How GitHub Works

Transcript

1. HoW WORKS GITHUB

2. the story begins with

3. 4 FOUNDERS IN A coffee shop

4. 4 FOUNDERS IN A BAR

5. 4 FOUNDERS IN A restaurant

6. 4 FOUNDERS IN A plane

7. 4 FOUNDERS IN A JAIL CELL

8. 4 FOUNDERS IN A SOMEWHERE

9. None

10. no office had other jobs

11. None

12. this was the start of

13. distributed happy flexible github was forced to be

14. turns out, great way to work

15. this talk is kind of about github

16. but it’s really about improving your company

17. @holman

18. None

19. works howgithub zachholman.com/posts/how-github-works

20. BULLSHIT HOURS Are

21. 9 to 5 DOES not wORK W O R K

    I N G

22. crafting code is a hugely creative endeavor

23. you can’t force creativity to happen between 9 and 5.

24. the best solutions happen when you’re in the zone

25. our early birds night owls nine-to-fivers traveling employees international employees

    office

26. embraceflexiBility

27. 90 hours/week and loving it! x

28. working long hours isn’t a badge of honor ...it’s a

    badge of foolishness

29. all-nighters are a recipe for redoing everything again later

30. marathon code sessions drain you mentally lead to poor code

    quality impact future code

31. WE LET GITHUbbers work WHEREver AND WHENever THEY WANT TO

    WORK

32. we want to get the best work from our employees

    that happens when they are happy, fresh, and creative

33. FAMILIES

34. @MADDOX NEW DAD, May 26 @MOJOMBO NEW DAD, SOON @xpaulbettsx

    NEW DAD LATE 2012 @bethnewland NEW MOM 2012ish

35. family github

36. BE A FAMILY COMPANY

37. being less hour-centric = more family-friendly

38. happy families, happy coworkers productive companies happy coworkers,

39. trust your employees

40. you hired them, after all

41. trust employees, help them out, then verify they’re doing the

    work.

42. this requires communication are they committing? are they participating? what’s

    their code look like?

43. bullshit hours w o r r y a b o

    u t g o o d w o r k are

44. BE ASYNCHRONOUS

45. asynchronous a distributed way of getting things done

46. attention-aware J geographically-distributed G team-oriented g minimal process \

47. G @ sanfrancisco S githubhq

48. G turns out, the world is larger than just san

    francisco.

49. G we want to hire the best S S S

    S S S S S S S

50. G distributed work needs to be a priority for us

51. G flexible hours help with flexible location T

52. chat G limit required in-person contact beer:30 facetime recorded talks

53. summit 2010 G encourage structured team building summit 2011 get

    people meeting in real-life! github summit 2012

54. attention-aware J team-oriented g minimal process \ geographically-distributed G

55. J we want developers in the zonetm

56. J minimize distractions the zone is difficult to re-enter

57. J no technical meetings no standup, daily, or planning meetings

58. J no in-person distractions instead, ping over chat

59. J no managers they just distract

60. J we can work this way because:

61. J dogfood product company full ownership profitable

62. J each company is different find out what works best

    for yours

63. G geographically-distributed attention-aware J team-oriented g minimal process \ G

64. g G [ redacted ] [ redacted ] teams

65. g G small teams let you move quickly&independently

66. g G the danger room the serious room the enterprise

    room the design room the support room the internal room the native room the (redacted) roo the mobile room the ops room e notices room o 30+rooms:

67. g G small teams let you focus

68. G geographically-distributed attention-aware J team-oriented g minimal process \ G

69. \ how do we actually do all this?

70. \ plan·build·ship

71. \ show It as soon as possible chat pull requests

    wikis, internal apps make it okay to say “no” plan

72. \ ideas&projects everyone contributes avoid abandonment see status updates plan

73. \ build simplebranching master branch pull request

74. \ simplebranching designer friendly (”Non-technical”) build

75. \ simplebranching simple rollback partial deploysstaff-only specific servers specific processes

    build

76. \ pull requests are discussions that improve code quality build

77. \ push branch get feedback make improvements merge branch build

78. \ asynchronous, non-invasive extremely visible for your org one-click merge

    button replaces traditional code review build

79. \ , superfasttests SHIP

80. \ , 14000 assertions in 200 seconds build (still not

    fast enough)

81. \ , a slow test is a regression build

82. you don’t need distractions you don’t need to be in

    the same country you really don’t need a lot of process

83. FOR OPTIMIZE HAPPINESS

84. 2008 2009 2010 2011 May 2012

85. employees 83 employees who have left 0

86. a happiness-oriented workplace this requires

87. LEADS TO UNHAPPINESS AND TO LEAVING EMPLOYEE BURNOUT

88. EXPLORATION x

89. FREEDOM )

90. SELF-DIRECTION X

91. shared side projects hubot internal apps hardware hacking EXPLORATION x

    PLAY

92. spanish tutoring arduino lessons kindles&ebooks KEEP EVERYONE LEARNING EXPLORATION x

93. ACCEPTED TO SPEAK AT A CONFERENCE? GITHUB PAYS FOR YOU

    AND A TRAVEL BUDDY NETWORKING EXPLORATION x MARKETING FOR GITHUB DRINKUPS, YOUR TALK MEET PEOPLE POTENTIAL HIRES, SOCIALIZING IS FUN

94. BURNOUT HAPPENS WHEN YOU’RE NOT EXPLORATION x PERSONALLY GROWING

95. NO SET HOURS ) FREEDOM

96. NO MANAGERS ) FREEDOM

97. NO MEETINGS ) FREEDOM

98. NO NEED TO BE IN OFFICE ) FREEDOM

99. NO VACATION TRACKING ) FREEDOM

100. SELF-DIRECTION X WORK ON THINGS THAT INTEREST YOU

101. SELF-DIRECTION X WE HAVE TEAMS, BUT TEAMS SHOULD BE EASY

     TO MOVE BEtweEN

102. KEEP YOUR EMPLOYEES HAPPY REALLY REALLY REALLY

103. flexible be

104. build a company you want to work for

105. happiness push for

106. thanks.

107. zachholman @holman zachholman.com/talks