Organizational Design on Tobi(as Mende)

Rethinking Leadership in B2B SaaS: Lessons from Self-Managing Organizations

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Rethinking Leadership in B2B SaaS: Lessons from Self-Managing Organizations

Two months ago, I joined the Corporate Rebels Masterclass – a hands-on exploration of how pioneering companies like Buurtzorg, Haier, Viisi, and others approach leadership, structure, and collaboration. These aren’t companies tinkering at the edges. They’ve built entire systems that challenge our default assumptions about how work should be organized.

Organizational Change Leadership

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Organizational Change and Leadership — Driving change effectively within organizations

Many people believe that you have to be in an official leadership position with official authority and power to lead change in organizations. This is far from the truth. I would even argue that it is easier to drive successful change if you do not have that formal authority. This is because without formal authority, you have to lead the change right (we will get to that in a bit). With formal authority, on the other hand, you can force the change, which can lead to frustration, resignation, and damage to the organization overall. Even worse, people might not speak up against change that they do not understand or that does not make sense to them. Therefore, whenever being in a leadership position with formal power, be extra cautious about how you drive change. In my article about organizational tension processing, I already tapped into an approach how we can initiate change in organizations without formal (hierarchical) authority. In today’s article, I explore the topic of how to drive the actual change and how to ensure that it becomes a success, in greater detail.

Better Alternatives to Performance Reviews

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Better Alternatives to Performance Reviews

Traditional performance reviews often fall short of delivering the value they promise. Even worse: They can have disastrous effects on motivation, engagement, and performance of teams and individuals. I have explored the reasons for this in detail in my last newsletter. In today’s article, I would like to explore what we can do instead to satisfy the actual needs companies and individuals might have.

Performance Reviews Considered Harmful

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Performance Reviews Considered Harmful

Performance reviews are widely accepted in software companies to provide feedback, justify or object to promotions, and discuss compensation increases. Typically, they occur between an engineering manager and their reports, often cited as a necessary function of management within an organization. They are simply “how the world works.” Big companies do them, small companies do them, and highly paid consultants develop new and better ways of conducting them.

Organizational Tension Processing – Driving Change in Self-Organizing Companies

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 05 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Organizational Tension Processing – Driving Change in Self-Organizing Companies

Newcomers to self-organization often mistake the lack of a people-hierarchy for complete chaos. The term “flat” can be misleading, as it suggests that self-organizing companies lack any structure. In reality, this is far from the case.

Things I love and hate about the state of software companies in 2024

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Things I love and hate about the state of software companies in 2024

Disclaimer: This started as a rant, not meant to be published. But sticking to my “New Year’s resolution” to write about what triggers me most, I decided to publish it anyway. I wanted to publish it as a LinkedIn post, but it got too long. So here is the unshortened, unpolished and authentic original version of this document, most of which I wrote on my phone after waking up on a Sunday at 5:45am. 😬

Self-organizing companies don’t need managers but coaches

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Self-organizing companies don’t need managers but coaches

If you are a manager or consider managing teams and organizations a significant part of your profession, the title will likely cause a feeling of rejection or a strong disagreement. I invite you to read on anyway.

Selling DevEx Initiatives in Purpose vs. Profit-oriented Companies

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 21 Oct 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Selling DevEx Initiatives in Purpose vs. Profit-oriented Companies

For years, a conversation has been ongoing on naming in the DevEx community (and within myself). Of course. Naming is hard, and why shouldn’t it be any different for this domain?

Engineering Strategy: Actionable and Specific Guidance for Growing Engineering Teams (High-Purpose Environments, Part 6)

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 10 Jun 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Engineering Strategy: Actionable and Specific Guidance for Growing Engineering Teams (High-Purpose Environments, Part 6)

In the previous articles of my high-purpose environments series, we have explored the importance of vision, values, guiding principles, and engineering mission in creating a thriving and purpose-driven engineering culture. In this final article, I will delve into engineering strategy — a crucial element that translates high-level objectives into actionable and specific guidance for growing engineering teams.

Engineering Excellence through Mission-Driven Teams (High-Purpose Environments, Part 5)

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Engineering Excellence through Mission-Driven Teams (High-Purpose Environments, Part 5)

In software engineering and product development, high-purpose environments are vital for driving innovation, creativity, and collaboration. A strong sense of purpose, clear values, and a commitment to continuous growth and improvement characterize these environments.

The Importance of Values and Guiding Principles for Distributed Decision-Making (High-Purpose Environments, Part 4)

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 27 May 2023 05:00:00 +0000

The Importance of Values and Guiding Principles for Distributed Decision-Making (High-Purpose Environments, Part 4)

Values and guiding principles are crucial in enabling distributed decision-making within an organization. They empower individuals to make decisions autonomously, without constant supervision or hierarchical approval. This leads to increased efficiency and agility and fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility among team members.

Crafting a Compelling Engineering Vision (High-Purpose Environments, Part 3)

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 20 May 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Crafting a Compelling Engineering Vision (High-Purpose Environments, Part 3)

Creating a solid engineering vision is essential to building a high-purpose environment. A well-defined vision acts as a guiding star for your team and ensures that everyone is working towards the same goal.

The Importance of an Engineering Vision (High-Purpose Environments, Part 2)

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 13 May 2023 05:00:00 +0000

The Importance of an Engineering Vision (High-Purpose Environments, Part 2)

Have you ever seen organizations and teams spinning in circles, having endless discussions, and never seeming able to make progress? Have you witnessed environments where every decision was made by a leader in the hierarchical sense? Or even worse, by someone able to exert a specific power and overrule others?

Creating High-Purpose Environments (High-Purpose Environments, Part 1)

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 06 May 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Creating High-Purpose Environments (High-Purpose Environments, Part 1)

High-purpose environments are cultural spaces that inspire, motivate, and empower individuals to work toward a common goal. A strong sense of purpose, clear values, and a commitment to continuous growth and improvement characterize these environments.

Default-to-Open: A Principle for High-Performance Organizations

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Default-to-Open: A Principle for High-Performance Organizations

Sharing, communicating, and persisting knowledge, information, and decisions is a challenge that most companies have. This challenge may become even bigger in remote-first companies.

The Inverse Conway Manoeuvre in Existing Systems – It does not work!

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 06:00:00 +0000

The Inverse Conway Manoeuvre in Existing Systems – It does not work!

In 1968, Melvin E. Conway postulated a law about a connection between organizational design and system structure, which got pretty famous. The paper has the title “How Do Committees Invent?” and the law goes as follows:

Happy without hierarchies: Who cares for employee happiness if there are no hierarchies?

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Happy without hierarchies: Who cares for employee happiness if there are no hierarchies?

Working with different clients has the benefit of discovering many contexts and with that, different perspectives, observations, and questions.

The Benefits of Remote Work for Developer Teams: Increased Productivity and Better Work-Life Balance

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 18 Feb 2023 06:00:00 +0000

The Benefits of Remote Work for Developer Teams: Increased Productivity and Better Work-Life Balance

In today’s fast-paced and constantly changing world, many organisations are rethinking traditional work arrangements and embracing the benefits of remote work.

The Importance of Developer Productivity in a Recession

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 26 Nov 2022 13:30:00 +0000

The Importance of Developer Productivity in a Recession

When times get rough, companies and investors get more cautious with how they spend and invest their money. Many companies reduce their spending on employees and salaries by laying off large numbers of people.

From two manual monolithic deployments a week to 15+ automated deployments a day

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 11 Jun 2022 13:18:00 +0000

From two manual monolithic deployments a week to 15+ automated deployments a day

We did it. Roughly two years after I joined BRYTER and one year after we started the developer experience team, we finally ended the era of manual deployments for roughly 15 teams.

Interaction modes of a developer experience team

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 26 Mar 2022 13:10:00 +0000

Interaction modes of a developer experience team

In my last article, I wrote about how we shaped our developer experience team and why we decided for this team constellation. In this article, I will focus on how this team interacts with the other software development teams and which aspects are particularly important.

Shaping developer experience teams for autonomy

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 19 Mar 2022 13:08:00 +0000

Shaping developer experience teams for autonomy

Once you have decided, that a developer experience team would provide value to your organisation, the question is, how such a team should be set up, how it should be shaped, and how it should interact with other teams.

Why a developer experience team can help your company

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 12 Mar 2022 13:05:00 +0000

Why a developer experience team can help your company

Great developer experience is directly linked to great developer productivity and an important factor for company success. Therefore, as explained in my last articles, companies should care and attempt to improve developer experience.

Code ownership conflicts as a signal for structural mismatch

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 12:54:00 +0000

Code ownership conflicts as a signal for structural mismatch

In my last article, I explained why I believe that individual code ownership is bad and why weak code ownership on a cross-team level can be highly beneficial.

Code Ownership: Keeping the balance between structure and agility

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 12 Feb 2022 12:53:00 +0000

Code Ownership: Keeping the balance between structure and agility

Code ownership is an important topic when it comes to enabling your teams and allowing developers to improve the system while keeping the overhead of changes low.

A platform team for next-level developer experience

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 05 Feb 2022 12:49:00 +0000

A platform team for next-level developer experience

In this article, I am sharing my experience (and opinions) of how a platform team should be set up to provide great developer experience for other development teams.

Remote can be synchronous, too!

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 29 Jan 2022 12:47:00 +0000

Remote can be synchronous, too!

When speaking with different people about their reasons for moving back to office-work or about their concerns about remote work, it often boils down to that they do not believe, that asynchronous works.

OKRs are NOT guaranteed deliveries

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 22 Jan 2022 12:44:00 +0000

OKRs are NOT guaranteed deliveries

Objectives and key results are a great tool for collaborative goal-setting and for aligned on a company-wide direction. While the key objectives or north-stars might be handed down from C-level management, the concrete objectives and key-results are discovered by the teams. Only they know best, how to achieve the bigger goals of the company. Thus, all teams needs to figure out, how they can best contribute to the company goals.

Bonuses are bad – change my mind

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 12:39:00 +0000

Bonuses are bad – change my mind

Compensation is a difficult topic. And depending on the domain and type of work, various models can make sense. Many companies rely on bonuses based on performance, ranking, or commission. Those bonuses usually revolve around clear goals or metrics that can be measured, such as finishing a project in time or closing deals with a certain total valuation.

Why teams need slack – not the tool

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 12:37:00 +0000

Why teams need slack – not the tool

At BRYTER, we were hiring a lot. Therefore, we were of course also discussing how many people of which profession we really need. While management trusted us completely to make the right decisions here, sometimes I encountered that other people were afraid, that we hire people who are not 100% busy.

Adopting Continuous Delivery: More a culture change than automation of processes

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 04 Dec 2021 12:07:00 +0000

Adopting Continuous Delivery: More a culture change than automation of processes

Continuous delivery, the process of automatically delivering changes of a system without human interaction, is one of the most beneficial practices that software teams can adopt. In Accelerate, the authors Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble and Gene Kim, discovered a strong link between using continuous delivery and organisational performance: Teams that continuously deliver their changes have a stronger sense of ownership, get faster feedback and need to rework their code less. Furthermore, deployments are less stressful and the risk of burnout is reduced.

Do you have walls in your deployment process?

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 11:59:00 +0000

Do you have walls in your deployment process?

Enabling units to quickly deploy and release new features to their customers is one of the goals of cross-functional units and the “you build it, you run it” DevOps mentality.

Just care less about not being aligned

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 06 Nov 2021 10:12:00 +0000

Just care less about not being aligned

If you work in a company that is aiming for fast growth, being overly aligned will slow you down as the number of stakeholders increases. If every time I want to introduce a new linting rule I would need to agree with 55 other developers, I will likely not do it. Instead of forcing all units to use the same tech stack, the same code style, the same testing framework and so on, we need to learn to just care less. Of course, the ability to care less depends on the architecture and the company structure. In a monolithic application, it is far more difficult to reduce the impact of units on each other, than in an environment of properly structured microservices. Thus, the goal is to identify and create structures that allow you to care less about alignment. The entire idea of cross-functional units is aiming for units to be independent. This is achieved by having units own vertical slices of the system completely, which reduces the need for alignment with other units to a minimum. However, sometimes even cross-functional units can influence each other because of technical dependencies or suboptimal structuring of these units.

Cross-functional units and uni-functional teams

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 09:08:00 +0000

Cross-functional units and uni-functional teams

Many modern companies put a high emphasis on having multiple functions within one unit or team. The goal: The unit should be able to function with a high degree of autonomy, working on its area and owning everything in this area from beginning to end.