Making a Big Impact with a Small Web Team
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The document discusses strategies for small web teams to have a big impact. It suggests taking a pragmatic approach by focusing on what works rather than dogmatic principles. Some key recommendations include ignoring restrictive job titles, setting clear expectations when defending schedules from interruptions, doubling estimates to account for unpredictability, prioritizing tasks, and building features incrementally starting with minimum viable products. The goal is to release features faster through progressive enhancement, make estimation easier, and allow for constant upgrades.
![“Traditionally at Valve, nobody has an actual
title… [W]e all take on the role that suits the
work in front of us. Everyone is a designer.
Everyone can question each other’s work.
Anyone can recruit someone onto his or
her project.”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/bigimpactsmallteam-140402103047-phpapp01/85/Making-a-Big-Impact-with-a-Small-Web-Team-16-320.jpg)
Making a Big Impact with a Small Web Team
- 1. MAKING A BIG IMPACT with a small web team
- 3. OBLIGATORY BACKGROUND INFO 2004 2007–2011 2011–now2003
- 4. APARTMENT THERAPY Saving the world, one room at a time. THE KITCHN Inspiring cooks, nourishing homes.
- 6. 7 PEOPLE!? You call that small?
- 7. 64 M monthly pageviews 25 pageviews per second monthly unique visitors19 M
- 8. WEB TEAM SIZE COMPARISON 7 20 39 9.6M 19M WEB TEAM SIZEMUU (UNIQUES) 16M
- 10. big small teams IGNORE JOB TITLES
- 11. Senior Web Designer Sr. Front-End Web Developer Front-End Engineer Senior Web Engineer Senior Web Engineer Operations Engineer Chief Technology Officer
- 13. 330 employees 100% flat hierarchy
- 16. “Traditionally at Valve, nobody has an actual title… [W]e all take on the role that suits the work in front of us. Everyone is a designer. Everyone can question each other’s work. Anyone can recruit someone onto his or her project.”
- 18. JOB TITLE GENERAL WEB SKILLS
- 19. Job titles should be descriptive, not restrictive.
- 20. NEW FEATURE ASSIGNMENTS BACKEND FRONT-END DESIGN
- 21. BUILDING A T-SHAPED TEAM 1. TEACH EACH OTHER Code reviews / Group bug fixes / Swap jobs for a day 2. LOSE YOUR EGO Give up full control 3. TAKE OWNERSHIP OF EVERYTHING Don’t hide behind title / Jump in and help
- 22. big small teams DEFEND THEIR SCHEDULE
- 25. DEFEND?
- 27. It’s about setting good expectations.
- 28. 1. DON’T REACT
- 34. You need to put on your pajamas and brush your teeth. Which would you like to do first, put on your PJs or brush your teeth? I DON’T WANNA GO TO BED!
- 35. Invite a conversation. Give them a choice.
- 36. We’re in the middle of another project right now. No. That will delay our current project. Which would you rather have first? GIMME PHOTO GALLERIES!
- 37. 3. WORK IN PUBLIC
- 39. Share it with everyone.
- 41. big small teams ARE TERRIBLE ESTIMATORS (AND THEY KNOW IT)
- 43. SKELETON CREW Fewer people = less experience SHIFTING TIDES Interruptions UNKNOWN DANGERS Browser bugs / Hidden complexity
- 44. SO HOW DO WE GET BETTER? 1. EXPERIENCE ...but that takes time 2. MORE TIME PLANNING ...can’t predict interruptions and scope changes 3. SMALLER FEATURES ...we’ll get to that in a minute
- 45. Make your estimate. Then double it.
- 46. big small teams PERFORM TASK TRIAGE
- 49. Manage tasks by assigning priority.
- 50. TASK TRIAGE Small Task Large Task High Impact Low Impact LOW-HANGING FRUIT BASEMENT CLOSET MAJOR FEATURES IN-BETWEEN TASKS
- 51. big small teams TAKE TINY BITES
- 52. PHOTO GALLERY SPEC Captions on images No JS required Editable in CMS Embed on any page Full-screen popup Swipeable PROJECT ESTIMATE 8 weeks
- 53. Start with the minimum viable product.
- 54. Embed on any page / No JS required VERSION 1 2 weeks
- 55. + EDIT GALLERY + + + ++ + + + Editable in CMS VERSION 1 2 weeks VERSION 2 2 weeks
- 56. Full-screen popup / Captions on images This is a caption for my image! + CLOSE VERSION 1 2 weeks VERSION 2 2 weeks VERSION 3 2 weeks
- 57. Swipeable a caption for my image! + CLOSE Look! I’m swipeab VERSION 1 2 weeks VERSION 2 2 weeks VERSION 3 2 weeks VERSION 4 2 weeks
- 59. WHY TAKE TINY BITES? 1. FASTER RELEASES Happy users / Happy stakeholders / Happy team 2. EASIER ESTIMATION 1 large task vs. 4 small tasks 3. BECAUSE WE CAN Server deploy = instant upgrade
- 60. big small teams ARE PRAGMATIC, NOT DOGMATIC
- 61. dog·mat·ic inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true
- 63. prag·mat·ic dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations
- 65. Focus on what works instead of what’s “right.”
- 66. RESPONSIVE LAYOUT — IMAGES
- 67. RESPONSIVE LAYOUT — IMAGES It’s not any worse than before. We can solve that problem later. Smaller screens must be served smaller images before we launch.
- 68. NAMING CONVENTIONS PRESENTATIONAL .pull-left .pull-right .aside .aside-alt SEMANTICLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec aliquam eleifend egestas. Quisque a elit neque. Pellentesque eleifend nisi placerat, porttitor mi a, venenatis Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec aliquam eleifend egestas. Quisque a elit neque. Pellentesque eleifend nisi placerat, porttitor mi a, venenatis tellus. Nullam tempor orci magna, eget fringilla turpis tristiq aliquam eleifend nec. tellus. Nullam tempor orci magna, eget fringilla turpis tristique aliquam eleifend nec.
- 69. NAMING CONVENTIONS PRESENTATIONAL .pull-left .pull-right .aside .aside-alt SEMANTICLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec aliquam eleifend egestas. Quisque a elit neque. Pellentesque eleifend nisi placerat, porttitor mi a, venenatis Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec aliquam eleifend egestas. Quisque a elit neque. Pellentesque eleifend nisi placerat, porttitor mi a, venenatis tellus. Nullam tempor orci magna, eget fringilla turpis tristiq aliquam eleifend nec. tellus. Nullam tempor orci magna, eget fringilla turpis tristique aliquam eleifend nec. Either way works, as long as we agree to stay consistent. Classes shouldn’t describe presentation! Semantic naming!
- 70. Use best practices, but only when they’re helpful.
- 71. IGNORE JOB TITLES Job titles should be descriptive, not restrictive. DEFEND THEIR SCHEDULE It’s about setting good expectations. ARE TERRIBLE ESTIMATORS (AND THEY KNOW IT) Make your estimate. Then double it. PERFORM TASK TRIAGE Manage tasks by assigning priority. TAKE TINY BITES Start with the minimum viable product. ARE PRAGMATIC, NOT DOGMATIC Focus on what works instead of what’s “right.” BIG SMALL TEAMS...
- 72. thanks!