that’s how we roll

product & tech lifecycle at HouseTrip

julien, vp engineering at housetrip

@mezis

we were(Nov ’11)

5 developers

+ 3 product managers

+ 2 designers

+ 1 benevolent dictator

we are(Nov ’13)

25 developers

+ 6 product managers

+ 4 designers

+ 1 benevolent dictator

+ lots of stakeholders

we are 25 developers

6 product managers

4 designers

1 benevolent dictator

team structure

opinions

side dishes

workflow

what’s next

flat structure

the benevolent dictator

provide a vision

big brushstrokes

little big details

small focused teams 1 product manager1 lead developer2-3 developers

user-centric area of focus

not a technical specialty

the elders 5 lead devs + VP

major changes

architecture, design, dependencies

infrastructure

hiring

opinionated

be agile robust process

participative

short cycles

data driven

remove bottlenecks

experts, not specialists

“devops”

no QA

dog-food product managers

gear for quality tdd

code reviews

pairing

arch committee

guidelines

side dishes

tech management 101

from “10 Tips for Being

an Effective Project

Manager”

srsly?

controlled technical debt

+ trained developers

= retention

= good product

tech fridays “one day a week

to make ourselves betterthe rest of the week”

15% slice of time

1 day of “bazaar”

to work on being aleaner, meaner team

tech fridays: the projects better tools

reduce technical debt

improve scalability

explore technical solutions

tech fridays: the people learn from others

self-organise

prioritise and dogfood

tech team tech friday all week

10% slice of time

“big technical projects”

=“I can’t be bothered to make a business case”

firefighting no disruptions

2-day rota

1 dedicated product manager

talks + blog work on soft skills

share knowledge

get exposure

bragging rights !

workflow

processes

automated

minimal

consensual

tolerant

documented

evolving

kanban pipe

storytelling 3 stories / dev

backlog 2 stories / dev

started 1-2 stories / dev

staged 1 story / dev

done (under PR) 1 story / dev

good standups are prepared.

take 15’ !

good stand ups

debrief 10 min

- I been working on … - I need help on … - I plan to start/finish … today

top-up 5 min

Move stories from icebox to backlog:- PM picks stories to be prioritised - Devs agree iff story is fully specced

plan 10 min

Plan next steps of project: - Open Appfab, explain requirements - Write story titles in icebox

housetrip-workflows.herokuapp.com

what’s next

more open source

less M&M’s

better training

remote work

SOA

reading list

keep calm

!

♡refactor