Organising BlaBlaTech @ Lean IT Summit

This is the story of Christian and Nicolas, two Tech Managers at BlaBlaTech, who shaped the engineering team of the highly successful ridesharing startup. The team has grown from one single French five-person team to a dozen distributed and fully agile teams with 30+ people in only two years. Their main responsibility?

Building and scaling the development team by constantly improving
engineering processes, integrating and training new talents, and anticipating tomorrow’s organization. Their challenges? Delivering the same level of quality software and services in an ever-growing business where customer feedback is instantaneous and shared all over the web.

Transcript

1. BlaBlaCar BlaBlaTech @ 8 October 2015
2. Organising BlaBlaTech 8 October 2015 BlaBlaCar
3. What it’s not about • Not about fundraising • Not about going to new markets • Not about the story from the founders
4. Christian Jennewein Nicolas Tricot @cestcri https://github.com/cestcri @sholine42 https://github.com/sholine
5. BlaBlaWhat?
6. 30€ 30€ 120 € 30€ 30€
7. 30€ 30€ 120 € 30€ 30€
8. 20M 15M 10M 5M 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 20 million members in 2015
9. ...in 19 countries
10. ...with 14 offices
12. Build the biggest international transportation network
13. From BlaBlaCar to BlaBlaTech
14. BlaBlaTech missions + Experts...
15. BlaBlaTech culture
16. Internal hackathons
17. Loving beer
18. Common set of values
19. Common set of values
20. Common set of values
21. Common set of values
22. Common set of values
23. Common set of values
25. Warsaw Bucharest Paris People
26. Servers
27. Case study
28. Being Lean by nature! • From the very beginning ◦ Iterative product development ◦ business-hypothesis-driven ◦ validated learning • True startup spirit • Tech & product share one table
29. No real idea about lean, we just did it
32. Hyper-growth at BlaBlaCar
33. How to stay efficient?
34. How to handle a growing team? Let’s try scrum, it’s cool (what we did instead: stand-ups only…)
36. Scrum implementation • Lack of knowledge • Lack of legitimacy • No added value • No leader
37. • Introducing notions of agility • Preparing the next steps Fail? Learn!
38. Privilege member requests
41. Obtain knowledge + legitimacy • had to prepare the transition • met external lean coach with philosophy • but we needed tools & structure
42. “Brainstormed in June, applied in July”
43. Change requires time + preparation • Sell scrum internally • Break resistance to change • Define + communicate the new rules • Onboard product team
44. Mr. Scrum, tear down this wall tech product
45. Scrum by the book • Split tasks into small units • Iterations & feedback loops ◦ Sprints of 1 or 2 weeks • Quick newbie integration • Coaching vs. directing
46. ScrumGuide says... ScrumGuide says... TURN LEFT NOW! TURN LEFT NOW!
50. Integrating remote teams • Faster growth difficult only in Paris • We integrate 5 remote developers • Shift all communication to English • Generate face time • Have a dedicated scrum master & PO
51. Fully data driven
52. PINK DB ADMIN OPS INFRA DEVOPS WHITE DEV ARCHI DATA RED BLUE GREEN YELLOW PURPLE ORANGE
54. The age of maturity
56. The teams liked it Worse than before
57. The management liked it • Organisation copes with team growth • Stay productive • Maintain high visibility • Allow for responsibility & commitment
58. Becoming agile: it works! • Another good reason to join • Clarify the roles • Small and efficient teams • Self-assigning tasks
59. The dark side
60. Some problems... • (too much) focus on tickets, lack of big picture • One big remote team working together • Perception of being controlled by metrics • Rigid sprints vs. prod issues vs. roadmap
63. Quarterly roadmap prioritisation by founders and monitoring of progress
64. Kanban without knowing it... More scrumban than scrum… • Continuous delivery • Limited work in progress • Sprint backlog challenged by new demands
65. Full kanban “Scrum does not suit all teams” • More flexibility regarding the backlog • No need for micro-project management • Less time wasted in ceremonies
66. Member voice team
67. Going fully international • Our choice Warsaw, Poland • Strong Tech community • Few pure players • Existing BlaBlaOffice • Developers integrated in existing teams
68. It’s time to evolve further Why? • Founders cannot define whole roadmap • Developers became more executors than actors How? • Assign missions not tasks
69. Testing a project-oriented team + one big feature for one ephemeral team + all the required skills inside the team + high commitment - solution not from the team - need for skill group sync
70. Testing a goal-oriented team + all the required skills inside the team + high commitment + solution defined by the team - need for skill group sync - ???
73. Future evolutions? • Founders focus on vision, mission & goals • Having more goal-oriented teams • Define & organise skill groups
74. Build
75. Measure
76. Learn
77. Repeat
78. Build
79. Measure
80. Learn
81. Repeat
82. Build
83. Measure
84. Learn
85. Repeat
86. Build. Measure. Learn. Repeat. Questions?