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Inside GitHub's Super-Lean Management Strategy

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Re: Inside GitHub's Super-Lean Management Strategy

#21

Post by bkbleikamp »

crazygringo wrote: post #3

This is great for creating new products, for innovation. But I've never understood, who then does the grunt work? Who slogs through producing the documentation, and keeping it up-to-date? Once a new product/feature is launched, who sticks around for the bugfixes, support, etc., since presumably everyone will be more excited to allocate themselves to the next new big thing? In every company, there's a lot of totally b…

> Who slogs through producing the documentation, and keeping it up-to-date? Once a new product/feature is launched, who sticks around for the bugfixes, support, etc., since presumably everyone will be more excited to allocate themselves to the next new big thing?

Doing this work is part, and perhaps the most important part, of shipping a feature. It's not just boring work. If someone isn't prepared to support something, they shouldn't ship it.

Re: Inside GitHub's Super-Lean Management Strategy

#22

Post by [deleted] »

dasil003 wrote: post #12
mojuba wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More often than not, boring work that nobody wants to do at your company is an indication that something went wrong in the process of design & development of your product. For example, from my experience as an end user, if a product or service relies heavily on documentation, "knowledge bases", forums etc. then it's pretty much fucked up already. Work of any kind at a company behind such a product would be boring: fr…

You're conflating good product design with good company processes, but those are completely separate concerns. Of course a good product shouldn't require documentation because the whole point as a consumer product company is you are bending time and space to make something that people want to pay for. However in order to accomplish that there will most likely be some shit that needs shoveling along the way. Who does…

[deleted]

Re: Inside GitHub's Super-Lean Management Strategy

#23

Post by rfnslyr »

mojuba wrote: post #8
crazygringo wrote: post #3

This is great for creating new products, for innovation. But I've never understood, who then does the grunt work? Who slogs through producing the documentation, and keeping it up-to-date? Once a new product/feature is launched, who sticks around for the bugfixes, support, etc., since presumably everyone will be more excited to allocate themselves to the next new big thing? In every company, there's a lot of totally b…

More often than not, boring work that nobody wants to do at your company is an indication that something went wrong in the process of design & development of your product. For example, from my experience as an end user, if a product or service relies heavily on documentation, "knowledge bases", forums etc. then it's pretty much fucked up already. Work of any kind at a company behind such a product would be boring: fr…

Honest question, have you worked a real job before?

Documentation, by virtue of existence, does not negate product integrity. There is so much extremely complex software with very specific applications out there with documentation that would take you very long to comprehend.

It's the behavioural nature of the system being documented that determines complexity.

Re: Inside GitHub's Super-Lean Management Strategy

#24

Post by mojuba »

rfnslyr wrote: post #23
mojuba wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More often than not, boring work that nobody wants to do at your company is an indication that something went wrong in the process of design & development of your product. For example, from my experience as an end user, if a product or service relies heavily on documentation, "knowledge bases", forums etc. then it's pretty much fucked up already. Work of any kind at a company behind such a product would be boring: fr…

Honest question, have you worked a real job before? Documentation, by virtue of existence, does not negate product integrity. There is so much extremely complex software with very specific applications out there with documentation that would take you very long to comprehend. It's the behavioural nature of the system being documented that determines complexity.

Have I worked before? Been in the industry for almost 25 years now.

The benefits from complex software should be so disproportionately massive that the users would be willing to adopt it. The C++ language and the compilers come to mind: they do come with documentation, are complex, but that's nothing compared to the entire worlds that you can create with C++.

On the other side of the spectrum you have things like Parallels Plesk: an awful piece of software that always creates more problems for you than it's trying to solve, even if you read their tomes of documentation, knowledge bases, searched their forums etc. The existence of Plesk and software alike can't be justified really.

Re: Inside GitHub's Super-Lean Management Strategy

#25

Post by lttlrck »

mojuba wrote: post #8
crazygringo wrote: post #3

This is great for creating new products, for innovation. But I've never understood, who then does the grunt work? Who slogs through producing the documentation, and keeping it up-to-date? Once a new product/feature is launched, who sticks around for the bugfixes, support, etc., since presumably everyone will be more excited to allocate themselves to the next new big thing? In every company, there's a lot of totally b…

More often than not, boring work that nobody wants to do at your company is an indication that something went wrong in the process of design & development of your product. For example, from my experience as an end user, if a product or service relies heavily on documentation, "knowledge bases", forums etc. then it's pretty much fucked up already. Work of any kind at a company behind such a product would be boring: fr…

There are plenty of industries where customers want to see documentation upfront before purchase and if you can't provide it you'll lose the sale, it's a clear indication of an immature product. Maybe not in your industry, maybe you don't care about lost sales, but to say any work in companies with such customers is boring is utterly naive.

Re: Inside GitHub's Super-Lean Management Strategy

#27

Post by kayoone »

Github is a very special case because they have a relatively simple product and very tech savy audience. I currently work on a very large b2b web platform/application where customers are typically 40+ and still using Internet Explorer. Its also so massively complex that you just cant do it without extensive planning and talking about every last detail of the implementation with all people involved. I wanted to avoid it, but not talking things through in detail usually results in misunderstandings and more work down the line.

Its great that github can do it like this and i envy them for it, but its not a one-size-fits-all solution to project management

Re: Inside GitHub's Super-Lean Management Strategy

#28

Post by crbnw00ts »

shalmanese wrote: post #20

Github is fortunate in being one of the few companies that their customers are the same type of people as their employees. This allows them to get a lot of what traditional management is needed for "for free" and allows radical freedom in their management structure. I'd hesitate to try to apply their example to other companies unless you're in a similar situation.

Another example which backs up your hypothesis is Valve; a gaming company filled with people who love games, and thus they are their own customers. They too have a "no management" management approach.

Re: Inside GitHub's Super-Lean Management Strategy

#29

Post by chii »

sanderjd wrote: post #17
mojuba wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More often than not, boring work that nobody wants to do at your company is an indication that something went wrong in the process of design & development of your product. For example, from my experience as an end user, if a product or service relies heavily on documentation, "knowledge bases", forums etc. then it's pretty much fucked up already. Work of any kind at a company behind such a product would be boring: fr…

The idea that the existence of "boring" work at a company is an indication that the company did or is doing something wrong is specious, and as a user of lots of software, I really hope this mindset doesn't become common. I want the people making the software I use to be ready and willing to do tough and unglamorous work that makes my experience better. Github's solution seems to be for everyone to really own and car…

management could incentivize "boring" work by allotting bonus equity/share/money to those who do it instead of the "glamorous" work. Then the individuals gets to decide for themselves what to work on. If not enough people are doing the boring work, it just means that the work isn't being compensated for enough.

Re: Inside GitHub's Super-Lean Management Strategy

#30

Post by nolite »

briandoll wrote: post #26

GitHubber here. There's some great questions in this thread already. I'm AFK this weekend, but if you've got more questions about our structure, or how we use GitHub.com to work like this, ask away and I'll try to answer them in a blog post next week.

Does github use Jekyll for it's blog? And what chat/video conference software is used, Skype?
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