Having Impact MattersJesper Richter-Reichhelm (@rirei)

What motivates developers?

How to build a company

to maximize motivation?

but intrinsic motivation is even

more important

Money is important ...

• Autonomy• Mastery• Purpose

Daniel PinkCheck out his TED talk at http://

bit.ly/1gqPsVe

• Purpose• Making progress• Reaching goals daily

Linda Rising Check out her keynote at http://

bit.ly/1fJ87dz

• Self organization• Improving yourself• Incremental work• Meaningful work• Changes

My takeaway

• Small teams• Collaboration• Innovation• Agile principles• Job rotation• Team as Function

Company takeaways

Organize a company to

maximize motivation

Emphasizing function

FE Dev

BE Dev

Art

Product

Each team is formed around a

function

Emphasizing rank

How you see a problem, defines it.

Classic view on company

organization

80 developers

CTO

3 managers

VP VP

TL TL TL TL TL TL TL TL TL TL

Wooga if it followed a classic

org chart

80 developers

CTO

3 managers

VP VP

TL TL TL TL TL TL TL TL TL TL

Varying team sizes make this very

hard

Emphasizing functions

No TL but instead self organization!

80 developers3 managers

Wooga’s IT ‘org chart’

• Matching requirements to tech• Future requirements• Development processes• Planning processes• Knowledge sharing• Cross-team collaboration

Team lead tasks

• Matching requirements to tech• Future requirements• Development processes• Planning processes• Knowledge sharing• Cross-team collaboration

Developer tasks

Higher requirements for each developer

• Hiring• Feedback

Team lead tasks

Some things are still done by managers

2009: 20 employees

2013: 280 employees

Scaling the company by adding

game teams

Wooga is an incubator for game

team startups

Game Teams

Each team makes one game

Prototyping2 members

Production6 - 10 members

Live8 - 15 members

Small teams Start small, grow if successful

agilemanifesto.org

Agile? Sure, but following values not

methods

Independence

Teams can ignore CEO’s

advice and decide themselves

Freedom

• Weekly rhythm• Transparency• Fail fast

Constraints

Standard Framework

Scrum, Kanban or

something else?

Programming

Language?

Framework?

Data Center?

Tools? ExternalServices?

Innovation

Art Style?

Diversity breeds innovation

Innovation allows self

improvement and learning

Responsibility keeps freedom in

check

“You build it, you run it.- Werner Vogels

The game team is responsible for

ops & biz

Impact

Small team + freedom =>

maximum impact for everyone

Small teams

Agile principles

Independence

Perfect recipe to attract great developers

humanepursuits.com/2012/04/05/anarchy-on-your-lapto

The tradeoff: Threat of anarchy

and chaos

Collaboration

Teams collaborate instead

of competing

Good counter for ‘anarchy’

Exchanging Knowledge

flickr.com/photos/swamibu/2868288357

Exchanging Knowledge

flickr.com/photos/wili/233621595

Share knowledge by talking (less

writing)

Being transparent

flickr.com/photos/marcomagrini/698692268

Don’t hide mistakes, make

your team comparable

Meeting people

flickr.com/photos/gviciano/4060850226

Personal trust removes barriers

Share knowledge

Be open and transparent

Build a community

Collaboration distributes knowledge

Check out slides at http://

slidesha.re/18tMwBs

People

Hiringflickr.com/photos/vgm8383/2803305840

Finding unicornsflickr.com/photos/vgm8383/2803305840

Lifelong learning

flickr.com/photos/carlosporto/775089650

Most important trait for a dev

Social Fit

Open, sharing, motivated ...

Tech Crunch

Series of interviews for final decision on hiring

Developers do Tech Crunch and ‘vote’ at the end

FeedbackProblem:

Manager does not interact daily with

developer

• Declare peers• Send questionnaire• Interview peers• Summarize feedback• Feedback Talk

Feedback

Solution: Feedback based on peers

Trust

“Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.”

- Agile Manifesto

80 developers3 managers

Only works because you CAN

trust people

In doubt, don’t hire

Trust people

Hire good people, then get out of their way!

Independent TeamsTransparency

Trust

Wooga in a nutshell

Same approach, but it’s even in the

name! :-)

Check out the article at http://

tcrn.ch/19QWs6z

Organic interaction of service teams

Grandfather of ‘service teams’ ;-)

Independent TeamsTransparency

Trust

Works for Wooga, works for others!

It works

Give it a try!

Thank you

Jesper Richter-Reichhelm

@jrirei

woo.ga/backend

wooga.com/jobsCheck out other slides at http://

woo.ga/backend