Strategies for building, managing, and scaling technology teams

Strategies for building, managing, and rapidly scaling technology teams. !Real-world examples of building, managing, and rapidly scaling centralized and distributed dev, test, and ops teams.

Peter White about.me/pwhite [email protected] linkedin.com/in/peterwhite2

Speaker BioI'm a software development leader with 20+ years of experience; over half in “hands-on” management positions. I've held executive positions at small and mid-sized companies, built several successful engineering teams from scratch, and led engineering teams at three companies through acquisitions. I've been responsible for hiring, mentoring, employee retention, and partner/vendor management in all of these positions.

As the Director of Quality Engineering at Box (mid-2010 - mid-2012), I built the "Tools and Frameworks" team from scratch and scaled my combined (dev + test) organization size by 3x.

Most recently, as Head of Engineering at Servio, I assumed responsibility for engineering, technical operations, and IT; and represented these functions and systems through all technology-related aspects of CrowdSource's acquisition of Servio. This included bootstrapping an offshore DevOps team to ensure continuity of service through the final platform migration to CrowdSource and sunsetting Servio’s “CloudCrowd” platform on the first of last month.

Peter White

Case StudiesRapidly Scaling a Development Org

Offshoring QA - Hybrid Model

Crowdsourcing Mobile QA

Keeping the Ship Afloat w/Offshore DevOps

Test Automation Adoption

Themes for SuccessExpectation setting

Planning

Process

Communication - Skype, Google Hangout, IM, etc

Infrastructure and tooling

Minimizing SPOFs and bottlenecks

Output is a function of input

Offshore Team BuildingHand-pick YOUR team

Resumes are often an insufficient indicator of success

Standardize interview process and communicate with vendor

Provide feedback to vendor and iterate quickly

Communication and morale

Churn - under-performers and shadow staff

Quick Interest SurveyHow many front-line engineers (dev,test,IT) in the audience?

How many managers (personnel & project) in the audience?

Single-site vs. Distributed (including offshoring & outsourcing)

Starting vs. Maintaining vs. Scaling

Dev vs. Test vs. Ops

Offshoring ProsPeace of mind*

Flexible workforce

Allows you leverage for growth

Access to unavailable resources

Reduced costs*

Offshoring ConsLack of preparation - requires additional time, effort, and structure for success

Often unrealistic expectations about bottom line cost savings* and productivity (talent availability, ramp-up, communication lag)

Lifestyle/work-life-balance

Morale

* See “Cost Savings: Expectations Versus Reality” excerpt at http://pragprog.com/book/nkout/outsource-it

Case Studies

Rapidly Scaling a Development OrgOften, projects and organizations aren’t prepared to rapidly absorb more team members. Doing so requires additional:

Planning

Process

Infrastructure and tooling

Choke points

Offshoring QA - Hybrid ModelInitial pain points

Process and tooling

Continuous improvement

Crowdsourcing Mobile QAFlexibility

Cost effectiveness

Trade-offs

Keeping the Ship Afloat w/Offshore DevOpsI needed to augment production support staff yesterday!

Staffing challenges…

Environment challenges…

Lessons learned

Test Automation AdoptionRequires support from the top

Tooling

Evangelism

Education

Enforcement

Additional ResourcesRecommended Reading • Outsource It! (Nick Krym) • Managing without Walls (Garton & Wegryn) !

http://peter-white.info/category/presentations/

Thank you!!

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Contact Info: about.me/pwhite [email protected] linkedin.com/in/peterwhite2