not manage to write as expected until the weekend, then I would use the weekend to catch up. Otherwise it’s impossible with a full-time job.
Q. What is that one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
M: Just start. At the beginning I’ve always though that I have not enough content. And at the end I had to remove things because my page count was too high. Juts start writing – chapter by chapter. The rest will follow.
You can find Michael’s book on Amazon.
