The Art of Troubleshooting: Solving Complex IT Problems Together

Troubleshooting complex IT environments isn’t just about technology, it’s about people, process, and collaboration. Recorded at VMware Connect 2026, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Kim Delgado and Mandy Bosco-Wilson (better known as Team Kandy) to discuss collaborative troubleshooting methodologies that help organizations solve problems faster and more effectively. The conversation explores common troubleshooting anti-patterns, the importance of psychological safety, blameless inquiry, scientific troubleshooting methods, and real-world examples of complex issues spanning vSAN, Kubernetes, Cloud Native Storage, networking, and infrastructure operations. Kim and Mandy share stories from the field, including how a seemingly simple issue bounced between multiple support teams before collaborative troubleshooting uncovered the true root cause. They also discuss strategies for handling multi-vendor incidents, avoiding siloed thinking, and creating environments where everyone can contribute to finding solutions. Whether you’re a VMware administrator, platform engineer, SRE, architect, or IT operations leader, this episode offers practical techniques you can apply to your own troubleshooting processes.