How the PODE Method Transforms R&D: Product, OKR, DevOps, and Empower

1. Background of the PODE Method

In early 2020, the Operations and Scheduling Center of China Unicom Software Research Institute faced four major challenges: low productization, weak team collaboration across six geographically dispersed branches, low development efficiency, and poor autonomy among team members.

To address these issues, the center invented the PODE (Product + OKR + DevOps + Empower) method, forming small product teams, focusing on clear objectives, adopting DevOps, and granting teams authority. The method was piloted in the Tianyan core R&D project with significant results in 2020 and plans for department‑wide rollout in 2021.

2. Product

The “P” stands for Product. Each product has a Product Owner (PO) who combines the roles of product manager and project manager.

In February 2020, the Tianyan team adopted a “platform + application” design, reorganized into small product teams (5‑9 members each) covering production‑operation workbench, intelligent monitoring platform, task scheduling platform, tracing & browser monitoring, AIOps, and cloud testing. This structure reduced communication costs and improved agility.

Key points: keep product lines as independent as possible; merge heavily interacting lines; maintain a single foundational platform to serve other lines.

The “Five‑From” culture was added to the Product methodology, emphasizing responsibility for outcomes, user focus, extreme experience, productization, and mobile‑first design.

3. OKR

OKR (Objectives and Key Results) clarifies goals and measurable results. The Tianyan team applied OKR in March 2020.

3.1 Three‑step OKR formulation

Product teams set quarterly OKRs based on the annual OKR, following a three‑step process illustrated below.

1) Bottom‑up product team OKR drafting with full participation. 2) Combined bottom‑up and top‑down alignment between product owners and project managers. 3) Top‑down finalization of product team OKR and individual OKRs.

3.2 OKR four‑quadrant model

The team uses a four‑quadrant matrix to plan weekly, monthly, quarterly, and collaborative OKRs.

3.3 Weekly work calendar

Each product team follows a weekly rhythm:

Monday: OKR planning meeting.

Tuesday‑Thursday: Daily stand‑up meetings to track progress, risks, and issues.

Friday: OKR review meeting where each member shares a one‑minute recap and discusses improvements.

4. DevOps

DevOps integrates development and operations to enable fast, frequent, and reliable software delivery through automation.

The Tianyan team built a DevOps pipeline based on standardized processes, architecture, and tools, using the “TianTi” platform for one‑stop management, automated testing, and monitoring.

Key practices include:

Code management with GitLab (access control enforced).

Adherence to a Java coding standard using Alibaba and SonarLint plugins.

Continuous integration with automatic compilation, static analysis, and trunk‑based deployment.

Automated unit testing, API/UI/pressure testing, and manual exploratory testing.

Operational monitoring via intelligent alerting, browser monitoring, and tracing.

5. Empower

Empowerment grants authority to teams, fostering leadership at every level.

Four empowerment dimensions:

Leadership: “leader‑leader” model, small product teams, and empowered product line owners.

Self‑organization: teams set their own goals using OKR and drive innovation.

Product line vision: each line defines a long‑term vision and mission, acting as evangelists.

Soulful engineering: encourage questioning, avoid blind compliance, and nurture “leader” mindset in every engineer.

6. Summary

The PODE method enhances employee mission and responsibility through product‑centric vision, uses OKR to secure core and collaborative goals, focuses on self‑driven growth, and leverages DevOps to boost development efficiency, while empowerment cultivates a multi‑level leadership ladder.

7. Results