FYI
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure To: Staff All wmfall@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi folks,
consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking & talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering and product departments:
- It’ll give product development and the user experience more visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more conversations at that level about the work that most of the organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions - me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of whack.
- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions as appropriate without making my head explode.
- I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that are less visible than our feature priorities.
A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams -- we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.), and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly autonomously.
It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the negatives.
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of the fiscal year.
Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role, so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.
The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions. Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as follows:
* VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering * VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize here because it works so closely with product)
Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect lots of thought and consideration, and we have no intent of reopening questions like "Is Visual Editor the top product priority".
I look forward to hearing your thoughts & discussing this further in coming weeks.
All best, Erik
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
I believe it is the right way to go to have dedicated organizations for Engineering and Products. The pure size makes this necessary and the complexity of tasks in each area.
But I also see it important to strengthen the control of these activities, so would propose to have a very small adm staff at "corporate level" to be able to prepare budgets and other document asked for by Sue and the Board. Also I wonder if it would not be good to consider a steering committee consisting of the Vps and appointed (elected) community members, who should meet IRL once or twice a year and look through the budgets and recommend line of actions and actual budget in numbers to the Board?
Anders
Erik Moeller skrev 2012-11-06 04:03:
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure To: Staff All wmfall@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi folks,
consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking & talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering and product departments:
- It’ll give product development and the user experience more
visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more conversations at that level about the work that most of the organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
- me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
whack.
- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
as appropriate without making my head explode.
- I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that are less visible than our feature priorities.
A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams -- we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.), and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly autonomously.
It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the negatives.
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of the fiscal year.
Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role, so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.
The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions. Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as follows:
- VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering
- VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new
Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize here because it works so closely with product)
Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect lots of thought and consideration, and we have no intent of reopening questions like "Is Visual Editor the top product priority".
I look forward to hearing your thoughts & discussing this further in coming weeks.
All best, Erik
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
(Double Post, Since this was crossposted in the first place, and to make sure I hit both lists, Sorry Wikitech)
On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 1:03 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of the fiscal year.
Due to the nature of the foundation and to ensure continued growth and prosperity I would be hoping that the foundation ensured both positions became "vacant" and the person/s are chosen on the merits of their applications to ensure the continued and best growth.
Crossposting is tricky – Sue's answer didn't reach wikimedia-l as far as I can see. From http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2012-November/064281.html : ---- Hi K. Peachey,
Generally speaking, the WMF posts and boards for every vacancy. (I think there's a policy document somewhere to that effect -- regardless, it's been our practice for years.) Sometimes we skip the posting & boarding process if there's a sufficiently compelling reason, but mostly we post and board every position.
And so yes, indeed, we will post and board the head of Engineering vacancy, because it's a newly-created position, and it's vacant. We won't be posting and boarding the head of Product, though, because it is not a newly-created position and it's not a vacancy. Even though the responsibilities and scope of the role are shifting, it is an existing position, and it has an incumbent (Erik).
Thanks, Sue ---- K. Peachey, 06/11/2012 20:30:
(Double Post, Since this was crossposted in the first place, and to make sure I hit both lists, Sorry Wikitech)
On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 1:03 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of the fiscal year.
Due to the nature of the foundation and to ensure continued growth and prosperity I would be hoping that the foundation ensured both positions became "vacant" and the person/s are chosen on the merits of their applications to ensure the continued and best growth.
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On 7 November 2012 08:40, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Crossposting is tricky – Sue's answer didn't reach wikimedia-l as far as I can see. From http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2012-November/064281.html :
Oh thanks, Nemo. I don't know what went wrong there, but I appreciate you catching it :-) Sue
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
Erik,
just a quick note without going too much into substance - I think it's a great way to handle the issue like this! Thank you for posting this!
//Saper
On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 7:01 PM, Marcin Cieslak saper@saper.info wrote:
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
Erik,
just a quick note without going too much into substance - I think it's a great way to handle the issue like this! Thank you for posting this!
//Saper
+1 SJ
hi erik,
there is a lot of good reasoning in your mail. you talk of "engineering functions" and "product functions" already existing. which ones are these, what is their responsibility, and how many people work in these functions currently?
rupert
On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 4:03 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure To: Staff All wmfall@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi folks,
consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking & talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering and product departments:
- It’ll give product development and the user experience more
visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more conversations at that level about the work that most of the organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
- me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
whack.
- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
as appropriate without making my head explode.
- I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that are less visible than our feature priorities.
A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams -- we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.), and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly autonomously.
It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the negatives.
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of the fiscal year.
Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role, so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.
The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions. Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as follows:
- VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering
- VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new
Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize here because it works so closely with product)
Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect lots of thought and consideration, and we have no intent of reopening questions like "Is Visual Editor the top product priority".
I look forward to hearing your thoughts & discussing this further in coming weeks.
All best, Erik
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 10:04 AM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
there is a lot of good reasoning in your mail. you talk of "engineering functions" and "product functions" already existing. which ones are these, what is their responsibility, and how many people work in these functions currently?
(Apologies for just now catching up with this thread due to travel & personal time off)
Dear Rupert,
right now, the following folks work in Product:
- Howie Fung (Director) - Design/UX team: Brandon Harris, Munaf Assaf, Vibha Bamba, Pau Giner - Product Management: Fabrice Florin, James Forrester, Siebrand Mazeland, Steven Walling, Maryana Pinchunk - Community Liaison: Oliver Keyes - Research: Dario Taraborelli, Ryan Faulkner, and additional part-time research contractors
We've currently got a couple of vacancies: a Visual Designer position, and the Product Manager for Mobile. According to plan an additional PM Multimedia position is scheduled to be opened later in the fiscal year.
So there are currently ~13 FTEs in Product, and 3 current or planned vacancies.
Howie elaborated on these functions here: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-November/122693.html
HTH, Erik
On 5 November 2012 22:03, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure To: Staff All wmfall@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi folks,
<snip>
- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
as appropriate without making my head explode.
<snip>
An excellent motivation. :-)
More seriously, this sounds like a reasonable way to separate the functions.
Risker/Anne
Hi, am I the only one having difficulties understanding the proposal and what it implies?
On 11/05/2012 07:03 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
we need to split the current department into an engineering dept and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
It is strange to see "engineering" and "product" side by side, since (as i understand them) these words belong to different categories. :)
Do you mean a "platform" team and "product" team, both filled with engineers and other profiles but each one focusing on different things? The MediaWiki (platform) team and the Wikimedia (product) teams, so to say?
Or are you indeed referring to the classical separation between "product managers + designers" and "developers + testers"? The first ones defining requirements and the second ones implementing them?
Or something else? Reading your email + http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors + http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering wasn't enough for me to understand.
What is clear from your email is that the current Engineering team is underrepresented at a high level and you Erik have too much in your bucket. A split and flattening getting more people in the high decision levels makes total sense.
What also seems to be clear is that such reorganization should solve the slightly schizophrenic tension of priorities between Wikimedia/product and MediaWiki/platform, right?
Whatever the result, I hope we end up with teams where software developers, sysadmins, product managers, designers etc are well mixed in focused teams going after clear common goals.
-- Quim
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering and product departments:
- It’ll give product development and the user experience more
visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more conversations at that level about the work that most of the organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
- me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
whack.
- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
as appropriate without making my head explode.
- I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that are less visible than our feature priorities.
A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams -- we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.), and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly autonomously.
It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the negatives.
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of the fiscal year.
Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role, so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.
The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions. Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as follows:
- VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering
- VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new
Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize here because it works so closely with product)
Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect lots of thought and consideration, and we have no intent of reopening questions like "Is Visual Editor the top product priority".
I look forward to hearing your thoughts & discussing this further in coming weeks.
All best, Erik
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Quim Gil quimgil@gmail.com wrote:
Whatever the result, I hope we end up with teams where software developers, sysadmins, product managers, designers etc are well mixed in focused teams going after clear common goals.
Absolutely. Teams are assembled cross-functionally to ensure that all required skills are present in a team. This will not change in the new structure. Indeed there are ways in which we need to do better (e.g. involving ops/architects earlier in the development process on major feature initiatives). The departments represent functional groupings, while teams are inherently cross-functional, which is a pretty conventional structural approach.
I've asked Howie to weigh in a bit on the definition and role of Product Managers, User Experience Designers, Visual Designers, Interaction Designers, Research Analysts, Community Liaisons and other functions grouped in Product. I'll write a bit more in this thread in a few days as well (about to head to Bangalore for the hackathon there).
All best, Erik
Erik Moeller, 06/11/2012 04:03:
FYI
Is it safe to assume that, until https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ED_Transition_Team ends, all this is on hold?
Nemo
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure To: Staff All wmfall@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi folks,
consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking & talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering and product departments:
- It’ll give product development and the user experience more
visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more conversations at that level about the work that most of the organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
- me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
whack.
- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
as appropriate without making my head explode.
- I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that are less visible than our feature priorities.
A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams -- we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.), and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly autonomously.
It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the negatives.
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of the fiscal year.
Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role, so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.
The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions. Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as follows:
- VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering
- VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new
Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize here because it works so closely with product)
Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect lots of thought and consideration, and we have no intent of reopening questions like "Is Visual Editor the top product priority".
I look forward to hearing your thoughts & discussing this further in coming weeks.
All best, Erik
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hi Nemo,
No, nothing is on hold. The Board and I were really explicit about this when we talked together about the transition: we're going to continue with everything as-is -- nothing will go on hold purely due to the transition.
That doesn't mean I won't change plans or make adjustments on a case-by-case basis because I think the circumstances warrant it: I might. But the default assumption should be that everything continues as planned, unless I make a specific decision otherwise.
Thanks, Sue
Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation
415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
On 2 April 2013 01:50, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Erik Moeller, 06/11/2012 04:03:
FYI
Is it safe to assume that, until <https://meta.wikimedia.org/** wiki/ED_Transition_Teamhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ED_Transition_Team> ends, all this is on hold?
Nemo
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure To: Staff All wmfall@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi folks,
consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking & talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering and product departments:
- It’ll give product development and the user experience more
visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more conversations at that level about the work that most of the organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
- me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
whack.
- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
as appropriate without making my head explode.
- I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that are less visible than our feature priorities.
A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams -- we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.), and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly autonomously.
It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the negatives.
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of the fiscal year.
Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role, so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.
The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions. Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as follows:
- VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering
- VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new
Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize here because it works so closely with product)
Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect lots of thought and consideration, and we have no intent of reopening questions like "Is Visual Editor the top product priority".
I look forward to hearing your thoughts & discussing this further in coming weeks.
All best, Erik
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.**org/wiki/Donatehttps://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
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Sue Gardner, 02/04/2013 18:46:
Hi Nemo,
No, nothing is on hold. The Board and I were really explicit about this when we talked together about the transition: we're going to continue with everything as-is -- nothing will go on hold purely due to the transition.
That doesn't mean I won't change plans or make adjustments on a case-by-case basis because I think the circumstances warrant it: I might. But the default assumption should be that everything continues as planned, unless I make a specific decision otherwise.
Ok, thank you. Glad to see that we may still hear news in one direction or another in the near term.
Nemo
P.s.: I asked about this one because there wasn't a concrete roadmap for "everything [to] continue[s] as planned", so it would not be strange to continue not hearing anything (public/definite) about it. :)
Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
P.s.: I asked about this one because there wasn't a concrete roadmap for "everything [to] continue[s] as planned", so it would not be strange to continue not hearing anything (public/definite) about it. :)
Sue or Erik: is there any update on this e-mail from November 2012? (Or some place interested folks should be watching for news?)
MZMcBride
On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 7:49 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Sue or Erik: is there any update on this e-mail from November 2012? (Or some place interested folks should be watching for news?)
In addition to the original note from November, please also see Sue's follow-up restructure announcement from December, which made explicit that the decision to split the engineering/product department was deferred for now:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-December/122971.html
Splitting the department is still my recommendation to Sue. When we last met to discuss it, we decided to defer the posting of a VP Engineering by at least 6 months, and to explore other strategies in the interim to increase the department's ability to scale, including more peer decision-making on the Director-level, better embedded recruiting support, greater focus by HR on supporting engineering through coaching/development, etc.
However, Sue is in favor of the plan overall, and the VP Engineering position is part of our current 2013-14 draft budget for this reason. We've also recently opened the Director of Analytics and Director of User Experience job openings that I referenced in my note:
http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=otv0WfwE&c=qSa9VfwQ http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=oJriXfw9&c=qSa9VfwQ
Filling both those positions, in combination with continuing growth, will further stretch the ability of any one person to run the department.
As to whether the VP Engineering position can be filled before a new ED is hired, my personal view is that it's the kind of decision that, ideally, should be finalized by the new ED (this may mean that the hiring process is well underway but that they have the chance to veto or extend it), since otherwise they may find themselves with a new VP Engineering and new org structure they didn't sign off on, which could make a risky change even riskier for the org. But that'll be Sue's call to make and will also depend on how the various timelines play out in reality.
Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Erik Moeller wrote:
On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 7:49 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Sue or Erik: is there any update on this e-mail from November 2012? (Or some place interested folks should be watching for news?)
In addition to the original note from November, please also see Sue's follow-up restructure announcement from December, which made explicit that the decision to split the engineering/product department was deferred for now:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-December/122971.html
[...]
Thank you very much for the insightful update. Much appreciated. :-)
MZMcBride
Answer came in the annual plan: «Product and Engineering will be split into two departments, to bring additional leadership strength to the organization and to rebalance the senior team so one person doesn’t need to represent both disciplines. We will invest further staffing resources in both areas, especially in historically under-resourced domains (data analysis and analytics support, design, operations support for projects, security engineering, and community support). This will enable our core engineering projects to launch more quickly and at a higher level of quality in the future than resources have allowed to date.» https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File%3A2013-2014_WMF_Plan_As_Published.pdf&page=4
Nemo
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org