management Archives - Page 2 of 5

20 November 2018

Our IT team always tries out various management techniques. And recently, we’ve made one of our most significant decisions ever and implemented the “stop the line” practice.

Actually, this was invented at the Toyota factories. The administration there was of an opinion that those who work at the assembly line understand the situation better than managers. So if there was an issue with the product on the line, any worker could push the red button and stop the whole line to deal with the cause of the problem. Of course, our IT department is no assembly line, and although flaws happen, they can’t be readily seen. We use the “stop the line” method in our own way.

Our software releases take 24 to 48 hours on average. But sometimes lots of teams come up with lots of additional patches, and then the release takes up to three days.

Such a cumbersome release is not a good thing. In three days, all our teams can develop even more features, so we will have to deliver all of them in a single patch. And the larger the patch package, the higher the risk that something goes wrong.

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Dodo IS management

28 September 2018

First national Pizza Day turned out to be a stress test

Some national holidays skyrocket pizza sales, but how can you outperform even the biggest of them? By holding your own celebrations.

Last Sunday, the Dodo Pizza website attracted 160,000 visitors—more than twice as much as it did on February 23 and March 8 this year (both dates are huge holidays in Russia).

On September 23, there wasn’t any nationally recognized celebration in the country, though. Or maybe there was: Dodo Pizza held its first national Pizza Day, selling Pepperoni pizzas for just 100 rubles (less than $1.50) in dozens of locations....

• CIS management marketing

21 September 2018

This Sunday, September 23, we’re carrying out the biggest event in our history—National Pizza Day. At most of our stores in more than 150 cities in Russia, we’ll be selling pizzas for just 100 rubles a pie (about $1.50).

On this day, most of our partners, managers, marketers, analysts, and other typical office inhabitants will be helping our teams in the pizza shops—taking orders or making and delivering pizzas. I’ll be lending a hand in our first corporate pizzeria in downtown Moscow from 11am to 2pm. Stop by at Novoslobodkaya 46 and I’ll personally make a pizza for you!

management marketing

Looks like we disrupted our market a bit

29 August 2018

Looks like we kind of disrupted our market a bit.

A few months ago, we were totally f***ed up in Southaven. I wish I could say that we experienced an interesting management “problem” or faced a “challenge.” But in reality, we were simply screwed. Totally.

Southaven is a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee (and the location of our second American pizza shop). It’s one of the poorest American cities. Compared to Southaven, Oxford in Mississippi (where we opened our first American pizzeria) looks like heaven.

So I didn’t expect to find myself in such a bad situation: I couldn’t find enough members of the team to keep our pizza shop up and running. Even when by some miracle I managed to find somebody, they would leave after a few days. Just because they were offered 25 cents more an hour some other place.

Nobody cared about our mission, awesome product, or superb service. It was simply a question of money they could make an hour. And it’s worth mentioning that on average, we were paying as much as anybody else.

I would come to work knowing for sure that the general manager would come. Whether anybody else would show up was the big question.

• USA management

22 August 2018

Dodo Meetup 2018: 5 key projects for the next twelve months

Many smart people refrain from making public promises—we at Dodo Pizza revere them.

Openness is a huge motivator: when a goal is public, failure is not an option. That’s why every summer, during the company’s annual meetup, Dodo Pizza’s managers go on stage and announce five key projects they commit to pull off within the next 12 months.

Dodo is probably one of the world’s most agile retail companies with more than $150M in system-wide sales. We update our plans every other month reacting to the changes inside and outside of the company. Some...

key posts management marketing

How to reinvent franchising with tech and transparency

First national Pizza Day turned out to be a stress test

Dodo Meetup 2018: 5 key projects for the next twelve months