Org HackingFor Fun And Profit

7 Years Ago…

…we were

successful!

…we were

a market leader.

…we were

international.

250 employees!

IPO!

…it was

serious business!

…everything was great!

Everything was great?

Bullshit.

Sales-drivenDevelopment

Deadline-driven Development

Main Product:3m Lines of C++

Monolithic Architecture

Big Ball of Mud

3500+ Open Bugs

No Innovation

Customers Not Happy

Many Managers

MicromanagementBureaucracy

Little KingdomsFinger Pointing

PoliticsGrave Wars

No fun!

It was horrible!

You’d better run away…

…or you hack your org out of this shit.

Peter Bollenbeck

I work at InVision

@pbollenbeckpeter.bollenbeck@invision.de

IETF RFC 1392

„A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.“

HACKER

HTTPS://STALLMAN.ORG/ARTICLES/ON-HACKING.HTML

“[...] little respect for the silly rules that administrators like to

impose [...]”

HACKER

HTTPS://STALLMAN.ORG/ARTICLES/ON-HACKING.HTML

“[...] exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful

cleverness.”

HACKING

Intimite Understanding

Little Respect

Playful Cleverness

Differences:Feedback takes days, weeks

or months - not milliseconds

And:It’s people, not bits

The hacks

Leave the BorgOrg Hack #1

„You will be assimilated.Resistance is futile.“

PhilosophyStructureProcesses

Innovation Speed

Without the Borg:You are free to choose…

…and you are forcedto think on your own

Results:Agility

Less OverheadInnovation Speed

Remove SuitsOrg Hack #2

„Clothes make the man.“

You can pretendto be someone else

A suit is often used to weaken arguments by declaring status

So we’ve removed all suits

Results:More „real“ people

More rational thinkingMore relaxed attitude

Title.destroy_all

Org Hack #3

[…]Technical ConsultantApplication Consultant

QA EngineerQA Manager

Software EngineerSystem ArchitectBusiness Analyst

Development ManagerProject ManagerProgram Manager

[…]

Little fences everywhere

Titles separate and differentiate

„Not my job“

So we’ve removed all titles

Results:Better collaboration

Thinking out of the box

Kill the KingsOrg Hack #4

THE PETER PRINCIPLE, LAURENCE J. PETER, 1968

„In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence“

Management replaces trust

Managers got „back to work“…

…or left.

Teams get aligned with a very lean sync layer

Results:More creativityLess bureaucracy

Shrink the TeamOrg Hack #5

Playful Exploration

5-10 ⇢ 4-6 ⇢ 2-4

Smaller teams work better

Shared visionDetermination

Full accountability

Results:Better conflict resolutionStreamlined communication

No internal waterfall

Stay away from DroidsOrg Hacking Advise #1

Throw a BombOrg Hacking Advise #2

Keep goingOrg Hacking Advise #3

Q & A