I went to sleep and everything got done

Supercharge performance online. That was my motto for Insert Fuel when I started it.

Running empty? Insert Fuel.

On Monday night I found out what that actually means. I went to sleep, and everything got done.

The night before, and the night after

I did not guess at any of this. It comes straight out of the app's own records, ten hours against ten hours, 10 PM to 8 AM.

• 106 changes reached the app. The night before: 8.
• 81 tasks were finished while everyone slept. The night before: none.
• 139 fixes were shipped, and each one was written back on its own task by the bot that did it.
• 79 of the 98 new tasks were opened by bots, before any person reported the problem.
• Work shipped in 8 of the 10 hours. The night before, in 2.
• 40 releases went live. 3 builds failed and never reached anyone.

Nobody stayed up. Nobody was on call. The team woke up to a board that had moved.

Everything has muscles

Here is the idea underneath it. Everything has muscles.

A person has muscles. A bot has muscles. A computer sitting on a desk overnight, switched on and doing nothing, has muscles it is not using.

So we gave every one of them a job. We call the computers boxes. The bots are brains that run on them. The builders are the people. And there is one board that hands out the work, in order, so nobody picks their own favorite thing and nothing sits half-done in the dark.

When a box is free, it asks the board what is next. It does that one thing, proves it worked, hands it back, and asks again.

Maximizing human and bot productivity

This is not about replacing anybody. It is the opposite.

The bots found problems before a brand did. One of our own releases had interrupted a live call with a brand. The bots read the call record, found the cause, and fixed it overnight, so it cannot happen again.

That left the people free for the work only people can do. Teaching. Deciding. Sitting with a brand. Going to the gym, and getting eight hours of sleep. I told my team that last part is not optional.

What this means for you

If you run a business, you already have more capacity than you think. It is sitting in machines you have switched off and hours you are spending on things a system could carry.

That is what we build. Not more tools. More muscle, pointed at the right work, while you sleep.

Running empty? Insert Fuel.