DISTRIBUTED COMPANIES

A WORDPRESS.COM TEAM PERSPECTIVE

Davide ‘Folletto’ Casali

Manifesto Ibridi F E L L O W

UX REDIRECTOR

NIGHT.EU

ADVISOR

@Folletto

CODENAME CALYPSOPROLOGUE

WHAT IS CALYPSO?Next generation WordPress.com

127Contributors

26,030Commits

6,915Reviews

March 2014 → November 2015 (20 months)

?How did you do that in a fully

distributed company?

Story of a

Showcase

HYPERION

BLASTING AT THEME UX WITH THE FIRE OF 1,000 SUNS

MEET HYPERION

THE PROBLEMPART I

Themes

v2.0

THX

v4.0 v4.0

3 DESIGNS PAINFUL FOR USERS

3 CODEBASES MAINTENANCE HELL

Create one single Theme Showcase

for WordPress.com

PLANNINGPART II

VIENNA MEETUP14 April 2015

Pains Goals

The Milestone·1 Model

Only user-facing features

One major feature

Many smaller details & fixes

“”

Steve Seear, Hyperion

I found this session really valuable. It was intense, challenging,

and led on to a lot more discussions.

“”

Miguel Fonseca, Hyperion

+1000 on the value and ROI of our meetup exercises.

INITIAL ROADMAP POSTED ON P2

MILESTONE 1 ‘MINIMAL’

PART III

MASTER THREAD POSTED ON TEAM P2

DESIGN ITERATION 1 POSTED ON P2

1125

DESIGN ITERATION 2 POSTED ON P2

1015

DESIGN ITERATION 3 POSTED ON P2

May 20, 2015

928

4features added

JUNE 5

Live for Automatticians in Test Environment

JUNE 5

M4 Purchases

M1 Minimal

UPDATED ROADMAP EDITED ON P2

DESIGN ITERATION 4 DISCUSSED LIVE ON SLACK

DESIGN ITERATION 5 POSTED ON P2

June 11, 2015

161

That is one lovely blueprint! Very nice.

5features added

JUNE 11

JUNE 17

JUNE 24

JULY 1

JULY 15

Horizon External Testing

JULY 21 JULY 15

Automattic Internal Testing

M1 LAUNCHED 3 August 2015

THEME SHOWCASE M1 THE PROCESS IN NUMBERS

5Design

Iterations

11Horizon Testers

6Automattic

Testers

100+Feedbacks &

Comments

124GitHub Tickets

85GitHub

Pull Requests

THEME SHOWCASE M1 TIMELINE

LIVE ~3.5 months

Meetup 4 days

THEME SHOWCASE M1 SALES CHECK

June 23, 2015 July 3, 2015

PRINCIPLESPART IV

THE REMOTENESS CONTINUUM

Distributed 100%

Local 100%

Remote in between

A SEPARATE FLOOR OFFICE CITY

COUNTRY

MAKES THE COMPANY ALREADY REMOTE

CULTURE

Transparencyshare everything, share early

Initiativeindividual leads, teams autonomy

Communicationis oxygen

SUPPORT

Meetupsbuild trust and give a face to text

Everything as Remotebehave as remote even if you’re not

Watercooler Spacessociality vs efficiency, do both

TOOLS

Realtime speedone-to-one, you must be there

Async speedone-to-few, you will be there

Stable speedone-to-many, you are not there

Slack P2 WordPress

Wiki WordPress

WORK & COLLABORATION EXIST BEYOND PROCESSES

SUPPORT TOOLS

Transparency

Initiative

Communication

Meetups

Everything as Remote

Watercooler Spaces

Realtime speed

Async speed

Stable speed

CULTURE

Distributed 100%

Local 100%

Remote in between

“

”Bruno Munari

To complicate is easy, to simplify is hard. To complicate, just add,

everyone is able to complicate. Few are able to simplify.

Thanks.

@Folletto

INTENSEMINIMALISM.COM