Speaker
Abstract
The Co-op has a wide range of software teams, working closely with its variety of businesses (from food to funerals) to build and improve services for use by over 65,000 colleagues, 5 million members, and many more customers.
Software team structures, ways of working, and ways of planning and financing work have all been very varied across the many parts of this huge business. This talk will take a look at how we’ve moved to a more consistent approach - using long-running teams that own systems, and agile ways of working - while still allowing teams to experiment and tailor their approach to what works best in their context.
We’ll cover:
- A tour through the very different types of teams, roles, and ways of working seen in different parts of this varied business
- Reflections on changes that have brought improvements, and others that didn’t get the benefits we hoped
- Advice on how to encourage interest and curiosity in all of this, so that improvements stay alive and keep getting built on.
You’ll come away with insights into how teams work across a 180-year-old organization, and a range of ideas that you can try applying where you work.
Interview
I’m helping improve skills, practices, and team ways of working - focused mainly on teams in payments and e-commerce for food retail, and also working with engineering leadership across all of Co-op’s different businesses.
I see any big organization as an interesting puzzle - there’s so much history, and such variation across different teams, it’s hard to understand how it works and how to make helpful changes. I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on what kinds of change help or hinder, and I’m keen to talk through this experience with an audience.
This talk is aimed at anyone who’s interested in influencing across multiple teams. When you’re one step removed from the day-to-day work of a team, it gets much harder to give good advice, understand their challenges, and help any new practices get the benefits you’re hoping for.
Insight into how a range of teams have been set up across a varied business, and how various changes have made improvements. The examples and ideas will be useful for anyone who’s interested in helping teams improve.
Topics
QCon London 2024 is a three day conference for senior software engineers, architects and team leads. An international program committee of working engineers selects every session. Patterns and practices, not products and pitches.
Part of the track
How Do Teams Really Work? Hosted by Sophie Weston Principal Engineer @ClearBank, Co-Organizer of DevOpsDays London & FastFlowConfFrom the same track
Tuesday 9 April
10:35 Whittle (3rd Fl.) Session organizing at scale Making Change Stick: Lessons Learned From Helping Teams Improve at the Co-Op Neil Vass Engineering Manager at Co-Op with 18+ Years in Tech, Previously Worked at BBC and Tessella The Co-op has a wide range of software teams, working closely with its variety of businesses (from food to funerals) to build and improve services for use by over 65,000 colleagues, 5 million members, and many more customers. 11:45 Whittle (3rd Fl.) Session organizational design The Journey of ClearBank From Start-Up To Scale-Up Michael Gray Principal Engineer @ClearBank Join me on the journey of ClearBank’s transition from a start-up to a scale-up, focusing on the impact on culture and decision-making, and how this affected our engineering teams. 13:35 Fleming (3rd Fl.) Session Being a Bad Influence – The Dangerous Dichotomies of People Management Hannah Foxwell Independent Consultant at the Intersection of Platform Engineering, Security, and AI, Founder of AI For the Rest of Us Humans are complicated unpredictable creatures. As managers and leaders we need to be consistent, yet flexible. Strong, yet vulnerable. Caring, yet authoritative. We need to be so many things that it's often hard to be ourselves - but don’t forget to also be authentic! 14:45 Fleming (3rd Fl.) Session SRE Bits, Bots, and Banter: A Deep Dive into How Tech Teams Work in a DevOps World Brittany Woods Senior Engineering Manager @ The LEGO Group Working in a DevOps world, we've all witnessed many recommendations for how teams work. We have books, blogs, tech trade articles, and even entire pieces of software dedicated to helping teams work together more effectively. We're expected to take a blue-sky approach with the given advice. 15:55 Whittle (3rd Fl.) Session Team Topologies A Tale of Team Topologies at m3ter Ricardo Nuno Almeida Senior Software Engineering Manager @m3ter The path to success is frequently a winding one, and as a series A tech startup, m3ter is no exception. 17:05 Mountbatten (6th Fl.) Session DevOps Thriving Through Change: Leading Through Uncertainty Jennifer Davis Engineering Manager @Google, Previously @Microsoft and @Chef, Author of "Effective DevOps" and "Modern System Administration" Navigating change and building resilient teams is a complex challenge that many organizations face. Times of change can lead to uncertainty, disagreement, and a breakdown in trust.