The term “soft skills” seems to imply that these skills are somehow less important than technical skills. In reality, soft skills are often specifically sought-after by hiring managers. These skills are also important for operations people seeking to advance to senior engineering positions.
As much as technical people would like to believe that operations is a purely technical profession, it is really about serving people. Operations, as the title indicates, is about making things work for people. Operations people design, build, and maintain services for people to use. It is all in a day’s work for an operations professional to translate, educate, inform, reason, persuade, and generally act as a liaison between technology and the people who use it.
Soft skills at the 101 level encompass communication skills, time management, project management, and a basic understanding of DevOps from an operations perspective. Soft skills at the 201 level lead into general business skills including positioning, budgeting and the financial process, using metrics effectively, demonstrating impact, risk management, managing customer preference, and thinking strategically.
Non-technical skills
Situational Awareness (Mica Endsley) Decision Making (NDM and RPD) - Klein Communication (Common ground, Basic Compact, Assertiveness)
Team Working (Joint Activity, fundamentals of coordination and collaboration) Leadership (before, during, after incidents) (Weick, Sutcliffe work on HROs)
Managing Stress Coping with Fatigue Training and Assessment Methods Cognitive Psychology concerns (escalating scenarios, team-based troubleshooting)
Communication basics Communication Modes Special Cases for Operations Time Management Project Management What is DevOps The Importance of Documentation Working with other Teams Basic Business Skills Soft Skills 201