BUILDING WITH INTENT: HOW WE SHAPE WORK AT AUTOMATA - PRODUCT ENGINEERING
At Automata, we care deeply about how we build, not just what we build. As our teams have grown and our ambitions scaled, we’ve experimented with different ways of working to ensure we’re delivering consistently, sustainably, and with impact.
Through this journey, we've developed a working model that helps us balance focus with flexibility, planning with exploration, and execution with learning. It’s not a strict methodology—it’s more like an evolving system that lets us ship great work without burning out.
Here’s a look at the key principles that shape the way we operate and how these principles demonstrate our company values in action.
CYCLES THAT WORK FOR HUMANS
Value: Be your Best
- Empowering people with structure, clarity, and space to deliver high-quality work.
- Supports accountability and dependability by giving teams time to reflect, recover, and prepare.
We plan and execute work in 6–8 week cycles, and we’ve found 6 weeks to be the most effective for us. It’s long enough to build something meaningful, but short enough to maintain urgency and momentum.
Every cycle ends with a 1-week buffer, which serves two purposes:
- For teams just coming out of a build, it's a chance to decompress, tidy up loose ends, or tackle technical debt.
- For those shaping the next phase of work, it’s time for quick, lightweight ideation—capturing ideas without over-investing in them too early.
This rhythm helps us stay grounded and prevents our roadmap from turning into a wish list.
We plan and execute work in 6–8 week cycles, and we’ve found 6 weeks to be the most effective for us. It’s long enough to build something meaningful, but short enough to maintain urgency and momentum.
Every cycle ends with a 1-week buffer, which servestwo purposes:
- For teams just coming out of a build, it's a chance to decompress, tidy up loose ends, or tackle technical debt.
- For those shaping the next phase of work, it’s time for quick, lightweight ideation—capturing ideas without over-investing in them too early.
This rhythm helps us stay grounded and prevents our roadmap from turning into a wish list.
PARALLEL TRACKS: DELIVERY & DISCOVERY
Value: Action over Inaction
- Encourages movement without waiting for all the answers.
- Empowers teams to solve real problems rather than plan indefinitely.
To keep things moving smoothly, we run two tracks in parallel during each cycle:
- The delivery track is all about execution. These teams are fully focused on building and aren’t pulled into fire fighting or anything else
- The discovery track is forward-looking. These teams are shaping the next set of priorities and also support smaller business-as-usual needs.
This division of focus ensures we’re not constantly switching gears, and that we always have well-formed ideas ready for the next cycle.
TEAM ROTAS: BALANCE & SUSTAINABILITY
Value: Be your Best
- Builds a healthy rhythm into team life, balancing deep work with creative exploration.
- Reinforces high standards by keeping teams fresh and sharp.
We’ve also embraced a healthy team rotation system. Members of the team that just completed a delivery cycle move to discovery in the next one, and vice versa.
Why? Because sustained intensity isn’t sustainable. This rotation gives people time to breathe, reflect, and contribute in different ways, helping us avoid burnout and build long-term momentum.
DISCOVER ISN'T ABOUT SOLVING EVERYTHING
Value: Action over Inaction
- Helps us move forward without being blocked by ambiguity
- Encourages experimentation and learning over perfection
A big learning for us: Discovery is not about solving the whole problem upfront.
The goal of discovery is to shape the opportunity space, define the problem, outline constraints, and set a clear appetite. But the deep problem-solving happens during delivery, when teams are focused, aligned, and empowered to find the best path forward.
This distinction helps us move faster and avoid over-engineering ideas before they’re ready.
FROM IDEAS TO ACTION
Value: Collaborate to Elevate
- Drives high-impact decisions through transparent, inclusive prioritisation.
- Respects everyone’s time while creating shared ownership across teams
Here’s how the discovery flow works in practice:
- Ideation begins during the buffer week. Each domain or team surfaces ~7–8 raw ideas that could be sourced from anywhere within the business
- These are narrowed down to 4–5 well-shaped discoveries over the next few weeks.
- Finally, we select 2–3 top candidates to move into the next delivery cycle.
We also hold cross-team forums to review, present, and prioritise discoveries, ensuring that the highest-impact work gets a chance to shine. And if something doesn’t make the cut? It doesn’t disappear. We revisit ideas in future cycles when timing or priorities shift.
PUTTING THE CUSTOMER FIRST
Value: Customer > Automata > Team > Me
- Keeps our decisions anchored in real-world impact.
- Encourages long-term thinking over short-term wins
Our entire workflow is structured to make sure we deliver impact to our customers—without losing sight of long-term product health or internal alignment.
- Discovery ensures we’re solving problems that matter.
- Prioritisation forums keep customer outcomes at the centre.
- Delivery cycles help us execute with speed, clarity, and care.
This value acts as a compass when priorities get tough. We don’t force poor decisions for short-term wins, but we do ask hard questions to make sure we’re building what actually matters, and making choices that scale beyond the moment.
IN SUMMARY
Our operating model is built on a few clear principles:
- Keep cycles focused, time-boxed, and human-friendly.
- Separate planning from execution to maintain clarity and energy.
- Rotate teams between building and shaping for sustainability.
- Let problem-solving happen at the right time, not all upfront.
- Use lightweight rituals to align on priorities and impact.
This isn’t a rigid system. It’s a flexible approach that gives our teams the space to think, the focus to build, and the rhythm to do both consistently.
If you're thinking about how to evolve your own ways of working, we’re always happy to chat and swap ideas. We’re still learning too.
FURTHER READING
Want to dive deeper into the ideas behind our approach? Here are some resources we’ve found valuable:
- Automata Values - a deep dive
- Shape up: Stop running in circles and ship work that matters – by Ryan Singer
The original playbook that inspired many of our working principles, especially around shaping, cycles, and appetite-based planning. - Building Teamtailor: How We Work in the Product Team A fantastic real-world look at how another product team structures delivery and discovery.
- It doesn’t have to be crazy at work – by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
A compelling argument for calm, focused, and sustainable work culture. - Continuous discovery habits – by Teresa Torres
Great for teams looking to systematise product discovery without overcomplicating it. - Rethinking Agile: Why Agile Teams Have Nothing to Do with Business Agility – by Klaus Leopold
A critique of rigid agile practices and a push toward more outcome-driven team structures.