Today’s development operations staff eats, sleeps and breathes data, and they rely on a set of tools to provide the critical information they need, especially when the system slows to a crawl or applications fail to work. These are tools seldom visible to the general public, but they serve a vital role in making sure that when a user opens an app on their mobile device to transfer money, download a video, or order a pizza, it just works.

PagerDuty Inc., a digital operations management platform for enterprises large and small, is one of those hidden tools. Yet, the information technology community has come to recognize its importance in keeping network applications running smoothly, as the company has surpassed 10,000 customers and recently closed a new round of funding that vaulted it to unicorn status in a $1.3-billion valuation — all because the days when people were willing to wait 60 seconds for a webpage to open are history.

“Now, if an app doesn’t work perfectly in six seconds, maybe three seconds, you’re gone,” said Jennifer Tejada (pictured), chief executive officer of PagerDuty. “Everything around our first product was designed for what the developer needs and what an apps person needs. That user-centricity, that user ethos has served us really well.”

Tejada spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the PagerDuty Summit in San Francisco. They discussed key attributes necessary for a company to remain competitive, why PagerDuty includes competitors in partner integrations, building a teamwork-oriented culture that empowers employees, and how failing fast doesn’t always work. (* Disclosure below.)

This week, theCUBE spotlights Jennifer Tejada in our Women in Tech feature.

Products for operational health and insight

In addition to the news of its most recent funding, PagerDuty also launched two new products designed to enhance its operations management platform. PagerDuty Visibility provides a real-time view into operational health, and PagerDuty Analytics combines machine and human response data to deliver system insight for IT organizations.

The company’s latest products leveraged nine years of data gathered over the course of building its reputation for helping customers navigate a highly-volatile technology landscape. For Tejada, the company must position itself much as a world-class athlete would in a competitive environment.

“I think of us in sort of the same way that I would think of the brain of an Olympic athlete,” Tejada said. “The brain has to accept the signals from all the different parts of the body, work through them, correlate them, and then drive action. I think of PagerDuty as sitting at the center of this rapidly changing technology ecosystem, really understanding the signals.”

PagerDuty’s approach to a technology ecosystem can occasionally involve bringing competitors into its own tent. In addition to the product announcements last week, the company also unveiled its Integration Partner Program, designed to fuel continued growth through more than 300 company relationships.

Among the verified integrations are products from Atlassian Pty Ltd, a company that  also has a presence in the incident management space. “We built first-class integrations to companies that may see us as competition, because that’s what our customers need,” Tejada said. “It’s an open ecosystem, and this is what developers and tech employees expect.”

Peer relationships are key

PagerDuty’s teamwork ethos has been a key hallmark of the company culture, influenced by the work of Patrick Lencioni, author of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” Lencioni, who spoke at the PagerDuty Summit this month, has described a management philosophy based on leveraging the collective strength of the “first team” or organizational peers.

“The most important, highest-priority, aligned organism that is going to drive massive change in a business is your peer group,” Tejada explained. “It’s the people who work across functions to help reduce friction in a business and drive fast outcomes and great results. Most people naturally kind of hunker down in their core team, and that’s the beginning of the silo mentality.”

Along with the notion of “first teams” comes the need to drive empowerment across company departments, with a singular focus on making sure that decision-making is concentrated on those who are closest to the customer. Tejada’s approach was formed early in her career when she worked at The Procter & Gamble Co. Whether it’s selling soap or digital management software, the key remains listening to what the customer really wants rather than trying to force-fit a solution driven by market dynamics.

Failing fast requires dialogue

Empowerment and peer-driven collaboration are part of the philosophy that Tejada has emphasized at PagerDuty following her appointment as CEO in 2016. “If PagerDuty waited for me to make every big decision, we would be back where we were three years ago,” Tejada said. “It means that the most important decisions are getting made by the person who is closest to the end customer, the user. That makes a lot of sense to me.”

One of the popular management philosophies in Silicon Valley involves the notion of “failing fast.” It’s a belief that extensive testing and development must quickly determine whether an idea has value. If it doesn’t, it should be abandoned quickly to cut losses.

PagerDuty’s CEO sees some merit in the “fail-fast” approach, yet there are pitfalls too. “In order for failing fast to have a benefit for a company, you not only have to be allowed to fail, it has to be OK when you fail and there has to be an open, transparent conversation about what you learned,” Tejada said. “That has to be a blameless, high-empathy discussion or it doesn’t work.”

After spending five years with Procter & Gamble, Tejada moved on to the technology world, occupying leadership positions at Mincom Pty Ltd and Keynote Systems. The experience gave her a full understanding of sales, marketing and product functions across the enterprise.

In assuming the top role at PagerDuty, Tejada has brought a drive to learn more and build a customer-focused culture of teamwork and empowerment that she hopes will continue to propel the company as it reaches the rarefied air of a unicorn startup.

“I have the best job in the world,” Tejada said. “I feel very lucky.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the PagerDuty Summit 2018. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for PagerDuty Summit. Neither PagerDuty Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE