Combining Product Thinking & Spotify’s Backstage • Flavia Naezer & Vijai Ramcharan • GOTO 2024

This presentation was recorded at GOTO Amsterdam 2024. #GOTOcon #GOTOams https://gotoams.nl Flavia Naezer - Product Thinker, Public Speaker, Artist Vijai Ramcharan - Principal Engineer, Tech Enthusiast & Dad @vijairamcharan7285 ORIGINAL TALK TITLE Combining Product Thinking & Spotify’s Backstage for Building NN’s IDP RESOURCES Flavia https://github.com/flavianaezer https://www.linkedin.com/in/flavia-naezer-449b285 https://x.com/flaviasomething Vijai https://x.com/vijairamcharan https://github.com/vijairamcharan https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijai-ramcharan Links https://agilemanifesto.org https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3454122.3454124 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3595878 ABSTRACT In our pursuit to better support over 2000 engineers, we embarked on an initiative to build Nationale Nederlanden's (part of the NN group) Internal Development Platform (IDP) by incorporating Product Thinking alongside Spotify’s Backstage. This effort has been guided by key elements from the product thinking toolbox, including user empathy, feedback loops, and iterative development, to ensure our portal not only meets but exceeds the needs of our diverse engineering teams. Our experience with Backstage has been a learning-curve, allowing us to create a more cohesive ecosystem for our developers, where tools and services are seamlessly integrated, and information is easily accessible. As we share our story, we will showcase practical applications of the product thinking toolbox, such as applying service blueprinting and assembling the right team for the job. In the second half, we will delve deep into Backstage. You can expect topics such as conducting a tech assessment, modeling for the software catalog, and exploring a lightweight data lake to unlock information hidden in information silos. Through our story, we provide a roadmap to enhance your own development practices in a thoughtful, user-centered manner, utilizing technology to unlock untapped potential for your teams and engineers. [...] TIMECODES 00:00 Intro 03:15 Product thinking for us 06:57 IDP 09:19 Story 1: Designing a DevEx survey 13:53 Summary Story 1 14:36 Story 2: You don't get it! 20:12 Summary Story 2 21:00 Story 3: All we need is an API to get insurance data 26:58 Recipe 1: Define principles 29:02 Recipe 2: Hire the right engineers 30:12 Recipe 3: Tech assessment 31:19 Recipe 4: Get ready to read Backstage code 32:07 Recipe 5: Embrace Backstage system model 33:08 Recipe 6: Extend Backstage system model 34:12 Recipe 7: Local-first engineering data warehouse 37:20 Summary Story 3 37:42 Conclusion 40:21 Outro Download slides and read the full abstract here: https://gotoams.nl/2024/sessions/3160 RECOMMENDED BOOKS Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, John Willis & Nicole Forsgren • The DevOps Handbook • https://amzn.to/3WBjzCM Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais • Team Topologies • http://amzn.to/3sVLyLQ Gene Kim, Nicole Forsgren & Jez Humble • Accelerate • https://amzn.to/3WCG5uT Gregor Hohpe • Platform Strategy • https://amzn.to/4fPLW7p Marty Cagan • Empowered • https://amzn.to/42kuKAj Geoffrey West • Scale • http://amzn.to/3eKMbpc Donald G. Reinertsen • The Principles of Product Development Flow • https://amzn.to/3hJ2Ye2 https://twitter.com/GOTOcon https://www.linkedin.com/company/goto- https://www.instagram.com/goto_con https://www.facebook.com/GOTOConferences #ProductThinking #PlatformEngineering #Backstage #SpotifyBackstage #CNCF #DevEx #IDP #InternalDevelopmentPlatform #NN #NationaleNederlanden #DataLake #DataMesh #CloudNative #FlaviaNaezer #VijaiRamcharan Looking for a unique learning experience? Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket at https://gotopia.tech Sign up for updates and specials at https://gotopia.tech/newsletter SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNEL - new videos posted almost daily. https://www.youtube.com/user/GotoConferences/?sub_confirmation=1