Innovation Ain't Easy: Lessons Learned from 8 years in the Trenches at Atlassian

NICK MENERE • J IRA DEV MANAGER • ATLASS IAN • @GOODNICK

Innovation ain’t Easy:LESSONS LEARNT FROM 8 YEARS IN THE TRENCHES

AT ATLASSIAN

2005 - 20% Time Experiment

We’ll be completely honest – so

that others can learn from our experiences

MIKE CANNON-BROOKES , ATLASS IAN, 2005

”“

• No Roadmaps

• No Managers

• Product Managers?

• No Worries!

The Early Years

Fedex ShipIt

• Few Rules

• 10 Developers

• No Competition

• 1 Day

• Lots of Pizza

• Just Show Off

2005 - The First Fedex

• Quarterly

• Game On!

• Teams & Finals

• 2 Days

• More than just Developers

• Delivery Focus?

The Evolution of ShipIt

Idea Generation

• Elastic Bamboo

• Side By Side Diffs in FishEye

• Task List Macroin Confluence

• ViewPort

ShipIt Successes

Zero Failures!!

To have a great idea, have lots

of them.

THOMAS A . EDISON

”“

20%

• Crowd Sourced Ideas

• A Motivator

• A Marketing Tool

• An Investment

What is 20%

• A day a week

• Innovation Weeks

• Bootcamp

• Incubator

• How much time do we really take?

Different Teams / Different Models

Don’t call it 20%!

• Unicorn Platform

• JIRA 4.3 - 50% of Release Notes

• JQL Auto-complete

• Raphaël

• 100s of others

20% Successes

Failing at 20%

Google’s “20% time,” is now as good as deadQUARTZ”“

Google 'kills' perk that gave users Gmail, GtalkThe T imes of Ind ia”“

Google cuts back on 20% me-time: Can innovation be the work of one department?

Smart Company”“Is this the beginning of the end of Google’s golden age of innovation?

Investor P lace”“Google plants seeds for its innovation destruction

Smart P lanet”“

Our roadmap is too full.

EVERY MANAGER

”“

We can’t trust developers with a

percentage of our roadmap?

EVERY BUSINESS OWNER

”“

We don’t want devs hacking, we

want them coding.

EVERY DEV MANAGER

”“

Is it worth it?

EVERY STAKEHOLDER

”“

Thank you!

NICK MENERE • J IRA DEV MANAGER • ATLASS IAN • @GOODNICK

Text code below to 22333or visit http://bit.ly/14T3J5O

From the Trenches with the Newest Atlassian Product

To join this session, send text 136888 to

AWESOME = 3M

PRETTY GOOD = 3L

NOT BAD = 3K

MEH = 3J

Rate this Talk