teamwork at the extremes: wordpress.com and ux for good
TRANSCRIPT
Davide ‘Folletto’ Casali
TEAMWORK AT THE EXTREMES WORDPRESS·COM & UX FOR GOOD
Manifesto Ibridi F E L L O W
UX REDIRECTOR
NIGHT.EU
ADVISOR
@Folletto
THE REMOTENESS CONTINUUM
Distributed 100%
Local 100%
Remote in between
AUTOMATTIC
PART I
2015
468People
worldwide
~160kMessages per week
~1,000Deployments
per week
WHAT IS CALYPSO?Modern foundation for WordPress.com
NODE.JS · REACT · REST API
OPEN SOURCE SINCE NOVEMBER 2015
127Contributors
26,030Commits
6,915Reviews
March 2014 → November 2015 (20 months)
20Months to v1
…how did you do that?You’re fully distributed…
Story of a
Showcase
HYPERION
THE PROBLEM
Themes
v2.0
THX
v4.0 v4.0
3 codebases
DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN
3 designs
PAINFUL FOR USERS
Create one single Theme Showcase
for WordPress.com
STEP 1: PLANNING
Meetups: face time is important
Know your people
VIENNA MEETUP14 April 2015
Epic Milestone 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.
STEP 2: FIRST MILESTONE
Clear Communication Spaces
Communication is Oxygen
Slack Realtime
P2 Theme Async
Wiki Theme Stable
P2 W
If it’s not communicated transparently, it doesn’t exist
Everything is treated as remote
INITIAL ROADMAP POSTED ON TEAM P2
MASTER THREAD POSTED ON TEAM P2
DES
IGN
ITER
ATI
ON
1
DES
IGN
ITER
ATI
ON
2
DES
IGN
ITER
ATI
ON
3
DES
IGN
ITER
ATI
ON
4
DES
IGN
ITER
ATI
ON
5
ITERATIONS POSTED ON P2
FEEDBACK TRANSPARENT
25
11
15
10
28
9
1
16
Horizon External Testing
JULY 21 JULY 15
Automattic Internal Testing
M1 LAUNCHED 3 August 2015
THEME SHOWCASE M1 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
UX FOR GOOD
PART II
“Apply UX design to the most important problems in the world”
Jason Ulaszek
Jeff Leitner
Focus on one thingCommunicate it well
ONE NO·PROFIT PARTNERTO SPONSOR THE CAUSE
Highly independent individuals
Initiative and motivation
10 DESIGNERSFROM ALL AROUND THE WORLD
Discovery Synthesis Creation Validation
+
FULL IMMERSION
2-3 DAYS 2-3 DAYS
GROUP SYNTHESIS
4 5 61 2 3
Zero waste
No bureaucracy, everything useful
“”
Jason Kunesh, Obama For America
We came together as a team in a way that I haven’t experienced
anywhere else.
“”
Marianne Prins, Van Horne Elementary School
I just witnessed an absolute explosion of ideas.
CAN WE DESIGN THE COMMON GOOD?
2011
Chicago
StreetWise · Adler School · The Third Teacher · Cease Fire · Global Lives Project
CAN WE ENRICH LIVES OF WORKING MUSICIANS?
2012
New Orleans
Grammy Foundation · New Orleans Jazz Heritage F. & F. · Clinton Global Initiative · MusiCares
CAN WE GROW MINDFULNESS IN SCHOOLS?
2013
Vancouver
The Dalai Lama Center for Peace + Education
CAN WE HARNESS FEELINGS TO END GENOCIDE?
2014
Kigali & London
Aegis Trust
2014 Kigali
500,000–1,000,000 RWANDANS KILLED
70% TUTSI
20% OF POPULATION
100 DAYS
1994
“In my family, we never talked about the genocide It was too fresh in my parents’ mind”
And you saved the life of the people I was planning on killing”
“You saved my life.
- Child of victims to teacher of mobile education
“I came back and my grandmother says, I hope you got that Africa out of your system.
But at that moment, I realized it was there and growing.
So I moved my family here and opened a school” - KGM Visitor
“Users go through the hard part, but then also the uplifting part
realizing some of the possibilities that are there” - Morley Hanson, Aegis Trust
UX FOR GOOD 2014 IN NUMBERS
40+Interviews
with staff and locals
90Flights
worldwide
15People forever
changed
3,124Post-its
and flip-charts
500+Hours
of research
96Servings of french fries
INZOVU CURVE
HopeReflectionPain Action
Pain
Reflection
Hope
Action
“
”Prof. Dr. Tania Singer
People with a lot of empathy want to change that to compassion
so they don't get overwhelmed when confronted with suffering.
EMPATHETIC Feeling
COMPASSIONATE Action
The Inzovu Curve maps a prototypical journey of a person going through a transformative experience reaching a state of motivation and action.
The word Inzovu means Elephant in Kinyarwanda, the native language of Rwanda.
EPIPHANY
WILL
CONNECT WITH YOUR LIFE
MOTIVATION TO ACT
AWARE TOURIST
EMPATHIC TOURIST
ADVOCATECATALYST
GENOCIDE CHILDRENFIRST
GEN
AFFECTED RWANDANS
UNAWARE TOURIST
inzovucurve.org
PRINCIPLES
PART III
Remote Local
Months of Work Days of Work
Know each other First time meeting
Smaller group Larger group
No client Has client
BOTH WORK.
THE REMOTENESS CONTINUUM
Distributed 100%
Local 100%
Remote in between
A separate floor, office, city, country…
MAKES THE COMPANY ALREADY REMOTE
Meet in person
Communication spaces
Transparency
Focus on one thing
Independent individuals
Zero waste
Pick whatever works… then improve it.
automattic.com/jobs
Happiness Engineer
JavaScript Engineer
Mobile Developer
Product Designer
Code Wrangler
Theme Wrangler
Enterprise Growth Engineer
Technical Account Engineer
Performance Marketing
Marketing Designer
Events Wrangler