Video and slides synchronized, mp3 and slide download available at URL http://bit.ly/2Ju9Gkh. Randy Shoup discusses team autonomy- how high-performing companies own their destiny from idea to development to deployment to operations; trust- how we need to foster a culture of trust among the individuals on a team, and between the teams themselves; and pragmatism in the product development process- how we need to define the problem we are solving, and solve it in the simplest way possible. Filmed at qconlondon.com. Randy Shoup is a 25-year veteran of Silicon Valley, and has worked as a senior technology leader and executive at companies ranging from small startups, to mid-sized places, to eBay and Google. He is currently VP Engineering at WeWork in San Francisco. He is particularly passionate about the nexus of culture, technology, and organization.

1. Building and Scaling a
High-Performance Culture
Randy Shoup
@randyshoup
linkedin.com/in/randyshoup

2. InfoQ.com: News & Community Site
Watch the video with slide
synchronization on InfoQ.com!
https://www.infoq.com/presentations/
autonomy-trust-pragmacy-teams/
• Over 1,000,000 software developers, architects and CTOs read the site world-
wide every month
• 250,000 senior developers subscribe to our weekly newsletter
• Published in 4 languages (English, Chinese, Japanese and Brazilian
Portuguese)
• Post content from our QCon conferences
• 2 dedicated podcast channels: The InfoQ Podcast, with a focus on
Architecture and The Engineering Culture Podcast, with a focus on building
• 96 deep dives on innovative topics packed as downloadable emags and
minibooks
• Over 40 new content items per week

3. Purpose of QCon
- to empower software development by facilitating the spread of
knowledge and innovation
Strategy
- practitioner-driven conference designed for YOU: influencers of
change and innovation in your teams
- speakers and topics driving the evolution and innovation
- connecting and catalyzing the influencers and innovators
Highlights
- attended by more than 12,000 delegates since 2007
- held in 9 cities worldwide
Presented at QCon London
www.qconlondon.com

4. @randyshoup
Successful companies
need to be able to
• Build a Product
• Sell a Product
• Get Along

5. Background
@randyshoup

6. Culture eats strategy for
breakfast.
-- Peter Drucker
@randyshoup

7. Culture eats strategy and
organization and technology and
process and … for breakfast.
-- me
@randyshoup

8. Westrum Model of
Organizational Culture
• Generative Organization
o Trust and Sharing
• Bureaucratic Organization
o Rules and Processes
• Pathological Organization
o Fear and Threat
@randyshoup

9. Elite
vs.
Low
@randyshoup

10. High-Performing
Organizations
è 2.5x more likely
to exceed goals
o Profitability
o Market share
o Productivity
@randyshoup

11. High-Performing
Culture
• Trust and Collaboration
• Autonomy and Accountability
• Pragmatism and Progress

12. High-Performing
Culture
• Trust and Collaboration
• Autonomy and Accountability
• Pragmatism and Progress

13. Psychological
Safety
• Team is safe for
interpersonal risk-taking
• “Being able to show and
employ one’s self without
fear of negative
consequences”
• More important than any
other factor in team
success
@randyshoup

14. Theory X vs.
Theory Y
• Dr. Douglas McGregor, 1960
• Leadership’s beliefs about
what motivates employees
@randyshoup

15. Theory X vs.
Theory Y
• Theory X: people are
inherently lazy, avoid
responsibility, require
extrinsic motivation
• Theory Y: people are
intrinsically motivated,
seek ownership, want
to perform well
@randyshoup

17. Cross-Functional
Collaboration
• Open communication
o Individuals encouraged to work directly with each other
o Prefer informal cooperation over formal channels
• Best decisions made through partnership
o Agreement on goals and priorities makes it easier to agree on tactics
o Given common context, well-meaning people will generally agree
• “Disagree and Commit”
@randyshoup

18. None of us is as smart as all of
us.
-- Japanese proverb,
as quoted by Bob Taylor
@randyshoup

19. Google App Engine
Reliability Fixit
• Problem: Reliability issues in production
o 8-hour global outage in Fall 2013
o Reliability issues had not been prioritized
• Step 1: Identify the Problem
o All team leads and senior engineers met in a room with a whiteboard
o Enumerated all known and suspected reliability issues
o Consolidated into 8-10 themes
@randyshoup

20. Google App Engine
Reliability Fixit
• Step 2: Understand the Problem
o Each theme assigned to a lead or senior engineer to investigate and
learn more about
o Timeboxed for 1 week
• Step 3: Consensus and Prioritization
o Leads discussed themes and prioritized work
o Assigned engineers to tasks
@randyshoup

21. Google App Engine
Reliability Fixit
• Step 4: Implementation and Follow-Up
o Engineers worked on assigned tasks
o Minimal effort from management (~1 hour / week) to summarize progress
at weekly team meeting
• è Results
o 10x reduction in reliability issues
o Broader participation and ownership around the health of the platform
o Improved team cohesion and camaraderie
o Still remembered several years later
@randyshoup

22. WeWork
Signup Retrospective
• Problem: Signup issues in production
• Step 1: Identify the Problem
• Step 2: Understand the Problem
• Step 3: Consensus and Prioritization
• Step 4: Implementation and Follow-Up
• è Results
@randyshoup

23. High-Performing
Culture
• Trust and Collaboration
• Autonomy and Accountability
• Pragmatism and Progress

24. “It doesn’t make
sense to hire
smart people and
then tell them
what to do; we
hire smart people
so they can tell us
what to do.”
@randyshoup

25. Autonomy and
Accountability
• Give a team a goal, not a solution
o Measured by clear, customer-oriented metric(s)
• Give the team autonomy
o Let team own the best way to achieve their goal
• Hold team accountable for *results*
o Responsible for producing business value
o Responsible for the results of their choices
@randyshoup

26. Traditional
Organizations
Idea
Development
Quality
Operations
@randyshoup

27. Full-Stack
Teams
Idea
Development
Quality
Operations
Idea
Development
Quality
Operations
Idea
Development
Quality
Operations

28. Business / Domain
Alignment
<Business
Domain>
• Aligned around a business
problem
o Clear goals and metrics …
o … that matter to customers!
• Well-defined area of
responsibility
o Single application / service or set of
related applications / services
@randyshoup

29. End-to-End
Ownership
• Teams own their roadmap
• Team owns service from design to deployment to
retirement
• No separate maintenance or sustaining engineering
team
@randyshoup

30. High-Performing
Culture
• Trust and Collaboration
• Autonomy and Accountability
• Pragmatism and Progress

31. What problem are
you trying to solve?
@randyshoup

32. “A problem
well-stated
is a problem
half-solved.”
-- Charles Kettering,
head of research at GM
@randyshoup

33. Engineering is about solving
problems …
@randyshoup
… Sometimes we solve those
problems by writing code.

34. “Building the
wrong thing is
the biggest waste
in software
development.”
@randyshoup

35. Fewer Things,
More Done
@randyshoup

36. Feature 1
Feature 2
Feature 3
Feature 4
Feature 5
Traditional
Organizations
Month 4@randyshoup

37. Feature 1
Feature 2
Feature 3
Feature 4
Feature 5
Continuous Delivery:
Fewer Things, More Done
Month 4Month 2@randyshoup

38. Continuous Delivery:
Iterative Development
Month 4Month 2
1a 1b 1c 1d
2a 2b 2c
3a 3b 3c 3d
4a 4b 4c
5a 5b
@randyshoup

40. Quality Matters
@randyshoup

41. “Do you have time to do it
twice?”
“We don’t have time to do it
right!”
@randyshoup

42. The more constrained you are
on time or resources, the more
important it is to build it right
the first time.
@randyshoup

43. “Do not try to
do everything.
Do one thing
well.”
@randyshoup

44. Vicious Cycle
of Technical Debt
Technical
Debt
“No time
to do it
right”
Quick-
and-dirty
@randyshoup

45. Virtuous Cycle
of Investment
Solid
Foundation
Confidence
Faster and
Better
Quality
Investment
@randyshoup

46. 1. Unlearn behaviors
and mindsets
2. Relearn new skills,
strategies, and
innovations
3. Break through old
habits and thinking
@randyshoup

47. High-Performing
Culture
• Trust and Collaboration
• Autonomy and Accountability
• Pragmatism and Progress

48. “The culture of an organization
is shaped by the worst behavior
the leader is willing to tolerate.”
-- Gruenert and Whitaker,
School Culture Rewired
@randyshoup

49. “If you can’t change your
organization,
change your organization.”
-- Martin Fowler
@randyshoup

50. We are Hiring!
700 software engineers
globally, in
• New York
• Tel Aviv
• San Francisco
• Seattle
• Shanghai
• Singapore
@randyshoup

51. Watch the video with slide
synchronization on InfoQ.com!
https://www.infoq.com/presentations/
autonomy-trust-pragmacy-teams/