atlassian - a different kind of software company

Atlassian

A different kind of software company

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

1. Brief History Lesson2. Tools & Processes3. Innovation Ideas

Agenda

Brief History LessonWednesday, 13 May 2009

Big Ideas• Scott & Mike - both 21 y.o. engineers

• $10k ‘startup capital’

• Tried multiple ideas

• $USD 0 in sales

Atlassian ModelEnterprise Software

Atlassian Model

Enterprise Software

1. No $ for sales team? Must sell itself

2. Sell itself? Must be low price

3. Low $? Must sell 000s of copies

4. 000s of copies? Must sell globally

5. Customer must buy, we can’t sell!

50,000customers

‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘08

San Francisco

ConfluenceBambooCrowd

FishEyeCrucibleClover

Amsterdam

A little history...

JIRAStudio

Sydney

Poland

‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘08

San Francisco

ConfluenceBambooCrowd

FishEyeCrucibleClover

Amsterdam

A little history...

JIRAStudio

Sydney

Poland

Engineers?2! 6 40 9070

Impact?

• Over $USD 110m in lifetime sales... $USD 45m sales in 2008/9... in 116 countries... including Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, Somalia

Impact?

• Over $USD 110m in lifetime sales... $USD 45m sales in 2008/9... in 116 countries... including Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, Somalia

• Around 40,000 software teams use our tools... that’s approximately 1m developers ... or 1 in 6 engineers globally use our tools to help them build software every day.

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Atlassian Values

Products

90 people

12 software teams

10 products

4 countries

2 deployment models

Atlassi

Tools & Processes(8 + 2) lessons from our superheroes, on building the tools

your superheroes use.

Warning: may contain ads!Wednesday, 13 May 2009

1. Agile• Each team is different in method,

size and impact.

• Agile principles are what’s important.

• Use different tools - GreenHopper to pen & card!

2. Traceability• Fundamental to link code to

relevant artifacts - issues/wiki etc

• Few commits without traced issue keys

• Mylyn’s task driven development is really leading the way

3. Code Review• Four eyes on every line of code

• Almost every commit is reviewed by a peer

• Reviews ‘traced’ to issues

• Don’t put it off for ‘lack of tools’

• Soon - iterative code review!

4. ContinuousIntegration

• Many, many, many builds

• Remote agents. Moving to EC2.

• IM for notifications (not email!)

• Focus on trends not red/green

• LabManager for platform testing

• Performance builds catch regressions

5. Optimise Tests• Optimise for time to developer

feedback

• Re-order tests automatically

• Only run affected tests

• Functional test ‘split builds’ for build throughput

6. Dogfooding• Put software into ‘users’ hands as

regularly as possible

• Used to do with public releases, now internal dogfooding

• Dogfooding != testing

• Can be hard to find good candidates

7. Wiki == Life• We live in our wiki

• Req’ts, docs, blogs, discussions, reports, presentations, community

• Connects dev. to the business

• Connects the business!

8. Dev Speed• “Dev Speed Posse”

• Never done - always a focus

• Measure and attack

• 3 “loops”

• Checkout Loop - 10 min rule

• Inner Loop - code w/o reload

• Build & Test Loop - commit to deployment

InnovationThe lifeblood of a product company

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two - and only

two - basic functions: marketing and innovation.

Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.”

Peter Drucker

Innovation Models

1. The lone genius

2. The boss is a genius

3. Copy competitors’ inventions

4. Cluster the geniuses in a lab

5. Make your people the geniuses

Scott Cook - CHI 2006

Innovation Models

1. The lone genius

Atlassian 2002

Innovation Models

1. The lone genius

Atlassian 2002

Innovation Models

1. The lone genius

Atlassian 2002

Atlassian 2012

Innovation Models

1. The lone genius

Atlassian 2002

Atlassian 2012

Customers?

Customers?Listen to your customers

Don’t do what they tell you.

Why did they buy?

What do they want?

Why did they buy?

What do they want?

Innovation

Incremental Improvement!

Innovation Killers

• Company & customer growth

• Date driven culture

• Specifications from ‘on high’

• Not enough ‘slack time’

• Old people

Innovation Killers

• Company & customer growth

• Date driven culture

• Specifications from ‘on high’

• Not enough ‘slack time’

• Old people

“You have 6 years of innovation left.” Moritz’ Law(35 minus average age of the company - Mike Moritz, Sequoia)

9. Fedex Day• Started in 2004

• 24 hour one-day coding exercise

• Start early AM, demos late afternoon

• One goal - “Ship & deliver in 24 hours”

Mutations• Added trophy around Fedex 4

• Blue dot voting

• Now quarterly for all development

• Move to two days

• SF and Sydney on different weeks

• Tried in support & marketing - fail

• Used to “spread” tech learning - ie gadgets & OpenSocial

A Fedex “Day”(2009)

• One engineer is appointed “Fedex deputy”

• Week & two weeks before - Brown Bag Brainstorm

• ‘Shipment orders’ blogged internally (goal per person)

• Thursday

• 2pm - kick off meeting

• Code until laaaate - pizza @ 8pm for stayers

• Organiser uses broadcast IM to communicate (ie “Remember to take screenshots!”) and runs a chatroom for participants (regular sharing of progress for excitement)

• Friday

• 3pm - demos (split in half - vote top 3)

• 4pm - final 6 demos w/ beers vote for winner & present trophy

• ‘Delivery dockets’ blogged internally (result per person)

Learnings

• One day isn’t long enough

• “Winning” needs to be de-emphasised

• Get the whole company to watch demos

• Didn’t work outside development

• Works best with smaller team

• Retrospectives are important - “What do we want to try to ship, and what’s required to get there?”

• Shipping code takes much longer than you think!

10. 20% Time• The Google ‘myth’ -

Lawless innovation?

• Aim: discover the realitiesMade up our own rules

• The $1m gamble:http://tinyurl.com/czy9f8

• Build innovative features

• Engineers’ jobs get less fun w/ growth- further from product decisions

• Product Managers aren’t perfect- fill holes in the roadmap

• Discover those with product gene

• The power of a built idea to shape thinking

How did we go?

http://blogs.atlassian.com/developer/2009/02/20_percent_year_in_review.html

20% Results

• ‘Filling gaps’ as much as finding next big thing

• Hardest on tech leads!

• Tracking was a contentious issue

• Ended with per person, not project

Latest 20% “Rules”

• We trust you

• All projects must be tracked

• No less than one day at a time

• Time booked just like vacation

• 5 days = 3 developers must sign off

• 10 days = founder sign off

• All participation is performance reviewable

Q&Awww.atlassian.com

mike@atlassian.com

PS. We’re hiring!

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