1.
S E R G E Y S U N D U K O V S K I Y P H . D .
Scaling Technology Organizations
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2.
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Agenda

3.
Debt Management
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4.
CEO/CTO Story
I Have Not Seen Organs Like These
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5.
Common Story
 CEOs Tale
 We Were Very Productive
 We Kicked Butt
 We Became Complacent
 I Fired Them All
 I Hired a New Team
 They Are Not Productive Either
 Must Have Chosen Wrong
 I Fired Them All
 SAVE ME
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6.
Common Story
 CTOs Tale
 We Were Very Productive Through Debt Accumulation
 We Kicked Ass But Burned Out
 We Slowed Down Due to Debt
 We Got Fired
 New Team Got Hired
 It Does Not Know Where Skeletons Are Buried
 We Got Fired As Well
 I have Not Seem Organs Like These
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7.
Support to Innovation Ratio
You Are in the Support Business
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Support
(15%)
Innovation
(85%)
Support
(50%)
Innovation
(50%)
Support
(85%)
Innovation
(15%)
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3

8.
Broken Window Theory
One Broken Window Leads to Ruin
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9.
Broken Window Theory
Do Sweat the Small Stuff
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10.
Debt Tipping Point
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Product Death
Year 2
Year 1
Tipping Point

11.
Snowball Effect
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No Turning Back
Now!
SPLAT!

12.
Technical Debt Elements
 Technical Debt Elements
 Lack of Architectural Blueprint
 Lack of Unit Testing
 Lack of CI/CD Process
 Lack of Code Reviews
 Lack of Starting Platform
 Lack of Starting Framework
 Monolithic Design
 Lack of Development Recipes
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13.
 Schedule feature holidays
(every 5th release)
 Refactor as you go
 Make debt mitigation as part of
the process
 Give estimates considering
debt mitigation
 Invite outside experts
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Technical Debt Mitigation

14.
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Teams Separation of Concerns
Architecture Development Dev OPS QA/Automation OPS
Product
Architecture
Server
Development
Environment
Provisioning
Manual Testing Security
Management
UI
Architecture
UI
Development
Source Control
Automation
Functional
Testing
Production
Monitoring
System
Architecture
API
Development
Continuous
Integration
Test Automation Infrastructure Cost
Management
Recipe
Development
3rd Party
Integrations
Continuous
Delivery
Performance
Testing
Problem Alerting
Product Spikes Unit Testing Access Control Stress Testing Scalability
Management

15.
Team Structure
Big Rocks First
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16.
Separate Development Teams
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Rapid Development vs. Core
VS.

17.
Work Separation
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 Core Development
 Core Platform Project (3+ months)
 Rapid Development
 Bug Fixes (2 weeks)
 Small Enhancements
 Small Features
 Client Development
 Client Specific Enhancements

18.
Organizational Structure Debt Elements
 Organizational Structure Debt Elements
 Adhoc Organizational Structure
 Lack of Separation of Concerns
 Lack of Specialization
 Lack of Cross-Training
 Lack of Career Management
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19.
Process Debt
How Do They Know?
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20.
Process Complication
Do Not Make It Complicated
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21.
Process Complication
 Do Not Make It Complicated
 Complicated = Bad
 Complicated = Unsustainable
 Complicated = Not Followed
 Complicated = Edge Case Centric
 Complicated ! = Useful
 Complicated = Unintended Consequences
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22.
Planned vs. Agile
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VS

23.
Planned vs. Agile
 Planned Process
 Exhaustive Planning (plan until you are exhausted)
 Prescriptive
 Document Centric
 Agile Process
 Iterative Planning
 Non-prescriptive
 Practice Centric
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24.
Agile Umbrella
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25.
Process Debt Elements
 Process Debt Elements
 Lack of Articulated Process
 Lack of Process Documentation
 Lack of Repeatability
 Lack of Clear Process Identification
 Presence of Numerous Process Exceptions
 Process Busters
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26.
False Agile
Just Because You Call It Agile It Does Not Mean It Is
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27.
You Are Not Agile If
 Requirement Frontloading
 QA Backloading
 You Move Dates Instead of Feature Negotiating
 You Extend Sprints/Iterations
 You Are Not Producing Code by Third Week of the Project
 You Have No Business Representation
 You Are Not Tracking Requirements
 You Do Not Keep Track of Velocity/Drumbeat
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28.
Infrastructures Debt
Avoiding Infrastructure Debt
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29.
IaaS + PaaS
Use As Much of the Stack as You Can
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30.
Infrastructure Debt Elements
 Infrastructure Debt Elements
 No Utilizing IaaS/Pass
 Lack of Monitoring
 Lack of Redundancy
 Lack of Disaster Recovery
 Lack of Environment Separation
 Dev Ops Debt Elements
 Lack of Deployment Framework
 Lack of Continuous Integration
 Lack of Effective Source Control
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31.
Team Hiring and Scaling
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32.
 Strong Link Games
 Weak Link Games
 Right People on the Bus
 “First Who Then What, Then
How”
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Hiring as Game Theory

33.
 Superstar Driven = Invest in
Superstars
 Very Few Touches to Score
 Very Little Collaboration
 Short Execution Cycles
 High Scoring
 Example: Basketball
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Early Stage Hiring

34.
 Weak Link Avoidance = Invest
In Upgrading Weak Links
 Lots of Pivots
 Low Scoring
 Long Execution Cycle
 Lots of Collaboration
 Example: Soccer
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Late Stage Hiring

35.
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Ideal Hire

36.
 Many Candidates In a Tight
Race
 Cross the Line First
 Threshold of Viability
 Access and Move On
 Muddy Water
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It Is Not the Olympics

37.
 Google Story
 Theoretical Questions
 Adjacent Possible
 Actual Job Activities
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Daily Activities

38.
 Bad Questions
 Good Questions
 Can’t Google It
 Brain Teasers
 Only 1 Question
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Google Questions

39.
 Take Off Velocity (5/10/20h)
 Resource Coupling
 Outcome Centric
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Fractional Hiring

40.
Team Scaling
You Can’t Outsource What You Do Not Understand
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41.
Offshore Development
It Is Not Going To Be Cheaper
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42.
Fixed Bid Projects
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Just Do Not Do It

43.
Someone You Trust
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Have Somebody On Your Side Of The Table

44.
All The Wrong Reasons
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 Wrong Expectations
 Solution to Ignorance (outsourcing what you do not understand)
 It Will Be Cheaper (min 30% overhead)
 We Can Achieve Instant Scalability (it takes time to hire)
 Poaching Is not a Problem (no difference)
 We Can Minimize Office Distractions (hallway magic)

45.
All The Right Reasons
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 Right Expectations
 Somewhat Easier to Find Talent
 24 h Dev/QA Cycle
 Improved Ramp Up/Ramp Down Cycles
 Specific Expertise

46.
Vendor Speak
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47.
What Do They “Really” Mean
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 We Can Do Anything (we do not have a specialization)
 We Need a Product Spec (we are going to sit and wait until you
give us specification on stone tablets)
 We Can’t Tell You Finish Date (we have not looked at the
details)
 This Can’t Be Done (we do not know how to do it)
 Code Is Documentation (we developed everything without a plan)
 We Made It Work on a Local Machine (?)

48.
Works Locally
We Are Not Shipping Your Computer
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49.
What Do They Mean
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 We Are Making Good Progress (things have likely stalled)
 We Are Working on the Back-End (we have not done much)
 We Will Tie Lose Ends Later (it will not be our problem)
 We Are 90% Done (?)

50.
90% Done Problem
What Do They Mean by That?
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51.
Congruent Culture
Pick a Congruent Culture
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52.
Offshore Team Selection Criteria
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 Congruent Culture (challenge authority)
 Language Gap (make sure you speak it)
 Working Hours Overlap (4+)
 Right Size (30+ large enough to have a bench)
 Right Size (100- small enough to care)
 Right Focus (we do everything)
 Do Not Let It Grow (micro-teams)

53.
S E R G E Y S U N D U K O V S K I Y P H . D .
Q and A
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