Experience
Human Learning – How our agile culture keeps us innovative (part 2)
Just a few years ago we were a start-up. Since then we have grown very fast, approximately doubling the number of talents every year. As we grow, the working environment around us changes rapidly every day, and maintaining that start-up mentality becomes more and more difficult. How do we ensure that we don’t lose the values we were built on, when scaling at such speed? Here is the second part of how we stay adaptable and innovative…
Haven’t read part 1 yet? Read it here
By decentralizing our org structure
Decentralizing the traditional organizational structure is another way of reducing boundaries between teams and talents. As we grow as a company, we aim to give our teams all the resources they need to achieve their goals. Imagine a company made up of lots of mini startups, with the same spirit and values, but with the freedom to move independently, quickly and innovatively.
Below is a picture of some of our cross-functional teams. They consist of developers, product owners, design, QA and a scrum master. This way, they have all the resources they need to ideate, develop, optimize and reach their shared goals. Working like this means that if a small team tries something risky, and fails, it doesn’t break the whole company. If it succeeds? Well, then the team gets even more resources! In this particular team we’re also trying out a pitching model, where anyone can pitch an idea, e.g. a feature to be built on our website. If he or she convinces others to build it, then they get the go to form a team for two weeks. After two weeks, an MVP should be ready, and if they want to continue working on it, the idea needs to be pitched again for the next cycle.
Now, this is just a basic snapshot of one of our teams. You’ll find many different set-ups at trivago. There are teams that work with Scrum or Kanban frameworks, teams without fixed resources; where people can choose which project to join depending on the ideas that are pitched, teams that work so quickly and reactively they still use paper to-do lists, and some teams work purely on a mix of caffeine and magic. There are no set rules; just whatever works best for that person or team. This diverse approach is a by-product of our scepticism towards rules & standardizations. We don’t get too involved in how people work, but should they need support in finding their ideal way, we have a dedicated Organizational Agility department to support them in achieving their goals faster. We generally believe the best ideas will get the most buy-in, and then become best practices. Adaptability, entrepreneurial passion and fanatic learning are standout traits that we look for in talents during recruiting. We also encourage those already working with us to change their perspectives regularly by switching roles and taking on new challenges throughout their trivago journey.
Because we’re always ready for change, we’re also able to adjust to big shifts within our organization. For example, we’ve just gone through a huge change to our leadership model, as we strive to give teams and individuals even more autonomy and growth opportunity. We decided to split the traditional “lead structure” three ways to match key strengths. We now have:
- A Responsibility Lead, who is responsible for the business success of an area.
- A Knowledge Lead, who is an expert in a certain field and is happy to remain there to excel in their chosen vocation.
- A Talent Lead, who is in charge of a talents’ personal development.
As everyone has at least two people leading them, it’s not enough just to impress your “manager”. In fact, your performance is evaluated by ALL your stakeholders in the form of 360-degree feedback. We gather input from a talent’s closest peers. By doing this, we avoid people “kissing up and kicking down.” Your peers could be your team, your stakeholders, your leads or people you worked with on a project. If you manage to convince everyone you’re doing a great job, no one cares how many hours you spent at work. In fact, we often really don’t even know. We trust people to take as much time as they need to do a great job and we trust them to take as much time off as they need to be productive. That is why we have self-determined working hours and holidays, so our talents can get more out of life.
Really, there is no right way or wrong way of doing things at trivago, but there are usually always better ways. We only find those better ways by trial and error, and so we exist in a liquid, adaptable environment, because we believe if you stand still, you get left behind. We value diversity and authenticity over consistency, so there is never just one truth. There are many different opinions at trivago, there will probably even be some who challenge this article, and that’s okay. The more perspectives we gather on a topic, the cleverer we become. It is kind of like machine learning, done by humans. It helps us improve every single day.
