atlassian - a different kind of software company
Post on 17-Oct-2014
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DESCRIPTION
Presentation to JAOO 2009 (Sydney & Brisbane) on some lessons from Atlassian's software engineering superheroes.TRANSCRIPT
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Atlassian
A different kind of software company
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
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1. Brief History Lesson2. Tools & Processes3. Innovation Ideas
Agenda
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Brief History LessonWednesday, 13 May 2009
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2002?
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Big Ideas• Scott & Mike - both 21 y.o. engineers
• $10k ‘startup capital’
• Tried multiple ideas
• $USD 0 in sales
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Atlassian ModelEnterprise Software
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Atlassian Model
Enterprise Software
1. No $ for sales team? Must sell itself
2. Sell itself? Must be low price
3. Low $? Must sell 000s of copies
4. 000s of copies? Must sell globally
5. Customer must buy, we can’t sell!
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50,000customers
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‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘08
JIRA
San Francisco
ConfluenceBambooCrowd
FishEyeCrucibleClover
Amsterdam
A little history...
‘07
JIRAStudio
Sydney
’09
Poland
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‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘08
JIRA
San Francisco
ConfluenceBambooCrowd
FishEyeCrucibleClover
Amsterdam
A little history...
‘07
JIRAStudio
Sydney
’09
Poland
Engineers?2! 6 40 9070
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2009?
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Impact?
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Impact?
• Over $USD 110m in lifetime sales... $USD 45m sales in 2008/9... in 116 countries... including Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, Somalia
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Impact?
• Over $USD 110m in lifetime sales... $USD 45m sales in 2008/9... in 116 countries... including Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, Somalia
• Around 40,000 software teams use our tools... that’s approximately 1m developers ... or 1 in 6 engineers globally use our tools to help them build software every day.
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Atlassian Values
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Products
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90 people
12 software teams
10 products
4 countries
2 deployment models
Atlassi
an
Engin
eerin
g
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Tools & Processes(8 + 2) lessons from our superheroes, on building the tools
your superheroes use.
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Warning: may contain ads!Wednesday, 13 May 2009
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1. Agile• Each team is different in method,
size and impact.
• Agile principles are what’s important.
• Use different tools - GreenHopper to pen & card!
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2. Traceability• Fundamental to link code to
relevant artifacts - issues/wiki etc
• Few commits without traced issue keys
• Mylyn’s task driven development is really leading the way
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3. Code Review• Four eyes on every line of code
• Almost every commit is reviewed by a peer
• Reviews ‘traced’ to issues
• Don’t put it off for ‘lack of tools’
• Soon - iterative code review!
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4. ContinuousIntegration
• Many, many, many builds
• Remote agents. Moving to EC2.
• IM for notifications (not email!)
• Focus on trends not red/green
• LabManager for platform testing
• Performance builds catch regressions
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5. Optimise Tests• Optimise for time to developer
feedback
• Re-order tests automatically
• Only run affected tests
• Functional test ‘split builds’ for build throughput
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6. Dogfooding• Put software into ‘users’ hands as
regularly as possible
• Used to do with public releases, now internal dogfooding
• Dogfooding != testing
• Can be hard to find good candidates
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7. Wiki == Life• We live in our wiki
• Req’ts, docs, blogs, discussions, reports, presentations, community
• Connects dev. to the business
• Connects the business!
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8. Dev Speed• “Dev Speed Posse”
• Never done - always a focus
• Measure and attack
• 3 “loops”
• Checkout Loop - 10 min rule
• Inner Loop - code w/o reload
• Build & Test Loop - commit to deployment
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InnovationThe lifeblood of a product company
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“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two - and only
two - basic functions: marketing and innovation.
Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.”
Peter Drucker
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Innovation Models
1. The lone genius
2. The boss is a genius
3. Copy competitors’ inventions
4. Cluster the geniuses in a lab
5. Make your people the geniuses
Scott Cook - CHI 2006
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Innovation Models
1. The lone genius
2. The boss is a genius
3. Copy competitors’ inventions
4. Cluster the geniuses in a lab
5. Make your people the geniuses
Scott Cook - CHI 2006
Atlassian 2002
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Innovation Models
1. The lone genius
2. The boss is a genius
3. Copy competitors’ inventions
4. Cluster the geniuses in a lab
5. Make your people the geniuses
Scott Cook - CHI 2006
Atlassian 2002
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
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Innovation Models
1. The lone genius
2. The boss is a genius
3. Copy competitors’ inventions
4. Cluster the geniuses in a lab
5. Make your people the geniuses
Scott Cook - CHI 2006
Atlassian 2002
Atlassian 2012
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Innovation Models
1. The lone genius
2. The boss is a genius
3. Copy competitors’ inventions
4. Cluster the geniuses in a lab
5. Make your people the geniuses
Scott Cook - CHI 2006
Atlassian 2002
Atlassian 2012
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
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Customers?
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Customers?Listen to your customers
Don’t do what they tell you.
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Customers?Listen to your customers
Don’t do what they tell you.
Why did they buy?
vs
What do they want?
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Customers?Listen to your customers
Don’t do what they tell you.
Why did they buy?
vs
What do they want?
Innovation
vs
Incremental Improvement!
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Innovation Killers
• Company & customer growth
• Date driven culture
• Specifications from ‘on high’
• Not enough ‘slack time’
• Old people
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Innovation Killers
• Company & customer growth
• Date driven culture
• Specifications from ‘on high’
• Not enough ‘slack time’
• Old people
“You have 6 years of innovation left.” Moritz’ Law(35 minus average age of the company - Mike Moritz, Sequoia)
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9. Fedex Day• Started in 2004
• 24 hour one-day coding exercise
• Start early AM, demos late afternoon
• One goal - “Ship & deliver in 24 hours”
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Mutations• Added trophy around Fedex 4
• Blue dot voting
• Now quarterly for all development
• Move to two days
• SF and Sydney on different weeks
• Tried in support & marketing - fail
• Used to “spread” tech learning - ie gadgets & OpenSocial
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A Fedex “Day”(2009)
• One engineer is appointed “Fedex deputy”
• Week & two weeks before - Brown Bag Brainstorm
• ‘Shipment orders’ blogged internally (goal per person)
• Thursday
• 2pm - kick off meeting
• Code until laaaate - pizza @ 8pm for stayers
• Organiser uses broadcast IM to communicate (ie “Remember to take screenshots!”) and runs a chatroom for participants (regular sharing of progress for excitement)
• Friday
• 3pm - demos (split in half - vote top 3)
• 4pm - final 6 demos w/ beers vote for winner & present trophy
• ‘Delivery dockets’ blogged internally (result per person)
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Learnings
• One day isn’t long enough
• “Winning” needs to be de-emphasised
• Get the whole company to watch demos
• Didn’t work outside development
• Works best with smaller team
• Retrospectives are important - “What do we want to try to ship, and what’s required to get there?”
• Shipping code takes much longer than you think!
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10. 20% Time• The Google ‘myth’ -
Lawless innovation?
• Aim: discover the realitiesMade up our own rules
• The $1m gamble:http://tinyurl.com/czy9f8
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Why?
• Build innovative features
• Engineers’ jobs get less fun w/ growth- further from product decisions
• Product Managers aren’t perfect- fill holes in the roadmap
• Discover those with product gene
• The power of a built idea to shape thinking
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How did we go?
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http://blogs.atlassian.com/developer/2009/02/20_percent_year_in_review.html
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20% Results
• ‘Filling gaps’ as much as finding next big thing
• Hardest on tech leads!
• Tracking was a contentious issue
• Ended with per person, not project
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Latest 20% “Rules”
• We trust you
• All projects must be tracked
• No less than one day at a time
• Time booked just like vacation
• 5 days = 3 developers must sign off
• 10 days = founder sign off
• All participation is performance reviewable
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Q&Awww.atlassian.com
PS. We’re hiring!
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