When faced a tremendous growth, company may have a problem - how to motivate all their employees and set them for success? One of the possible solutions we experimented with at Booking.com was idea of having autonomous teams - teams without direct managers (team leads) and where each and every member was equally responsible for team dynamics and perfromance. We believed that through providing autonomy, people will drive their own and company's performance.

It was partially true but also not. We had to stop the experiment, but we gained many useful learnings, which helped us improve the way teams are working. Not giving up with autonomy, Booking.com re-introduced team leads back as servant-leaders - people who drive and control team's autonomy and who can adjust to the situation.

In this talk you will be guided through the story of team leaders evolution at Booking.com. You will learn how did autonomous teams perform and what was great about it, will also learn some lessons we learned, and get some insights on how teams are organised today in the organisation with more than 1,500 people in IT.