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A curious mixture of the Internet and Agile development has led to more and more companies eliminating middle management. Some have eliminated management altogether. This talk explores this trend, discusses how modern corporations resemble feudal societies and why they're less likely to innovate. We then survey many "managerless" companies that have arisen today, but also cover many highly successful, large, managerless companies who have been with us for decades, including some whose products you probably have in your home.
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April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
You’re Killing Managers
Keep it up.
YAPC::EU Keynote, Bulgaria, 2014Curtis "Ovid" Poe
http://allaroundtheworld.fr/
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Why Aren’t I Talking About Perl?
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
My Goal is to Inspire You
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Agile is Spreading
“The Best Kept Management SecretOn The Planet: Agile”
Forbes, April 2012http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2012/04/09/the-best-kept-management-secret-on-the-planet-agile/
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
It’s called a “bubble”
Photo by Hartwig HKD — https://www.flickr.com/photos/h-k-d/2595755975/in/photostream/
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
The “New” Tech Industry …
• Needs to move fast• Needs to adjust to its environment• Iconoclastic by necessity• Old-school versus new-school
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
The Elephant in the Agile Room
• Why do self-directed teams need managers?• The “unsolved problem” in Agile• Traditional management doesn’t work• So … history
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hbarrison/7522705738/
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Hunter-Gatherers
• Follow the leader• … or die• Not much hierarchy
A Kali'na hunter with a woman gatherer.http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kalina_hunter_gatherer.jpg
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
The Feudal Era
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
The Corporate Era
Bill Gates, Berlin, 2013
http://www.dts-nachrichtenagentur.de/kostenlose_bilder.php
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Startup
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Growth
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Mature
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Feudalism 2.0
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Progressive
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Feudal Inefficiencies
• Local allegiances• Poor internal communication• No price signals• No internal markets• Command-and-control from king to serf
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Corporate Inefficiencies
• Local allegiances• Poor internal communication• No price signals• No internal markets• Command-and-control from CEO to serf
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Why Do Corporations Struggle?
• Why don't big companies innovate more?(Forbes)
• Why big companies can't innovate.(Harvard Business Review)
• Why is innovation so hard for large companies?(Game Changer)
• Why small companies have the innovation advantage.(entrepreneur.com)
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
The Dark Side of Analyst Coverage: The Case of Innovation. (Journal of Financial Economics)
Used under “Fair Use” copyright exception http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Vader?file=Lord_Darth_Vader.jpg
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Public Companies
• Share prices tied to compensation• Share prices tied to job security• Share prices vis-à-vis company takeover• Share prices as a measure of success
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Share Prices
Keeping share prices highrequires minimizing risk
Jashuah - Own work by uploader, data from Stooq - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAX#mediaviewer/File:DAX.png
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Share Prices
Minimizing risk=
Minimizing innovation
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
If we are willing to die for Democracy and Capitalism… why don’t we allow it in our corporations?
By Dan Smith (Own work) CC-BY-SA-2.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Why Bother?
• Little personal incentive• Risk averse/hide-and-seek• Blame avoidance• Groupthink
Dilbert image, created by Scott Adams, used under “Fair use” copyright exceptionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert#mediaviewer/File:Dilbert-20050910.png
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Why Do Feudal Corporations Exist?
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Why Do Feudal Corporations Exist?
• Brand recognition• Mature products• Financial reserves
1924 IBM Logo
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
How Do Large Corporations Cope?
• BBC Blue Room• Funding startups• Litigation (“Hello, RIAA”)
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
“Managerless” Companies
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Basecamp (formerly 37signals)
• Basecamp, Highrise, Campfire, Rails• 35 to 40 employees• Self-organizing teams• Reluctantly trying “middle manager” role
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Github
• Github!• 200+ employees• Self-organizing teams• Reluctantly trying “middle manager” role
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
VALVE
• 250+ people• Better profits/employee than Google or Apple• The platonic ideal of Agile?• What are corporations for?
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/why-valve-or-what-do-we-need-corporations-for-and-how-does-valves-management-structure-fit-into-todays-corporate-world/
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
VALVE
• Half-Life series• Counter-Strike series• Team Fortress series• Portal series• Left 4 Dead series• Steam
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
VALVE
• Entirely self-funded• Own their intellectual property
• “Hiring well is the most important thing in the universe. Nothing else comes close.”
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
VALVE
• No managers• None• Really
Not really
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
VALVE
• No job titles*
• Everybody is an expert• 100% Time• All desks have wheels• Evaluation by your peers
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
New Employee Handbook
VALVEhttp://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
High-tech is the Catalyst
← Not that one
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Ricardo Semler• Over 3,000 employees!• 24%-27% annual growth for 25 years• All employees share profits• Many employees choose their salaries• Employees vote for managers• "Leading by Omission" speech (Google it)
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Semco’s Three Values
• Democracy• Profit-sharing• Transparency
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Other Managerless* Comapanies
• Morning Star Foods• W. L. Gore & Associates• Zappos.com• Medium.com• … and many more
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Agile — Products Over Process
• Managers process• Workers produce• → Workers over managers
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Managerless companies
• Usually Agile/Lean• Usually tech companies• Usually privately funded
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Known Unknowns
• Can managerless succeed long-term?• What social changes might this entail?• Where are managers required?• Best practices?• Holacracy?
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
We
• We’re the ones doing this• We’re changing how business is being done• And we’re making things more fair
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Summary
• Corporations == Feudalism 2.0• Agile reduces need for middle management• We don’t know what the future holds
April 8, 2023 Copyright 2014, All Around The World
Thank You