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Lee Thomas & Nick Cahill (Fraedom)
The document discusses Fraedom's transition from a traditional organizational structure to a self-organizing model inspired by Spotify and Holacracy. Key aspects of the new model include overlapping functional practices rather than siloed departments, lightweight peer feedback, and minimal management hierarchy. The transition process involved training all employees and allowing self-selecting teams. While challenges emerged like not all roles fitting and lack of context for some, overall the model has led to quicker evolution and improvement at Fraedom though further changes remain ongoing.
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Lee Thomas & Nick Cahill (Fraedom)
- 1. The Self-organising Organisation NickCahill & Lee Thomas Fraedom
- 2. A better wayto manage business spend Save ! money! ! Gain visibility ! & control! ! ! Free-up ! staff! !
- 3. 30 seconds aboutNick • Born in Sydney, 21 pretty good years went by • Got a computer science degree • Cross functional software developer in 6 different companies in Sydney, London, Vancouver and Auckland • Various technical & less-technical leadership roles within Fraedom during the painless delivery team growth from 10 to 150! • Now a consultant • Fraedom remains a key client engagement
- 4. 30 seconds aboutLee • Born on a golf course (Long Story) • Experience 25++ • Agile Coach & Trainer • Failed Rugby player, so now I coach J “A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.“ " John Wooden, Basketball Coach"
- 5. Advice & caveats • Built on an established agile culture • This change was an evolution, not a revolution • Some of the ideas & concepts might be useful for your evolution • We hope the story, ideas & lessons learned are interesting • Not a Spotify clone, borrows from everywhere (including Spotify) • Was not a “Restructure” • No redundancies • Potentially a bit of self-selection is still happening
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- 10. Our agile journey:Go Live We launched Fraedom Practice on April 1st 2015... April Fool?
- 11. Self organisation anti-patterns …that Fraedom experienced
- 12. CTO QA Manager Test Lead Tester Test Lead Tester VPof Product Chief PO Product Owner BA Technical Director Principal Architect Solutions Architect Lead Solutions Architect Dev Director 1 Dev Lead Dev Dev Dev Dev Lead Team X" Dev Director 2 Dev Lead Team Y Dev Lead Team Z typical delivery team" Self-organisation anti-patterns: (i) A deep org hierarchy (ii) Multiple direct management influences for delivery teams Scrum Master
- 13. Self-organisation anti-patterns: (iii) Functionaldepartments with • exclusive areas of ownership • independent improvement backlogs CIO! Production! Hosting! System Admins! & DBA’s! Info ! Security! CTO! QA! Testers! Development! Developers! Architecture! Architects! Product ! Product owners & BA’s!
- 14. Self-organisation anti-patterns: (iv) annualprofessional development (performance) review done by your direct manager • KPI’s set generically & annually • SMART KPI’s working against self-organisation • KPI’s directly tied to an individuals bonus structure • Hands-on line mangers too busy to do these well • Feedback is from managers perspective • Misses most valuable feedback from team based peers
- 15. Self-organisation anti-patterns: (v) Makingkey technical practice evolution & culture shifts a project (or a team) • Fraedom wanted to: • Embrace a DevOps culture & practices • Achieve continuous delivery of its SaaS product • Adopt an agile mind-set & practices • These are true x-functional initiatives which require measured and constant focus touching many aspects of the business • Limited success, small slow and often unsustainable steps when trying to make inroads here using projects/initiatives & spare capacity
- 16. The Fraedom PracticeModel …the theory
- 17. Early ideas An originalearly Cahill...
- 18. Key foundation concepts Primaryfocus was to be team first and foremost Horizontal not vertical focus Based on Lean principles – align to the Value Stream Free our people to do what they do best Removing constraints to promote evolution
- 19. An improved model…the highlights Traditional approach withmore constraints! Self organisation with lessconstraints! Lightweight peer feedbackmechanisms! Flat org structure! Functional leadership &management/HR decoupled ! Overlapping functional practices! Annual performance review! Deep org structure! Skill leaders also managers! Defined departments !
- 22. Key concept: Overlappingpractices
- 23. A typical delivery team setup DevelopmentData Technology Quality Assurance Product, Analysis & Design DevOps Architecture Continuous Delivery Lean|Agile Operations Product Owner Scrum Master Solutions Architect Technical Writer CTO Practice Specialist Practice Specialist Practices have one Practice Lead each
- 24. A typical delivery team setup& HR Development Data Technology Quality Assurance Product, Analysis & Design DevOps Architecture Continuous Delivery Lean|Agile Operations Product Owner Scrum Master Solutions Architect Technical Writer CTO Practice Specialist Practice Specialist Practices have one Practice Lead each HR Advisors
- 25. Overlapping influences &support structures Business (Clients, ! Product Management, PO)! ! ! ! Scrum Masters! ! ! ! ! HR Advisors! Practices ! (Leads, Specialists & ! Consultants)! ! ! ! ! Your Team Members! ! !
- 27. How did itgo? & how is it going?
- 28. Our in-house agiletraining program Train EVERYONE = Baseline for a common understanding
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- 30. Problems we face • Not everyone knows what to do & how to act • Some people just don't like change! • Most of our people were OK • Some roles didn’t fit anymore... • We redeployed these roles • Some took the model extremely literally! • People did not have the full context to self- organise effectively
- 31. How did wehandle these problems? Prochaska and DiClemente’s Stages of Change Model Engaged an objective Change Manager She helped with tough individual emotional responses She brought a completely different set of perspectives - invaluable
- 32. What are weseeing? • Small staff churn/turnover (good churn? still early days) • Amplified good & bad (good parts got better, bad things got worse) • Things evolve and devolve quicker • Existing problems flare-up • Some attribute these to the model • Fundamental issues of visibility and context become primary concerns • Challenging personalities & structure focussed people stand-out more
- 33. Measurement & movingforward • Measurement: Culture survey with baseline • Open spaces: Promote open discussions on challenges & hot topics • Only roll forward, never roll back • We are sure on one thing: we have not got the perfect model • The model allows low(er!) friction evolution so encourages further change
- 34. References List of Casestudies and books that fed into our approach: Peopleware - Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister Drive – Dan Pink Spo.fy – Henrik Kniberg LESS @ JP Morgan - Craig Larmann Scaled Agile Framework – Dean Leffingwell Trademe (Squadification) – Sandy Mamoli Zappos & Holacracy How to run a company with no rules – Ricardo Semler Lean Product Development Flow – Don Reinertsen NeGlix Culture – Freedom and Responsibility
- 35. Thanks for listening… Your name Your organisa.on Follow me @your twiLer Your pic Thanks for listening… Questions? Nick Cahill nick.cahill@gmail.com | @quicknickc Lee Thomas lthomas@fraedom.com | @iter8nz