To unlock growth, a business needs to continually (re)organise and (re)educate itself, across the disciplines of product, marketing and engineering. This presentation will talk through what we have done to continually organise and educate for growth at Skyscanner, and share the resulting learnings, successes, fails, tips and techniques.

1. Self-disrupt for Growth
Rebecca Moore | Director of Growth, EMEA

2. My journey

3. Europe, Middle East and Africa
19 2 65Markets Tribes People

4. What is Skyscanner?

5. 30languages
1kemployees
50nationalities
10offices
circa

6. QUESTION 2
What is growth?
QUESTION 1
What is the goal?

7. Exponential & healthy growth
Website & mobile unique monthly visitors
(in millions)
December 2004 April 2018
70m+
*data sourced from Google Analytics

8. Northern Star
Total Ticket Value

9. Who is responsible for Growth?

10. How do you continue to grow when you
have started to amass some scale?
Hard. Complex. There are no constants.

11. HOW WE THINK IT SHOULD WORK HOW IT ACTUALLY WORKS

12. Family Tribal Village City Nation
Small, close knit
adaptable team
Larger team, some
specialists
Many teams,
support functions,
specialists
Global company,
many offices, many
specialists, new
products
Multiple
companies,
multiple products
Employees 1s 10s 100s 1,000s 10,000s
User scale
(B2C)
10,000s 100,000s 1,000,000s 10,000,000s 100,000,000+
Customers -
B2B
0 1s 10s 100s 1,000+
Revenue <$10m $10m+ 100M+ $1B+ $5B+
Blitzscaling,
Reid Hoffman

13. When and why to change your Growth Org?
“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance
of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be
sufficient for tomorrow.”
William Pollard

14. What did we want
to achieve?
• Innovation in current markets
• New/emerging channels
• New/emerging markets
• Hacks, cheap and free wins
• Referral, proprietary channels
• Growth baked into the
product, not an afterthought
• …and all of this at scale across
40+ markets

15. Where do I start?

16. How did we go about achieving it?
ENABLERS INJECTIONS
• Organised for market focus
with global scale
• Rapid execution
• Able to test, pivot and iterate
across the entire marketing
mix in entire market at velocity
• Fearless at execution
• Structure – tribes and squads
• Lean Start-up - scientific and
agile approach
• T-shaping
• Growth mindset

17. How did we go about achieving it?
ENABLERS INJECTIONS
• Organised for market focus
with global scale
• Rapid execution
• Able to test, pivot and iterate
across the entire marketing
mix in entire market at velocity
• Fearless at execution
• Structure – tribes and squads
• Lean Start-up - scientific and
agile approach
• T-shaping
• Growth mindset

18. Squads and Tribes
Tribe Lead
ORIENTED AROUND A CLEAR GOAL
Tribe Support
(Analyst, Engineering Lead)
Autonomous team with
all skills to execute
Market Growth Lead
or Product Owner

19. Squads and Tribes
AMERICAS GROWTH APAC GROWTH EMEA GROWTH
Automate and scale Localise and win in the market
CENTRAL GROWTH

20. Alignment
Autonomy
Command
and
Control
Directionless
micro
management
Localised
agility without
scale,
Agility and
exponential
scale

21. Alignment
Autonomy
Command
and
Control
Directionless
micro
management
Localised
agility without
scale,
Agility and
exponential
scale

22. How did we go about achieving it?
ENABLERS INJECTIONS
• Organised for market focus
with global scale
• Rapid execution
• Able to test, pivot and iterate
across the entire marketing
mix in entire market at velocity
• Fearless at execution
• Structure – tribes and squads
• Lean Start-up - scientific and
agile approach
• T-shaping
• Growth mindset

23. “Speed of iteration beats Quality of Iteration”
Boyd’s Law of Iteration
MiG 15/ F-86
OODA Loop: Observe, orient, decide, act

24. SCENARIO A
2 cycles
per improvements for
50% gain
SCENARIO B
1 cycles
per improvement for
25% gain

25. Monthly IteraEons
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2 Cycles - 50% improvement 1 cycle - 25% improvement

26. Weekly IteraEons
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52
2 Cycles - 50% improvement 1 cycle - 25% improvement

27. Daily IteraEons
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49 53 57 61 65 69 73 77 81 85 89 93 97 101 105 109 113 117 121 125 129 133 137 141 145 149 153 157 161 165 169 173 177 181 185 189 193 197 201 205 209 213 217 221 225 229 233 237 241 245 249 253 257
2 Cycles - 50% improvement 1 cycle - 25% improvement
1000X
Difference

29. How did we go about achieving it?
ENABLERS INJECTIONS
• Organised for market focus
with global scale
• Rapid execution
• Able to test, pivot and iterate
across the entire marketing
mix in entire market
at velocity
• Fearless at execution
• Structure – tribes and squads
• Lean Start-up - scientific and
agile approach
• T-shaping
• Growth mindset

30. The T-shaped digital marketing framework

31. How did we go about achieving it?
ENABLERS INJECTIONS
• Organised for market focus
with global scale
• Rapid execution
• Able to test, pivot and iterate
across the entire marketing
mix in entire market
at velocity
• Fearless at execution
• Structure – tribes and squads
• Lean Start-up - scientific and
agile approach
• T-shaping
• Growth mindset

32. Desired culture and mindset
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”
Peter Drucker

33. Growth mindset, Carol Dweck

34. The cost of change

35. Impact

37. Family Tribal Village City Nation
Small, close knit
adaptable team
Larger team, some
specialists
Many teams,
support functions,
specialists
Global company,
many offices, many
specialists, new
products
Multiple
companies,
multiple produs
Employees 1s 10s 100s 1,000s 10,000s
User scale
(B2C)
10,000s 100,000s 1,000,000s 10,000,000s 100,000,000+
Customers -
B2B
0 1s 10s 100s 1,000+
Revenue <$10m $10m+ 100M+ $1B+ $5B+
Blitzscaling,
Reid Hoffman

38. #FAIL FORWARDS
• High autonomy / low alignment (and duplication, inefficiency, blockers to scale)
• To scale, growth should be owned by the whole business
MANAGING NEXT TRANSITION
• Refining our structure continually investing in our people

39. #FAIL FORWARDS
• High autonomy / low alignment (and duplication, inefficiency, blockers to
scale)
• To scale, growth should be owned by the whole business
MANAGING NEXT TRANSITION
• Refining our structure continually investing in our people

40. Alignment
Autonomy
Command
and
Control
Directionless
micro
management
Localised
agility without
scale,
Agility and
exponential
scale

41. Product market fit
Channel market fit
Market performance
User behaviour and feedback
Competitive landscape
Commercial landscape
Market dynamics
USPs and gaps to competition
Funnel and key metrics
Horizon 1:
Maintain and defend
Core business
Horizon 2:
Nurture emerging
business
Horizon 3:
Create genuinely new
business
Value
Time

42. Alignment
Autonomy
Command
and
Control
Directionless
micro
management
Localised
agility without
scale,
Agility and
exponential
scale

43. Email, push SEO CRM
New
verticals
SEM Referral App
Product level
zeros

44. Trains

45. Ferries White Label

46. Arabic app

47. #FAIL FORWARDS
• High autonomy / low alignment (and duplication, inefficiency, blockers to scale)
• To scale, growth should be owned by the whole business
MANAGING NEXT TRANSITION
• Refining our structure continually investing in our people

48. Having one king or queen of a tribe isn’t the answer,
you need shared leadership.
Tribes are tribal and mega tribes get inefficient
(rule of thumb < 10 squads; >5).
Don’t forget about line management

49. Market Growth Lead
(MGL)
• Drives market strategy
• Peer to Squad Lead
• T-shaped and executes
• Majors in "Individual
Contribution" or "Business
Outcomes Orientation“
• Leads market strategy in 1-2
squads
Squad Lead
(SL)
• Max 50% time line managing
• Peer to Market Growth Lead
• T-shaped and executes
• Majors in people leadership
• Line manages up to 8 people
in 1-2 squads

50. Results
Skyscanner is a great
place for me to learn
and develop
98%
I have regular
performance reviews
with my manager
98%
I have ability to
grow
professionally
90% 85%
My manager has a
genuine interest
in my career

51. How do you continue
to grow when you
have started to amass
some scale?
Continue to
self disrupt
• Get a scalable org model and know
when to revisit it
• Small batches, small cycle times,
scientific approach, agile, no waste
• Growth is everyone’s problem
• Choose the right North Star
• The T-shaping never ends
• Growth mindset culture underpins

52. Self-Disrupt Starter Kit
• Growth transition, Tribes and Squads - Skyscanner Growth Blog; medium.com/@Skyscanner
• How an organization scales; “Blitzscaling” series of lectures (Reid Hoffman)
• Scientific approach and cycle times; “Lean Start-up” (Eric Reis)
• Agile in marketing; Agile marketing manifesto
• Improving operational efficiency; “The Goal” (Eliyahu Goldratt)
• Lean and eliminating waste; “The Toyota Way” (Jeffrey Liker)
• Growth mindset; “Mindset” (Carol Dweck)
• Strategy and Alignment; McKinsey 3 Horizons
Full blog detailing this presso bit.ly/disruptforgrowth