How GitHub Works (v2)

This is the updated version of my "How GitHub Works" talk.

Read more: http://zachholman.com/posts/how-github-works/

1. github works how
2. we all work in the finest industry of all time
3. dream it that morning
4. build it that afternoon
5. that’s remarkable.
6. can we do better?
7. we’ve been on the same path for years
8. can we improve how product is built?
9. working asynchronously optimizing happiness for five years later github
10. @holman
11. github, inc.
12. ASYNCHRONOUSLY WORKing the philosophy
13. when github was founded they: worked on what they wanted worked where they wanted worked when they wanted
14. when github was founded they: were happy
15. why change this?
16. developer happiness is central to our workflow
17. no managers · NO DEADLINES NO MEETINGS · NO WORK HOURS this: reflects that workflow
18. in hindsight, we work like a big open source project
19. WORK LIKE OPEN SOURCE
20. the open source model works
21. distributed collaboration
22. GEOGRAPHY
23. open source happens everywhere smart people are everywhere
24. build a company that can work anywhere
25. tools are our office planning, discussing, building
26. all information should be accessible
27. HOURS
28. open source happens at any time people are creative at all hours
29. code is a creative endeavor let your people stay fresh
30. night owls ain’t morning people
31. morning people ain’t night owls
32. you can’t enforce creativity
33. minimal process
34. every step you add increases complexity
35. every step you add increases onboarding
36. every step you add increases inefficiency
37. minimize human processes
38. code branching & release (WRONG) V2 BRANCH QA MANAGER STABLE merged FEATURE BRANCH TUESDAY CODE REVIEW
39. code branching & release (WRONG) V2 BRANCH QA MANAGER STABLE merged FEATURE BRANCH X TUESDAY CODE REVIEW
40. minimize human processes code branching & release
41. code branching & release branch pull request master merged
42. code branching & release merged run tests auto-deploy
43. sometimes it’s not about automation sometimes you have to remove barriers
44. ship code quicker
45. less metawork, more actual work
46. ASYNCHRONOUSLY WORKing with tools
47. pull requests a request to merge your code
48. pull requests 3,108 github/github pull requests 399 in the last month 63 in the last month - 1 year
49. pull requests 3.1 1.4 pull requests PER employee per month, 2011 pull requests PER employee per month, 2012
50. pull requests we use pulls for any new code
51. pull requests asynchronous ask for feedback at their leisure
52. pull requests mentions ping users, teams
53. pull requests avoid meetings & in-person code review
54. chat
55. chat chat is inherently asynchronous
56. chat tapping me on my shoulder is inherently being a jerk
57. chat scheduling a meeting is inherently probably a hate crime
58. chat 83 chat rooms
59. chat ping someone
60. chat ping someone native OS X + ios notifications
61. chat get someone’s attention without bothering them
62. OPTIMIZing HAPPINESS for
63. WHY BE HAPPY?
64. if you’re asking, you’re probably a horrible person but...
65. investing in employees makes fiscal sense (I can’t believe I had to say that)
66. happy people produce better work
67. happy people help you recruit
68. happy people keep you happier
69. so how?
70. BREAK CONVENTION from
71. work style asynchronous, distributed
72. side project culture let people build cool things hubot · CI testing · deploy infrastructure door me · music server · support tools dev environment management · more
73. travel
74. company summit 2x/year company-wide brainstorm travel
75. mini-summit 1x/year team-based brainstorm travel
76. any talk, anywhere your talk or as a travel buddy travel
77. github destinations hack house for a dozen for a month travel
78. github destinations hack house for a dozen for a month travel berlin · hawaii · Uruguay · Beijing · rome · etc.
79. travel why?
80. travel travel is eye-opening new perspectives, new approaches
81. travel face time bond with your coworkers
82. travel stay fresh
83. FAMILY focus
84. people have kids and stuff
85. flexible hours & locations are great
86. 120 hour work weeks are silly
87. family-friendly company events
88. existence of families reflects success
89. f i v e YEARS LATER
90. four years in, github’s the same
91. four years in, github’s changed
92. changes and constants are fascinating
93. MORE HUMANS
95. 2010 2011
96. 2010 2011 2012
98. 132 employees today
99. 2.5 million users today
100. death of the hero developer
101. work moves across ops, design, backend, & frontend more frequently
102. rely on other teams for sanity checks
103. pull requests bottleneck prevention:
104. we average 10-20 per day
105. means fast development without sacrificing quality
106. INTERNAL TOOLING
107. the bigger we get, the more time we spend on internal tools
108. our dev tools are prettier than most for-profit products
109. SUPPORT
110. Chat
111. TEAM
112. it becomes mathematically improbable that this time was wasted
113. teams
114. teams let you focus
115. but teams shouldn’t be about lock-in
116. permissive repositories permit people to float
117. self-selecting teams hugely important in crisis
118. we still suck at teams it’s important to get right though
119. how you work is as important to me as what your work is
120. can this work for your company? maybe, maybe not.
121. the point is to reevaluate what is important to you.
122. thanks.
123. @holman