How GitHub Works

How GitHub Works.

Hint: it's pretty cool.

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
10. no office had other jobs
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
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