The first team at Jimdo to use Kanban began in October of 2010. Shortly thereafter, whiteboards and sticky notes spread quickly throughout the whole company. The Kanban Implementations took on different forms, and ranged from pure visualisation of tasks to different types of WIP-limits and the systematic use of models for continuous improvement (Kaizen). It soon became apparent using Kanban at the team level was very useful, but from the business perspective, it was in no way enough. Two things needed to happen: Company-wide Alignment of all teams and Leadership. This is especially true for a company like Jimdo which constantly doubled its head count every two years, and now has employees on 3 different continents. In this presentation, you will learn how Jimdo established itself in order to coordinate the whole company and pull everything together. What tools and practices proved useful? What lessons were learned? What hurdles were overcome? What role did the Management play? And just what exactly is a Teamverløtung?

1. Kanban, Leadership and
Alignment at Jimdo
Fridtjof Detzner
Arne Roock

3. 1999

4. sta
rt

5. 10
20

6. 2013

7. 10,000,000

9. worldwide.
growing.
profitable.

10. How to rapidly grow
a company
while staying fast
as a racehorse

11. Magic
Scaling
Wheel

12. Magic
Scaling
Wheel

13. X - Teams

14. real
ly ca
re
food

15. t
boa
on a

17. food

18. Magic
Scaling
Wheel

19. jimdo is growing
and growing in
headcount

20. so normal
companies would:

21. Project Managers

22. Reporting

23. Detailed
planning
!
!

24. Budgeting

25. Departments

26. we know why other
companies do all this.
But we simply don‘t want to
do it the same way because
it‘s not fitting our culture.

27. Teamverløtung

29. read this book!
meet this guy!

30. The spice girls question:
So tell me what you want,
what you really, really want

31. Goal#1
Goal #1

32. Jimdo for iOS

33. Launch in every country
Languages
English
German
Japanese
Spanish
French
Russian
Dutch
Polish
Portuguese
Italian
Turkish
Jimdo for iOS
Free
Exclusive on iOS
Universal app with device specific views
iOS 6 and upwards
Launch planned: August 20
!
Launch planned: September 10

34. dev, design, operations,
translations, press meetings all over
the world, video, photo shoot, website
presentation, community work,
support, synchronous launch all over
the world

44. Idea
Wa l l

46. Open Prioritization Meeting

47. Sprints (!= Scrum Sprints)

48. Magic
Scaling
Wheel

49. Kanban

57. But wait, where is the
Management?

58. !
Management by
Teamverløtung
!
• Synchronizing
• Motivation
• Removing Obstacles
• Tracking Progress
• Alignment

59. !
Management by
Goal #1
!
• Alignment
• Company-wide strategy
• Collaboration across teams
•Power of the company became
visible to every member

60. !
Management by
Open-Prioritization-Meeting
!
• Stakeholder Management
• Focus on business value
• Queue Management
• Effectiveness
• Alignment

61. !
Management by
cross-functional teams
!
• Resource Allocation
• Hiring
• Efficiency

62. !
Management by
Sprints
!
• Shared mid-term vision
• Alignment
• Building Trust

63. There is more than one way to run a
company.
Choose the path that is fitting your
company culture and be courageous to
do things differently.

64. @fridel
Fridtjof / Co-Founder jimdo.com
@Fridel
Arne / Dr. Rock
@arneroock
!

65. Thank you!
Give us feedback!
Twitter: @fridel @arneroock
Show your fingers!
Arne Roock
arne.roock@it-agile.de
!
Fridtjof Detzner
fridel@jimdo.com
!
www.3founders.com