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Metrics & Mayhem

Metrics & Mayhem

By: Al Mann
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About this listen

Metrics & Mayhem is a straight-talking podcast on leadership under pressure for leaders and teams in banking, finance, and software. Weekly Signal Drops deliver quick insight, with longer episodes when a topic needs room. Built from years of operations (keeping services running) and observability (understanding what systems are doing), the rule is simple: clarity beats noise. No jargon. No fluff. Just signals that matter, even when the dashboards look smug.Al Mann
Episodes
  • Deep Dive: The Midnight Pager Is Dying
    Feb 26 2026

    Deep Dive (28mins): Auto-remediation is replacing the 3 AM scramble. Gartner says 60% of large enterprises will adopt self-healing infrastructure by 2026. PagerDuty'searly adopters are resolving incidents 50% faster. But the DORA 2024 report found AI tooling correlates with worse delivery performance, for the second year running, and the Catchpoint SRE Report showed toil rising, not falling.

    What happens to on-call when the easy pages disappear, and the remaining 20% of incidents just get harder? Four concrete actions for the next sprint.
    Based on the blog post: https://masteringobservability.com/p/the-midnight-pager-is-dying-what-replaces-it-is-harder

    Observability, SRE, AIOps, On-Call, Auto-Remediation, IT Operations, Leadership

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    26 mins
  • Signal Drop: Your Role Changes Every Hour
    Feb 18 2026

    Most leaders don't fail because they're bad at leading. They fail because they stay in one mode too long. This Signal Drop breaks incident leadership into four practical modes: Direct, Shield, Coach, Delegate. Pick the wrong one and the room fills with noise. Pick the right one, and people can think. Includes a ten-second habit you can use before your next call.


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    5 mins
  • Signal Drop: Accountability Is the Job
    Feb 12 2026

    In IT Operations, accountability isn’t blame. It’s ownership. When nobody owns the outcome, decisions wobble, incidents drag, and teams default to theatre. This Signal Drop is about making ownership explicit under pressure: one owner, one outcome, one next check. Blameless doesn’t mean ownerless. Clear accountability creates calm, faster decisions, and better reliability.

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    5 mins
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