Culture @ Velocity UKNov 2013

1. Erik Kastner (Kickstarter) : One Weird Trick to Transform your Culture Overnight!

2. Chris Read (DRW) : Optimizing for Cultural Learning

3. John Willis (Dell - enStratius) : Culture as a Strategic Weapon

Contents

● Etsy, Kickstarter● When wanted to leave Etsy for the first

time:○ CTO: “You can’t leave, you didn’t tell us

what’s wrong so we didn’t have a chance to improve”

○ Stayed 2 more years, much happier● Code, tools

Erik Kastner

● Culture = this is what you won't forget, this is what makes this place special

● In the web industry, everyone does customer support, only the customer differs: “devops is just a fancy word for customer service”

● → Caring is the key

Culture

People will have problems, but if someone cares about their problems they will feel much better. If their problems get fixed, that’s even more awesome.

Caring

● Listen!● Talk to as much people as you can● Have someone fix the problems● Allow them to work on fixing their own

problems● Start immediately

How to

● ex Thoughtworks, DRW● Cultural Learning: “Learning through

observation or interaction with others.”● Allows individuals to acquire skills that

they would be unable to independently gain over the course of their lifetimes.

● Cultural intelligence hypothesis

Chris Read

● Humans are built for Cultural Learning● Age of what we’ve learnt matters● We’ve got to put our learning in to

practice● Without direction and guidance, humans

will probably go in the wrong direction

Summary for us non Biologists

● Team structure - szerepek● Team lifecycles - hogyan lesz működő a

csapat, mi van ha feloszlik stb● Team interactions - egymással hogyan

működnek együtt a csapatok● Business Unit interactions - értsük meg

egymást● Group training

Affected areas

● Flat org, no corporate ladder● No salary grades● Teams organized by service and business

unit● Physical and synthetic teams● Upper management access

DRW principles

● Incentives: individual < team < organization

● “Heroes are who get things done”● Mobility, make it easy to change roles● People who often work together should

sit near

DRW principles

● Knowledge sharing: "borrowing" people is welcomed

● Must be easy to find the right person for anything

● Conference attendance, open source contributing

DRW principles

● Goal: order● Teams start to communicate via tickets● Turns out: it actively blocks

communication between teams, reduced visibility → fail

● Use it only as a backlog, and communicate with other methods

Example: ticketing

● Practice what you learn● Question everything● Innovate● Focus on the goal

http://cdn.oreillystatic.com/en/assets/1/event/101/Optimizing%20for%20Cultural%20Learning%20Presentation.pdf

Summary

● Dell● Devops Guru● Funny guy● CAMS: Culture Automation Measurement

Sharing

John Willis

● It's a war to hire people

● Company culture matters

Hiring war

1. Change your culture2. You can’t change culture3. The Use It culture

Three tribes of culture

● Command and control● Corporate guideline culture● Motivational posters● Slogans● Coaches● Tells you in detail

Change your culture tribe

● You can’t change the company culture so don’t even try

● "Try to work with what you've got"

You can’t change culture tribe

● “Don’t change corporate culture: use it”● Figure out what it is● Work with it● Nurture it● Weaponize it

The Use It tribe

● Simon Sinek: “Start with Why”

● why? -> how? -> what?● the cause -> values ->

products

The Golden Circle

● W. Edwards Deming - The New Economics● Louis V. Gerstner Jr. - Who Says

Elephants Can’t Dance?

Use It Tribe examples: Netflix, Etsy, Github

Foundations

“The High Performance Culture”

● They don't apologize for being tough● They hire smart people who need to

make hard decisions● Adequate performance earns a nice

severance package

Netflix

● Everyone is expected to take risks● Be a consistent contributor and innovator● Real company values are shown by who

gets rewarded, promoted, or let go● Name their products by Nordic deities

Netflix

“People who love to share”

● Culture of collaboration● Automation as a culture● No manager - everyone is a manager● Really flat structure

Github

● The structure of Github is unstructure● "We just fill vacuums, we just get it

done"● A lot like Valve

Github

"The Artisans"

● “We enable people to make a living by making things”

● Blameless culture○ Allspaw about post mortems

● Benefit corporation

Etsy

● Tools to reinforce your culture● Software engineer became the CEO of a

non-software company○ Keeps himself close: participates in

hackathons, goes to lunch with employees● "All commerce is about real human

interaction."

Etsy

● GE is big, so affects whole industries● Automation with Chef● Modern style and communication● Deming again● Scientific approach: decisions based on

experiments● Big data

Devops Companies ( GE )

● Reading list○ Deming - Out Of The Crisis○ The Phoenix Project○ Eliyahu M. Goldratt

http://www.slideshare.net/botchagalupe/velocity-london-devopsculture-asaweapon-copy

Summary

● Joshua Hoffmann (Soundcloud)● Not only a culture talk, but a must watch● Finctional startup story● Moving to another data center● Heroes are who delete code: “favourite

diffs are red diffs”

Bonus

Questions?