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RubyConf AU 2015: http://www.rubyconf.org.au This is the story of a company that survived a much needed transformation of its product and codebase, but most importantly, of its culture. There's no real prescription for being agile. It's about the journey a team takes to discover how to best work together and deliver great products. In this presentation, I'll share a candid view of a team trying to overcome a slow product development process. How we refactored our way out of badly coupled code, moved to continuous deployment, and greatly improved our approach to product and software development.
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In the RubyConf AU 2015 presentation titled "Rewriting Code and Culture," speaker Sabrina Leandro discusses how her team at Songkick transformed both their codebase and company culture during an intensive rewrite project. This presentation outlines the journey of overcoming slow product development and the lessons learned in creating a more agile and responsive environment for delivering great products. ### Key Points: - **Initial Challenges**: Songkick initially faced lengthy release cycles affected by a complex codebase characterized by many dependencies, which hindered agility and innovation. - **Change in Architecture**: To tackle these issues, the team adopted a service-oriented architecture (SOA). This involved breaking down tightly coupled projects into manageable services, allowing for parallel development and reduced dependencies. - **Identifying Core Product Proposition**: The team conducted user research to understand the primary reason users returned to Songkick. It was determined that tracking favorite artists was crucial, guiding the development and enhancement of the iPhone app based on this insight. - **Focused Rewrite Goals**: A central lesson was defining a specific goal for the rewrite. The team aimed to simplify the website and prioritize key features, avoiding the temptation to simultaneously tackle multiple features or technology upgrades, which often lead to project delays. - **Iterative Approach**: Instead of a complete overhaul, the team rewrote one page at a time. This incremental strategy allowed for continuous release and validation of functionality while implementing a shift towards continuous delivery practices. - **Empowering Developers**: By giving developers more responsibility for testing and decision-making regarding design and functionality, the team improved efficiency. This cultural shift allowed developers to take ownership of the product quality. - **Collaboration and Communication**: Improved collaboration between developers, designers, and product managers fostered a stronger understanding of roles and challenges, enhancing teamwork and project outcomes. - **Outcome of the Rewrite**: The project culminated in a decoupled Rails application with a significant increase in development velocity and product releases. The new architecture facilitated a happier work environment, further enhancing the company culture. ### Conclusions and Takeaways: - Leandro emphasizes the importance of maintaining a clean codebase as a means to an end rather than an end itself. The ultimate goal is to deliver valuable products to users through effective teamwork and understanding of product goals. - The talk concludes with a call to work collaboratively in multidisciplinary teams to improve both code quality and user satisfaction, encouraging attendees to adopt similar practices in their environments.
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