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What are the collaborative steps followed by other big companies to move fast - concept to seeing something in production?

user68858788 8y ago
It varies dramatically by team. Personally I don't think the goal should be to collaborate like the big guys, and instead try to emulate the successful smaller companies. Large companies have the resources to support huge amounts of redundancy, making effective collaboration less important.
gregdoesit 8y ago
Op of the post here. I’ve been talking to a few people at other large companies and here’s the information I have. Most of this is anecdotal so treat it as such. Appreciate input or corrections from people working at the companies. - Facebook is the most lightweight on docs. Code is/was still king there and even planning docs might be written after the fact. The downsides I’ve heard is tech/architecture debt building up fast and lots of throwaway stuff built. - Amazon is quite rigid and requires a concise planning doc. Depending on the org you work, there might be a few levels of more formal approvals required. - Google has a process similar to that described in this post, with planning docs being circulated. Due to the large size of the company, docs are routed to specific committees within orgs who give feedback on them. - For smaller companies it will very much vary. Interesting that some do follow something similar, apparently Cockroachdb has a process close to this one: https://twitter.com/vivekmenezes/status/1047827698956079104?s=21 https://twitter.com/vivekmenezes/status/1047827698956079104?... Note that the process I described works well when you have a clear idea of what you are building and have few dependencies. For prototyping or for large/complex projects, planning can get way too slow. That’s when a “war room” with a small team building a prototype, skipping all the docs part, will work a lot faster. All bigger companies I know use this when a better fit.

user68858788 8y ago

It varies dramatically by team. Personally I don't think the goal should be to collaborate like the big guys, and instead try to emulate the successful smaller companies. Large companies have the resources to support huge amounts of redundancy, making effective collaboration less important.

gregdoesit 8y ago

Op of the post here. I’ve been talking to a few people at other large companies and here’s the information I have. Most of this is anecdotal so treat it as such. Appreciate input or corrections from people working at the companies. - Facebook is the most lightweight on docs. Code is/was still king there and even planning docs might be written after the fact. The downsides I’ve heard is tech/architecture debt building up fast and lots of throwaway stuff built. - Amazon is quite rigid and requires a concise planning doc. Depending on the org you work, there might be a few levels of more formal approvals required. - Google has a process similar to that described in this post, with planning docs being circulated. Due to the large size of the company, docs are routed to specific committees within orgs who give feedback on them. - For smaller companies it will very much vary. Interesting that some do follow something similar, apparently Cockroachdb has a process close to this one: https://twitter.com/vivekmenezes/status/1047827698956079104?s=21 https://twitter.com/vivekmenezes/status/1047827698956079104?... Note that the process I described works well when you have a clear idea of what you are building and have few dependencies. For prototyping or for large/complex projects, planning can get way too slow. That’s when a “war room” with a small team building a prototype, skipping all the docs part, will work a lot faster. All bigger companies I know use this when a better fit.