This document discusses team building at the e-commerce company Gilt. It explains that teams at Gilt are formed based on "ingredients" rather than job titles. These ingredients include skills like product vision, design, coding, analysis, and team motivation. The document then profiles four Gilt employees, describing their primary and secondary ingredients. It emphasizes focusing one's efforts in their best areas. Effective teams are formed when individuals focus on utilizing their key ingredients.

1. Get Stuff Done Faster:
Why Engineers Should Work with the
‘Dark Side’ of Tech

2. Justin Riservato
Director, Program Management

3. Welcome!
- What is Gilt?
- How teams are formed at Gilt
- The role of ingredients in teams
- Let’s hear from the experts

4. What is Gilt?
adjective
● covered thinly with gold
leaf or gold paint
noun
● a young pig

5. What is Gilt?
● Gilt (www.gilt.com) is an e-
commerce company focused on
flash sales. We provide insider
access to top designers at up to
60% off, in sales typically lasting
72 hours.
● We’re also one of the top tech
companies in NYC!
● Check out tech.gilt.com to learn
more about us!

6. It’s important to understand
“Why” before figuring out
“What”

7. How We Work @ GILT
Strategy: Big Areas of Focus
Initiatives: What are we doing / not doing?
KPIs: Answering WHY
Teams: Who do we need?
Ingredients: Qualities, Not Titles
Execution: Get Working!

8. You are more than your job title!

9. Product Visionary
Driving product vision and strategic innovation. Strong point of view.
PR and Relationship Manager
Managing the external view of the team. Communicates well both verbally
and via email. Knows how to deliver an excellent presentation.
Product Ideator
Thinking creatively and driving tactical innovation. Being the voice of the
customer.
Visual Designer
Creates on-brand visual designs.
UX
Build wireframes, runs usability tests, designs user interactions.
Coder
Writes feature and test code. Create queries and reports.
Product Marketer
Analyzes the market and competitive landscape, determines
product/feature positioning so the customer clearly understands the benefit,
figures out ways to drive traffic to the product or feature.
Business thinker
Driving KPI thinking. Understanding business mechanics. Sizing
opportunities.
Organizer
Driving planning of work, running productive meetings, keeping the team
focused on execution.
Engineering Architect
High level system design. Managing technical debt. Building for the right
amount of performance and scale. Providing technical leadership and
mentorship.
Quality Manager
Ensuring the quality of releases. Making sure that the right amount of
automation is built (unit tests).
Motivator
Creating a sense of urgency while ensuring a sustainable pace for the
team.
Cruise Director
Making things fun. Creating a sense of team spirit.
Analyst
Drives product instrumentation. Proposes tests (e.g. a/b tests). Analyzes
data. Creates and tests hypotheses and uses these to influence product
direction. Can clearly communicate what data means.
Technical Operator
Drives product instrumentation. Pays attention to production operational
parameters (alerts, tuning, etc).

10. Cruise Director
Making things fun. Creating a sense of
team spirit.

11. Motivator
Creating a sense of urgency while
ensuring a sustainable pace for the
team.

12. Business Thinker
Driving KPI thinking. Understanding
business mechanics. Sizing
opportunities.

13. The Secret Sauce
How many ingredients can you do well?
Great! But how many can you do well at the same time?
Maybe it’s time to bring in the specialists...

14. Team productivity increases
when individual people focus on
what they do best.

15. Andrew Chen
Director of Product

16. My Ingredients
Primary:
Product Visionary
PR and Relationship Manager
Product Ideator
Business Thinker
Analyst
Secondary:
Product Marketer
Organizer
Motivator
Cruise Director

18. Key Skills - Andrew
- Sharp focus on KPIs and Vision
- Understanding/communicating customer pain points
- Data and metrics based decision making
- Rallying/leading across disciplines

19. Susan Thomas
Senior Business Systems Manager

20. My Ingredients
Primary:
Product Visionary
PR and Relationship Manager
Product Ideator
Business Thinker
Analyst
Motivator
Secondary:
Organizer
Cruise Director

21. My World

22. My Toolbox
● I am “Nancy Drew”
● Technical POV to Business
● Business POV to Engineering
● Designing process solutions vs. tech
solutions
...while keeping focus on the KPI and
overall company vision!

23. What’s the difference?
Internal vs. External
Systems & Process vs. Customer
Cost vs. Revenue

24. Myron Miller, PMP
Senior Program Manager

25. My Ingredients
Primary:
PR and Relationship Manager
Organizer
Motivator
Cruise Director
Secondary:
Business Thinker
Quality Manager

26. Identifying Program Opportunities
Legacy Q3 Project 2
Legacy Q3 Project 1
Legacy Q3 Project 3
Stakeholder Maintenance Backlog
Red Hot
July August September
Legacy Q3 Project 4
Legacy Q3 Project - Canceled

27. Identifying Program Opportunities
Q3 2014 Maintenance Completed vs.
Red Hot Completed per Stakeholder
Q3 2014 Maintenance Backlog
per Stakeholder

28. Implementing Tools
- Program Portfolio Management
- Project Briefing Discovery
- Input Channel Management Methodology
- Enhanced Communication Channels

29. Q1 Program Rebaseline Plan
Rebaseline Maintenance Project 1
Red Hot
Rebaseline Project 1
January
Rebaseline Maintenance Project 2
February March

30. Results
- Happy Stakeholders!
- Happy Engineers!
- Transparency
- Communication
- Agile and Responsive

31. Things we believe:

32. Right work, right people

33. Let’s stretch!

34. And don’t forget