distributed companies: a wordpress.com team perspective
TRANSCRIPT
DISTRIBUTED COMPANIES
A WORDPRESS.COM TEAM PERSPECTIVE
Davide ‘Folletto’ Casali
Manifesto Ibridi F E L L O W
UX REDIRECTOR
NIGHT.EU
ADVISOR
@Folletto
CODENAME CALYPSOPROLOGUE
WHAT IS CALYPSO?Next generation WordPress.com
127Contributors
26,030Commits
6,915Reviews
March 2014 → November 2015 (20 months)
?How did you do that in a fully
distributed company?
Story of a
Showcase
HYPERION
BLASTING AT THEME UX WITH THE FIRE OF 1,000 SUNS
MEET HYPERION
THE PROBLEMPART I
Themes
v2.0
THX
v4.0 v4.0
3 DESIGNS PAINFUL FOR USERS
3 CODEBASES MAINTENANCE HELL
Create one single Theme Showcase
for WordPress.com
PLANNINGPART II
VIENNA MEETUP14 April 2015
Pains Goals
The Milestone·1 Model
Only user-facing features
One major feature
Many smaller details & fixes
“”
Steve Seear, Hyperion
I found this session really valuable. It was intense, challenging,
and led on to a lot more discussions.
“”
Miguel Fonseca, Hyperion
+1000 on the value and ROI of our meetup exercises.
INITIAL ROADMAP POSTED ON P2
MILESTONE 1 ‘MINIMAL’
PART III
MASTER THREAD POSTED ON TEAM P2
DESIGN ITERATION 1 POSTED ON P2
1125
DESIGN ITERATION 2 POSTED ON P2
1015
DESIGN ITERATION 3 POSTED ON P2
May 20, 2015
928
4features added
JUNE 5
Live for Automatticians in Test Environment
JUNE 5
M4 Purchases
M1 Minimal
UPDATED ROADMAP EDITED ON P2
DESIGN ITERATION 4 DISCUSSED LIVE ON SLACK
DESIGN ITERATION 5 POSTED ON P2
June 11, 2015
161
That is one lovely blueprint! Very nice.
5features added
JUNE 11
JUNE 17
JUNE 24
JULY 1
JULY 15
Horizon External Testing
JULY 21 JULY 15
Automattic Internal Testing
M1 LAUNCHED 3 August 2015
THEME SHOWCASE M1 THE PROCESS IN NUMBERS
5Design
Iterations
11Horizon Testers
6Automattic
Testers
100+Feedbacks &
Comments
124GitHub Tickets
85GitHub
Pull Requests
THEME SHOWCASE M1 TIMELINE
LIVE ~3.5 months
Meetup 4 days
THEME SHOWCASE M1 SALES CHECK
June 23, 2015 July 3, 2015
PRINCIPLESPART IV
THE REMOTENESS CONTINUUM
Distributed 100%
Local 100%
Remote in between
A SEPARATE FLOOR OFFICE CITY
COUNTRY
MAKES THE COMPANY ALREADY REMOTE
CULTURE
Transparencyshare everything, share early
Initiativeindividual leads, teams autonomy
Communicationis oxygen
SUPPORT
Meetupsbuild trust and give a face to text
Everything as Remotebehave as remote even if you’re not
Watercooler Spacessociality vs efficiency, do both
TOOLS
Realtime speedone-to-one, you must be there
Async speedone-to-few, you will be there
Stable speedone-to-many, you are not there
Slack P2 WordPress
Wiki WordPress
WORK & COLLABORATION EXIST BEYOND PROCESSES
SUPPORT TOOLS
Transparency
Initiative
Communication
Meetups
Everything as Remote
Watercooler Spaces
Realtime speed
Async speed
Stable speed
CULTURE
Distributed 100%
Local 100%
Remote in between
“
”Bruno Munari
To complicate is easy, to simplify is hard. To complicate, just add,
everyone is able to complicate. Few are able to simplify.
