Facebook and Scrum

Facebook
and
Scrum

Scrum
Breakfast
Zürich

06.07.2011

Jens
Meydam
(Twi/er:
@jmeydam)

Swiss
Limited
WIP
Society

h/p://www.limitedwipsociety.ch/

…
sequel
to:

h/p://www.limitedwipsociety.ch/en/case-‐study.html

Don
Reinertsen

h/p://www.scrum-‐breakfast.com/2011/07/lean-‐business-‐lunch-‐with-‐don-‐reinertson.html

Facebook

h/p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-‐Xr_PJdNmQ

Facebook

h/p://www.businessinsider.com/chart-‐of-‐the-‐day-‐facebook-‐vs-‐the-‐rest-‐of-‐the-‐web-‐2011-‐6

Facebook

h/p://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.151210881613324.38273.105215052879574

Facebook

h/p://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=469716398919

Facebook
and
Scrum
(1)

The
Short
Version

What
is
Scrum?

“Scrum
is
the
process
that
is
deﬁned
in
the

Scrum
Guide.

If
the
process
is
not
rigorously

followed,
the
result
should
not
be
called

Scrum.”

Evidence
for
Scrum
at
Facebook

“11:30 on a Wednesday
morning and the Facebook
Profile team is in the
middle of a ‘Scrum’ - …

Evidence
for
Scrum
at
Facebook

… that’s what they call
these daily meetings when
engineers, designers and
data experts meet to set
out the tasks for the
day.”

Dec
2010:
New
Facebook
Proﬁle

The
Proﬁle
team
–

Daily
Scrum

h/p://www.ame.com/ame/video/player/0,32068,712448402001_2037228,00.html

The
Proﬁle
team
–

Daily
Scrum

The
Proﬁle
team
–

Product
Designer

The
Proﬁle
team
–

Data
Experts

The
Proﬁle
team
–

Product
Manager

The
Proﬁle
team
–

Engineering
Manager

Summary

As
of
July
2011,
there
is
one
documented

example
of
a
Facebook
team
that
uses
a

Scrum
pracMce
(Daily
Scrum).

It
is
not
clear
to
what
extent
they
follow
the

Scrum
Guide.

(End
of
short
version)

Facebook
and
Scrum
(2)

The
Longer
Version

What’s
programming
got
to
do

with
rugby???

Rugby
as
a
metaphor
for
a

style
of
development

h/p://hbr.org/1986/01/the-‐new-‐new-‐product-‐development-‐game/ar/1

Rugby
as
a
metaphor
for
a

style
of
development

From
Takeuchi
and
Nonaka’s
paper

•  The
tradiaonal
sequenaal
or
"relay
race"

approach
to
product
development
[...]
may

conﬂict
with
the
goals
of
maximum
speed
and

ﬂexibility.

Instead,
a
holisMc
or
"rugby"

approach
-‐
where
a
team
tries
to
go
the

distance
as
a
unit,
passing
the
ball
back
and

forth
-‐
may
be/er
serve
today's
compeaave

requirements.

From
Takeuchi
and
Nonaka’s
paper

•  [...]
the
product
development
process

emerges
from
the
constant
interacaon
of
a

hand-‐picked,
mulMdisciplinary
team
whose

members
work
together
from
start
to
ﬁnish.

Rather
than
moving
in
deﬁned,
highly

structured
stages,
the
process
is
born
out
of

the
team
members'
interplay
[...].

From
Takeuchi
and
Nonaka’s
paper

• 
[...]
the
team
may
be
forced
to
reconsider
a

decision
as
a
result
of
later
informaMon.

The

team
does
not
stop
then,
but
engages
in

iteraMve
experimentaMon.

This
goes
on
in

even
the
latest
phases
of
the
development

process.

From
Takeuchi
and
Nonaka’s
paper

•  Top
management
kicks
off
the
development

process
by
signaling
a
broad
goal
or
a
general

strategic
direcMon.

It
rarely
hands
out
a
clear-‐
cut
new
product
concept
or
a
specific
work

plan.

But
it
offers
a
project
team
a
wide

measure
of
freedom
and
also
establishes

extremely
challenging
goals.

From
Takeuchi
and
Nonaka’s
paper

•  Fuji-‐Xerox
located
the
mulMfuncMonal
team

building
the
fX-‐3500
-‐
consisang
of
members

from
the
planning,
design,
producaon,
sales,

distribuaon,
and
evaluaaon
departments
-‐
in

one
large
room.

From
Takeuchi
and
Nonaka’s
paper

•  The
self-‐organizing
character
of
the
team

produces
a
unique
dynamic
or
rhythm.

[...]

they
all
must
work
toward
synchronizing
their

pace
to
meet
deadlines.

[...]
the
team
begins

to
work
as
a
unit.

From
Takeuchi
and
Nonaka’s
paper

•  Because
members
of
the
project
team
stay
in

close
touch
with
outside
sources
of

informaMon,
they
can
respond
quickly
to

changing
market
condiaons.

Team
members

engage
in
a
conMnual
process
of
trial
and

error
to
narrow
down
the
number
of

alternaMves
they
must
consider.

From
Takeuchi
and
Nonaka’s
paper

•  They
also
acquire
broad
knowledge
and

diverse
skills,
which
help
them
create
a

versaMle
team
capable
of
solving
an
array
of

problems
fast.

From
Takeuchi
and
Nonaka’s
paper

•  Although
project
teams
are
largely
on
their

own,
they
are
not
uncontrolled.

Management

establishes
enough
checkpoints
to
prevent

instability,
ambiguity,
and
tension
from

turning
into
chaos.

Scrum
is
at
its
core
what

Takeuchi
and
Nonaka
described

comp.client-‐server
/
Sep
14,
1995

First
paper
on
Scrum
(OOPSLA’95)

h/p://assets.scrumfoundaaon.com/downloads/2/scrumpapers.pdf?1285932052

Scrum
in
sopware
development

started
with
these
three
people

Jeﬀ
Sutherland
John
Scumniotales
Jeﬀ
McKenna

Sopware
Magazine
/
Nov,
1993

h/p://ﬁndaracles.com/p/aracles/mi_m0SMG/is_n16_v13/ai_14635699/

Announcement
of
ﬁrst
release

InfoWorld
/
Feb
21,
1994

h/p://books.google.com/books?id=BzsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA19&dq=%22easel+preps+development+tool%22

Announcement
of
second
release

InfoWorld
/
Aug
29,
1994

h/p://books.google.com/books?id=jjgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA30&dq=%22easel+to+ship+object+oriented+tools%22

The
product
is
sall
under
acave

development

h/p://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/products/products-‐objectstudio/

Achievements

•  The
ﬁrst
sopware
Scrum
team
did
not
only

produce
sopware
fast

•  It
created
highly
innovaMve
features
that

deﬁned
a
product
for
years
to
come

Fun
fact

•  Scrum
is
the
only
Agile
process/methodology/
framework
with
roots
in
product
development

•  All
the
others
came
out
of
internal
projects
or

consulang
projects

Back
to
Facebook
…

Thesis:

While
there
is
lile
or
no
evidence
for

“prescripMve
Scrum”
at
Facebook,
there
are

striking
parallels
to
Scrum
as
described
by

Takeuchi
and
Nonaka.

This
may
be
called
a
variant
of
Scrum,
just
as
Jeﬀ

Sutherland
referred
to
the
process
used
on
the

Borland
project
as
a
variant
of
Scrum.

Julie
Zhuo,

Product
Design
Manager

h/p://www.zurb.com/aracle/515/podcast-‐of-‐julie-‐zhuos-‐talk-‐on-‐how-‐facebo

Julie
Zhuo

We believe in really small teams,
so, you know, we have, at this
point in time, like, a team for
Search, a team for Newsfeed, a
team for the Profile, a team for,
you know, ads, and generally,
those teams are pretty tiny.

Julie
Zhuo

Like, we have generally one PM,
one designer, who is responsible
for the whole feature or even a
vertical, in some instances, we
have a handful of engineers and …

Julie
Zhuo

… as much as we can, we like to,
you know, have everyone work
together but keep sort of a
tight-knit kind of community so
that each team can sort of feel
like it's one small company in and
of itself.

Julie
Zhuo

So I'm a designer, I actually
manage half of the product design
team, and right now the product
design team is about eighteen
people.

Julie
Zhuo

… the way that we think of
product design at Facebook is it's!
-  you know, some companies have
a segmentation of like, visual
designer, interface designer, design
strategy –!
and for us it's really just one
role …

Julie
Zhuo

... and traditionally we've also tried
to hire really technical designers
and people who can go into the
codebase and, you know, write up
the front-end …

Julie
Zhuo

… or at least have some familiarity
with the front-end layer so they
don't have to sort of go in, you
know, always ask an engineer to
tweak something by five pixels.

Adam
Mosseri,

Product
Design
Manager

h/p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKZiXAFeBeY

Org
Charts

h/p://www.bonkersworld.net/wp-‐content/uploads/2011/06/2011.06.27_organizaaonal_charts.png

(Chief)
Product
Owner:

Mark
Zuckerberg

h/p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfN1YaYdgRg

Mike
Schroepfer,

Vice
President
of
Engineering

h/p://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/nov/22/facebook-‐developer-‐life-‐inside

Mike
Schroepfer

How
many
projects
do
you
have
going
at
once?

It's
hard
to
tell,
because
we
have
them
running
all
the
ame,
but
they
might
be

just
a
singe
person
or
two.
The
answer
I
guess
would
be
somewhere
between

several
dozen
to
100
at
once.

Mike
Schroepfer

How
do
you
know
if
they're
running
to
plan?
The
big
problem
as

organisa=ons
like
Google
or
Microso@
get
larger
is
keeping
what
they're

doing
synchronised.

Well,
intuiMon
is
what
gives
us
the
ideas
for
what
to
do,
and
data
tells
us
if

we're
ge_ng
it
right.
We
iterate
to
ﬁnd
out
if
a
project's
doing
it
right.
Or
you

might
make
something
live
and
then
you
look
at
whether
people
are
using
it

frequently,
or
whether
they
use
it
once
and
don't
come
back.

If
they
don't
come
back
then
we
probably
didn't
get
it
right.
It's
a
constant

process
of
iteraMon.
The
longer
it
gets
before
you
get
in
data
from
the

outcome,
the
worse
it's
going
to
be
if
it's
not
right.

Mike
Schroepfer

As
companies
get
bigger,
they
face
the
problem
of
decisions
having
to
ﬂow
up

and
down
management,
and
inevitably
things
ossify
-‐
it's
been
like
that
for

Microso@,
and
there
are
signs
of
it
at
Google.
Is
there
a
way
to
avoid
that
at

Facebook?

(laughs)
Yes,
we
don't
have
the
layers
of
management
approval!
We
don't
pass

things
up
and
down
the
chain.
The
team
working
on
the
product
development

makes
the
decisions.
If
there's
a
problem
or
if
they
think
it
merits
it
then
they

will
talk
to
Mark
[Zuckerberg]
directly.

We
try
to
do
a
good
job
of
se_ng
out
the
context
of
the
task
and
release

people
to
get
on
and
do
it.

People
are
pushing
new
features
and
code
to
the
site
every
day.
It's
really

about
trying
to
remove
barriers
and
reduce
fricMon
in
development.

HipHop
Team


Facebook
Video
Team
(Hackathon)

h/p://vimeo.com/6220145

So
what
do
you
think?

Thesis:

While
there
is
lile
or
no
evidence
for

“prescripMve
Scrum”
at
Facebook,
there
are

striking
parallels
to
Scrum
as
described
by

Takeuchi
and
Nonaka.

This
may
be
called
a
variant
of
Scrum,
just
as
Jeﬀ

Sutherland
referred
to
the
process
used
on
the

Borland
project
as
a
variant
of
Scrum.

Finding
suitable
abstracaons

Roles

•  Mark
Zuckerberg
as
(Chief)
Product
Owner

•  Role
of
product
managers
and
teams

•  Hackathons
as
a
way
for
developers
to
get

their
ideas
on
the
“Backlog”

•  Role
of
project
managers
and
engineering

managers

Organizaaonal
pa/erns
(Jim
Coplien)

•  Community
of
Trust

•  Unity
of
Purpose

•  Holisac
Diversity

•  Few
Roles

•  Producers
in
the
Middle

•  …

Flow
principles
(Don
Reinertsen)

•  The
Principle
of
Mission

•  The
Principle
of
Peer-‐Level
Coordinaaon

•  The
Principle
of
Regeneraave
Iniaaave

•  The
Principle
of
Face-‐to-‐Face
Communicaaon

• 
The
Principle
of
Colocaaon

•  The
Trust
Principle

•  ...
(see
h/p://www.limitedwipsociety.ch/en/case-‐study.html)

Forces
shaping
Facebook’s
culture

•  How
would
you
organize
development
if
your

engineers
were
themselves
users
of
your

product?

•  How
would
you
organize
development
if
your

team
got
realame
feedback
from
actual
users?

Joe
Kinsella’s
retrospecave

h/p://www.hightechinthehub.com/2010/10/8-‐lessons-‐from-‐the-‐ﬁrst-‐scrum-‐team/

Joe
Kinsella’s
retrospecave

The
team
grew
over
the
years,
but
never
during
my

Mme
exceeded
6-‐8
people.
For
a
while
we
had
Mike

Morris
from
our
San
Diego
office,
Dave
Hoag
from
Easel

consulang,
and
Jeff
McKenna,
an
external
object

oriented
consultant.
We
also
had
several
developers

from
a
Danish
consulang
firm
working
with
us.
But

throughout
the
Mme,
we
maintained
a
moMvated
and

high
performance
team
with
a
real
passion
for
the

crah
of
sohware
engineering.

Joe
Kinsella’s
retrospecave

Eight
Lessons

Joe
Kinsella’s
retrospecave

#1:
Work
With
Integrated
Cross
FuncMonal
Teams

#2:
Engage
in
Constant
CommunicaMon

#3:
ConMnuously
Demonstrate
Your
Product

#4:
Hire
ConMnuous
Learners

#5:
Work
Directly
With
Customers

#6:
Invest
in
Code
ConsolidaMon

#7:
Create
Mentoring
OpportuniMes

#8:
Build
Social
Bonds

Joe
Kinsella’s
retrospecave

#1:
Work
With
Integrated
Cross
FuncMonal
Teams

The
Easel
team
was
a
Mghtly
knit
group
that
included

development,
quality
assurance,
and
product

management.
One
day
our
product
manager,
Don

Roedner,
took
me
aside
to
tell
me
how
diﬀerent
this

was
from
his
previous
experience.
The
Mght
cross

funcMonal
integraMon
allowed
for
a
more
rapid

product
development
process,
increased
agility,
and

eliminated
the
need
for
more
formal
communicaaon.

HipHop


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