How to create more business impact with flexible teams - Jan Hegewald, Zalando & Rebekka Beels, Zalando Usually, Software Engineering teams are organized around a fixed set of components which they develop further and maintain. Such component teams gain a high level of expert knowledge about their services. However, with agile product development, it often is difficult to implement the most important initiatives with such teams. This leads to a situation where the teams do not work on the most relevant business topics but on those for the respective team. At Zalando, we introduced a new model where we shape teams flexibly around business goals to create the highest impact. How we organize these teams and which challenges especially for the software quality need to be addressed, will be explored in this talk.

1. how to create more
business impact
with flexible teams
zalando

2. Young.
Founded in 2008.
Techie.
2,000 colleagues working in 200 tech
delivery teams across Germany, Dublin,
Helsinki.
Successful.
2019 Revenue: >6.5Bn € revenue.
Growing steadily.
Q2 2020:+ 33% GMV.
Popular.
More than 34 Mn active customers.
Convenient.
Operating in 17 countries.
Conscious.
Dedicated to sustainability.
Already carbon neutral.
zalando is

3. stable teams?
Why do we want

4. in that setup
We worked

5. We had stable
teams
TEAM 1
TEAM 2
TEAM 3PRODUCT OFFER COMPOSITIONREPORTING UI
MANAGEMENT UI
ENRICHMENTS
OFFER API
PRODUCT
OFFER
PLATFORM
ANALYTICAL UI
STOCK INFORMATION PRODUCT INFORMATION PRICE INFORMATION

6. that comes
with downsides
But

7. TEAM 1 TEAM 2 TEAM 3
TeamBacklogs
There is lots of
work in parallel

8. Cost of Delay
can be high
TEAM 1 TEAM 2 TEAM 3
TeamBacklogs

9. Teams are utilised very differently
TEAM 1 TEAM 2 TEAM 3
TeamBacklogs

10. Flexible
mission teams
We started

11. a mission is

12. a mission is

13. a mission is

14. Missions need to be
prepared
PRODUCT
MANAGEMENTTEAM

15. the mission
model work
How does

16. Explaining and advertising the mission to
the department
the mission pitch
1.

17. Colleagues express their preferences for
what they would like to work on
signing up
2.

18. Engineering managers take decisions on the
final assignments of colleagues to missions
assignment to
missions
3.

19. Colleagues form the mission team and work
until the goal is achieved
mission starts
4.

20. Colleagues can join ongoing missions or
newly starting ones
mission team
dissolves
5.

21. The process is a continuous cycle
Pitch Sign-up Assignment Start Dissolving

22. This is our recent mission
history

23. there are
challenges
However

24. No longer being specialised requires much
broader knowledge
Knowledge transfer

25. Lacking ownership can be a problem
Software quality

26. Unfortunately, there is more than just plain
mission work
Disruptions

27. TYPES OF WORK
Maintenance
Mainly technical tasks with
varying urgency and impact.
Post-Mission
Integration/Change
Mission-related work that comes
up after the mission finished and
dissolved.
Design + Deliver for
Business Goal
Mission to accomplish a
business goal.
Operational Tasks
Unplanned work on short notice,
mainly based on stakeholder
requests.
Delivery
Mission
Innersourced
Delivery
Mission
Mixed
Delivery
Mission
Maintainer
Group
Bob
DELIVERYMODEL
Exploratory
Mission
Incident Handling
Work to resolve incidents, but
also to mitigate impact and
prevent further occurrences.
Everyone
with
highest
priority
Small Work Package
Tasks that seem too big for
maintenance, but too small for
a Delivery Mission.
Solution Design
Work to define the technical
solution design for a major
change.
TYPEOFWORK
Solution
Design
Mission
TYPEOFWORK
(Discover &) Define
for Business Goal
Work to identify and
understand a customer
problem.
Additional Responsibility
Full Time

28. the biggest
effect?
What is

29. Purpose, Autonomy, Mastery
Ownership &
engagement

30. How to create more business impact with
flexible teams
Stable teams
⊕ Output
⊕ Knowledge
⊖ No focus on biggest impact
⊖ A lot of WIP
⊖ Uneven load on teams
● Quality
● Knowledge
● Leadership
● Culture
jan.hegewald@zalando.de
www.agil-gefuehrt.de
rebekka.beels@zalando.de
● Defined goal & clear impact
● End-2-end responsibility for goal and affected
components (in given context)
● Duration: 2 weeks - 4 months
● Freedom of choice
Flexible mission teams Process
Effects
@janhegewald
Watch out
Mindset
⊕ Responsibility
⊕ Purpose, Mastery, Autonomy
Results
⊕ Output → Outcome
⊕ Standardisation & Quality
Flexibility
⊕ Agile Prioritisation & Delivery
1. Discover &
Define
2. Prioritisation
3. Pitching
4. Signing up
5. Assignment
6. Start
7. Clean-up
8. Switch to next
mission

31. Thank you!
Questions?

33. Image sources
● https://unsplash.com/photos/1k3vsv7iIIc
● https://unsplash.com/photos/Ptd-iTdrCJM
● https://unsplash.com/photos/R6xx6fnvPT8
● https://unsplash.com/photos/PXB7yEM5LVs
● https://www.pexels.com/photo/aerospace-engineering-exploration-launch-34521/
● https://unsplash.com/photos/-fGqsewtsJY
● https://unsplash.com/photos/Q1RjF4PKq5g
● https://unsplash.com/photos/tEVGmMaPFXk
● https://unsplash.com/photos/O_CLjxjzN3M
● https://unsplash.com/photos/bJhT_8nbUA0
● https://unsplash.com/photos/fCmBU052M1I
● https://unsplash.com/photos/6vtmH3Ts8iQ
● Hand drawings by Jan Hegewald
● All other images are © Zalando SE

34. Disclaimer
The information in this presentation has not been independently verified.
No representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to the
accuracy or completeness of the presentation and the information
contained herein and no reliance should be placed on such information. No
responsibility is accepted for any liability for any loss howsoever arising,
directly or indirectly, from this presentation or its contents.