There is an emerging movement to strip organizations down to just customers and developers. In this talk, I explore when/why this works, and cite actual experiences with this thinking. From AATC Raleigh 2016.

1. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
PROGRAMMER ANARCHY
and
MANAGERLESS PROCESSES
Fred George
FredGeorge@acm.org
@fgeorge52
1

2. Fred George
Copyright © 2015 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 2
Technologist
• Computer networks – 70’s
• Token Ring LAN – 80’s
• GUI’s – late 80’s
• OO – late 80’s
• Agile – late 90’s
• MicroServices – mid-2000’s
Programmer
• Since 1968 (Basic)
• 65,000 hours experience
• 70+ languages
• Computer Science Degree 1973
Manager
• 17 years IBM
• Business degree,
MIT Sloan School 1986
• Product Owner, IBM
• VP, ThoughtWorks
• Co-founder, Outpace (Silicon
Valley)
• Senior Advisor to 3 tech
companies

3. Fred George
Copyright © 2015 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 3
Consulting Roles
• Change Agent
• Disruptor
• “Hand grenade I am throwing
into development”
• CTO describing Fred to his Vice
President

4. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred GeorgeCopyright © 2012-2013 by Fred George. All rights
reserved.
Emerging Experiences
at...
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5. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 5
Agile Manifesto
✦ Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
✦ Working software over comprehensive documentation
✦ Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
✦ Responding to change over following a plan
✓
✓
✓
✓

6. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 6
XP Values
✦ Feedback
✦ Communication
✦ Simplicity
✦ Courage
✦ Respect
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓

7. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Agile Best Practices
✦ Stand ups
✦ Story narratives
✦ Retrospectives
✦ Estimates
✦ Iterations
✦ Mandatory pairing
7
✦ Unit tests
✦ Acceptance tests
✦ Refactoring
✦ Patterns
✦ Continuous integration
Not Used

8. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 8
Agile Roles
Agile
Roles
developmentbusiness
management
programmercustomer
BA
QA
DBA
UI
designer
architect
project
manager
iteration
manager
developer

9. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 9
Anarchy Roles
✦ Customer
✦ Project manager
✦ Business analyst
✦ Developer
✦ Quality assurance / tester
✓
X
✓
X
X
✦ Manager of programmersX

10. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Process Has Many NamesStartup Model
Developer-Driven
Development
One Hacker
Way

11. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Simple
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic
Cause a Effect
Cause aaa Effect
Effect? Cause?
Cause ? Effect
Disorder
New Problem Domains:
The Cynefin Framework

12. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Simple
ComplicatedComplex
Chaotic

13. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Project Delivery Cycles
5 yrs.
1980 1990 2000
1 mon.
1 week
1 day
2010
1 year
ProjectDuration(log)
Waterfall
Waterfall
Agile
Agile
A2
A2
Waterfall
w OO

14. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
✦ Development driven by stories
✦ Stories small
✦ Priority set by customer
✦ Story-level estimates and metrics
Agile Side Effect:
Story Tyranny
Problem:
14
Developers become disconnected
from business problem (Drones)

15. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Requirements Hierarchy
15
Tasks
Stories
Features
Projects
Initiatives
Credit: Greg Reiser, ThoughtWorks, 2005

16. Over-Specialization
Copyright © 2015 by Fred George
•Theory:
• Specialist are more productive
•Practice:
• Overhead of communication is under-estimated
• Unbalanced workload creates delays
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17. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
✦ QA tools are Programming tools
✦ Selenium
✦ Cucumber
✦ Service Architecture creates complex systems
✦ Need architecture skills to properly test
✦ Shift toward monitoring over acceptance testing
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Fate of Roles:
Agile
Roles
developmentbusiness
management
customer
BA
QA
project
manager
iteration
manager
developer
QA

18. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
BA
18
Fate of Roles:
Agile
Roles
developmentbusiness
management
customer
project
manager
iteration
manager
developer
BA
Too complex for
programmers!
Programmers
can’t talk
Programmers lack
“social skills”

19. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 19
Fate of Roles:
Agile
Roles
developmentbusiness
management
customer
project
manager
iteration
manager
developer

20. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 20
Fate of Roles:
Manage
r
ClerkLeaderAmbassadorCoach/mentorConcierge
Power-
Hungry
Boss

21. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George 21
Anarchy Roles
Agile
Roles
developmentbusiness
management
customer
developer

22. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
forwardtechnology.co.uk
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23. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Example: Energy
Revolution
✦ Prior system:
✦ .NET with SQLServer
✦ New system:
✦ Ruby, Clojure, C++, Node.js, R
✦ MySQL, MongoDB
✦ HAML, SASS
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24. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Example: Energy
Revolution
✦ Ruby for energy calculation - big improvement!
✦ Rewrote in Clojure
✦ Rewrote in Clojure (again)
Question: What manager would let them to do it?
Hence: No manager!
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25. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Example: Click Tracking
✦ Old system:
✦ Ruby-based, 32 servers with 40% utilization
✦ New system:
✦ Node.js, 22 servers with 10% utilization and
lower latency
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26. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Agile Best Practices
✦ Stand ups
✦ Story narratives
✦ Retrospectives
✦ Estimates
✦ Iterations
✦ Mandatory pairing
26
✦ Unit tests
✦ Acceptance tests
✦ Refactoring
✦ Patterns
✦ Continuous
integration
Trust w
collocation
Results,
not blame
Small,
short-lived
apps
Continuous
deployment
Not Used

27. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Agile 2013:
Implementing Anarchy
27
✦ Online version of Daily Mail
✦ Company established in late 1800’s
✦ MailOnline largest online newspaper in world
✦ Challenge: Introduce Anarchy to an established IT

28. Specialization
Institutionalized with Titles
Copyright © 2015 by Fred George. All rights reserved. 28
Case Study:
•50 IT professionals
•25+ titles
•0 people understanding projects

29. 29
Master
Journeyman
Apprentice
Key Business Tech
Platform
iOS
Android
Databases
Big Data
Languages
HTML/CSS/JS
Java
Ruby
Server-side JS
Software Delivery
Agile management
OOD / Architecture
Testing
Solution: Fix the Titles

30. Matching HR Focus
3
0
Competent in at least 1
key technology
Graduate Dev
Developer
Not yet competent in a
key technology
Senior Dev Master (expert) in at least
1 key technologySystems Dev
Competent in 5-7 key
technologies
Master Dev Master in 3+ key
technologies
Dual career path
for Developers

31. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
✦ Intensive OO training class (40 hourse, off-site)
✦ Developers, tech leads, QA, and SCRUM masters
✦ Everyone encouraged to participate (but still
optional)
Training in Working
Together
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32. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Flexible Project Approach
32
Developers
time
“Tables”
A
B
C
D
E
F
G H

33. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
MailOnline Scorecard
✦ Absorbed 20 more developers 1 Jan - 1 Mar
✦ By April 15
✦ Delivering LeaderBoard, a new page (Ruby, Node.js)
✦ Building first replacement page (Clojure, Node.js)
✦ Explored numerous message bus technologies
✦ Supporting MicroService architecture
✦ Rebuilt Android application
✦ By September, replaced front-end completely
✦ 130K Java with 4K Clojure + Node.js micro-services
monitoring
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34. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
2014-15: Refining…
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35. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
Like MailOnline, Plus…
✦ Titles: Only “Developer”
✦ Remote pairing (4 time zones in US + Canada)
✦ Still meet developers face-to-face for the first time quarterly
✦ Teams decide assignments/roles each day
✦ New technologies/processes for most developers
✦ Clojure
✦ Micro-services
✦ Flat, self-organizing teams
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36. Copyright © 2011-2016 by Fred George
PROGRAMMER
40
ANARCHY