To manage their increased workload effectively and maintain quality and efficiency, a software team decided to become dual-purpose: stream-aligned and platform. They rewrote their main application to be API-first and implemented micro releases with their customer-facing products, to provide value to their end users quickly and maintain a steady flow of accomplishments for the team. Marion Løken spoke about the changes that her software team went through at NDC Oslo.
The mobility market is under significant pressure due to economic downturns and environmental concerns; people buy fewer cars and change less often, Løken said. Schibsted marketplaces across several countries merged:
My team transitioned from selling insights to 1,000 car dealers in Norway to delivering insights to 600,000 monthly users -both private and professional buyers and sellers- and expanding to 1.5 million users in the Nordics, with new revenue streams through third-party integrations.
They used the jobs to be done (JTBD) framework to develop more specialized products for car dealers and evolve into a platform team:
We went from a generic JTBD like "help me sell my product" to more specific ones like "help me sell or buy a car," "help me sell my car to a professional," or "help me evaluate a car pool for compliance with financial regulations". JBTD helps you reframe your team role effectively.
Løken explained that decision support is crucial throughout the user journey, from understanding the market, setting the sale price and choosing where to advertise, to optimizing the marketing budget. Those user journeys are owned by different teams with different products, however, the insights should be calculated and presented in a recognizable way to the end users:
Numbers and statistics can be challenging to interpret, and adding unnecessary complexity by changing the visualization can create doubt and confusion for users.
They transformed into a dual-purpose team: a stream-aligned team, serving their own users, and a platform team, supporting other internal teams:
We are only a small team with four developers; our deep understanding of what our end users want enables us to save other teams time and effort by building solutions that benefit both us and them.
They rewrote their main application to be API-first and used a component library, simplifying their architecture. The API-first shift allowed them to consolidate their services into a single API with access control, eliminating task duplication and significantly improving efficiency. The component library for the front-end also aids their setup, enabling them to reuse the same design across products and user journeys, Løken mentioned.
They leveraged generative AI to enhance productivity and get inspiration for improving the software architecture:
When creating a new invoicing system, we utilized ChatGPT to generate mermaid diagrams that could be directly integrated into GitHub, ensuring clarity in our system design and adherence to SOLID principles.
Software engineers use AI tools like Copilot for coding tasks, which enhances their efficiency, Løken said.
InfoQ interviewed Marion Løken about the changes in her team.
InfoQ: What was your approach for setting up teams to provide decision support products?
Marion Løken: To enhance the cohesion of our decision support products, we identified the need to work smarter and integrate our data products centrally. Delivering data products directly to the end users was not enough; we also needed to provide these products to our internal teams to ensure a seamless experience for our end users.
Additionally, we receive feedback on their products that helps us improve our products across the board. However, we are still too small to fully focus on customizing for the needs of our internal users, the teams we support.
InfoQ: How did you benefit from generative AI tools?
Løken: There’s a definite opportunity to accomplish tasks faster with generative AI when you have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve, what the solution should look like, and the best practices you want to adhere to. With the help of AI, we managed to deliver what the organization needed more effectively.
InfoQ: How do you do micro releases and what benefits does that bring?
Løken: Big bang releases are a thing of the past, and micro releases help boost team morale. Smaller milestones give everyone a sense of progress and achievement.
For example, we planned to deliver five key insight cards in a rotating display. Instead of waiting until all the insights were ready, we decided to go live as soon as one was complete and inform our customers that more were on the way.
As the team manager, I used these opportunities to celebrate with small gestures, like buying treats or sharing "breaking news" in the company channel. These frequent celebrations helped maintain high spirits and reinforced the incredible job the team was doing. I’m glad we didn’t wait for everything to be finished to recognize our progress.