Our principles
Brief background. In the near 2009, our company drifted and slowly swam on reefs. The reasons, perhaps, were many. The product is 4 years old and the pace of its development has slowed down dramatically. Lost focus and clear vision of the ultimate goal. The company got a few people who should not have been in it.
In the summer of 2010, the company’s management urgently went to the sea in the Republic of Cyprus. Swimming at night in the warm Mediterranean waters and communicating for many hours in a row, a new concept and strategy was developed, which turned out to be extremely successful and true.
The main question we were looking for the answer to, what do we want to create? Everyone agreed that we want to create the best product on the market. To create the best product we need the best people. In order to have better people, we need better working conditions, better office, better salary, better training opportunities. It all looks very simple, but look around. How many companies really pursue such goals? How many companies actually follow such principles in all?
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We have built a fairly clear and simple concept, according to which we have reorganized everything.
In a company, everything is built on trust. The management trusts people, and people trust the management. This resulted in such things as cancellation of the time record, payment of sick leave without any references (a letter “I got sick” is enough), lack of middle managers and, accordingly, control. There are no (or almost no) political games in the company. Professionals do not need control - they need freedom.
A person should be interested to work. Given that we make one product, there are difficult times. We try to give people the freedom to choose tasks and areas as far as possible. Interest in tasks at work is very important. If a person is not interested - all slip to the average level. And the middle level is oblivion. If a person is not interested - it is hard for him to wake up in the morning, too lazy to go to work, I want to read the news and get down to business as late as possible. From this bad all.
People are different. It is impossible to please everyone. Conflict, sympathy, neutrality and hostility inevitably arise in a large team. Dislike need and can be minimized in all possible ways. People should be able to get to know each other better. For this great common kitchen, common dinners, common trips to the nature and so on. Creating an environment where people can communicate is the direct task of any good company. You should not be afraid that dinners will be delayed and holivars will be kept in the kitchen all day. See points Trust and Passion.
These three basic principles are mandatory for everyone. Everything else can be taught.
Since the best people should work in the company, we need to give them the opportunity to develop and learn (otherwise how will they become the best?) First we introduced Friday's Shows - these are Friday events where we watched some video (an hour and a half) and then had a discussion on him It was quite interesting. Also at this time, a sufficiently large number of workshops was held. What we have now:
We do not take on the work of people who do not really like to learn. If a person at an interview can not say anything intelligible - this is a big minus. A curious person is always learning. We like curious people.
It’s stupid to save in the workplace when the best people work for the company, right? We have expensive comfortable furniture. The table is wide and spacious, you can put a lot of unnecessary things on it and comfortably program in a pair when necessary. Everyone chose the chair himself on the basis of a budget of about $ 350. At Aerona, we still have no money, unfortunately. Monitor two and large. Working comp powerful. People do not sit on each other. Huge open spaces and never will be. Ideal - rooms for 4-6 people. We have one room for 10 people - the rest is getting smaller. Free lunches, good coffee, fruits and sweets - all this is very trivial and just should be in any good company.
How difficult is it to assemble a team that does something better than anyone else in the world? Depends on this “something”. For example, making the world's best operating system is quite difficult. And to make the world's best tool for managing flexible projects is much easier - the scale is different. The team should have excellent programmers, great testers, awesome designers, cool support specialists and product visions. Must be a clear focus. Must be all-in. It is easy to make projects to order, which are paid according to a predetermined schedule. It is much more difficult to decide to put everything on one product. But this is the only way to create something new. Only in this case, you can break the bank in the market.
Our product is not the best yet. He is generally not bad, but such global reversals are not instantaneous. Now we are making a new version, which is very cool. If it does not break the market of project management systems - I will be very surprised. Of course, anything can happen. But something tells me that our goal is very close.
When there are such principles, the decision-making mechanism is simplified. It is often enough to simply say “this idea is bad because it is contrary to the principle of trust” - that's all.
We can no longer afford to do something bad. We can not have an average site. We cannot have average marketing and average design of any materials which somehow concern the company.
Everything has to be very cool. As much as we can do at a given time.
PS If the post seems too rosy, then I hasten to assure you that everything is not as beautiful as you might think. We have enough problems in all areas. Here are just voiced goals and principles on which the company is built.
In the summer of 2010, the company’s management urgently went to the sea in the Republic of Cyprus. Swimming at night in the warm Mediterranean waters and communicating for many hours in a row, a new concept and strategy was developed, which turned out to be extremely successful and true.
The main question we were looking for the answer to, what do we want to create? Everyone agreed that we want to create the best product on the market. To create the best product we need the best people. In order to have better people, we need better working conditions, better office, better salary, better training opportunities. It all looks very simple, but look around. How many companies really pursue such goals? How many companies actually follow such principles in all?
')
We have built a fairly clear and simple concept, according to which we have reorganized everything.
The trust
In a company, everything is built on trust. The management trusts people, and people trust the management. This resulted in such things as cancellation of the time record, payment of sick leave without any references (a letter “I got sick” is enough), lack of middle managers and, accordingly, control. There are no (or almost no) political games in the company. Professionals do not need control - they need freedom.
Passion
A person should be interested to work. Given that we make one product, there are difficult times. We try to give people the freedom to choose tasks and areas as far as possible. Interest in tasks at work is very important. If a person is not interested - all slip to the average level. And the middle level is oblivion. If a person is not interested - it is hard for him to wake up in the morning, too lazy to go to work, I want to read the news and get down to business as late as possible. From this bad all.
Mutual respect
People are different. It is impossible to please everyone. Conflict, sympathy, neutrality and hostility inevitably arise in a large team. Dislike need and can be minimized in all possible ways. People should be able to get to know each other better. For this great common kitchen, common dinners, common trips to the nature and so on. Creating an environment where people can communicate is the direct task of any good company. You should not be afraid that dinners will be delayed and holivars will be kept in the kitchen all day. See points Trust and Passion.
These three basic principles are mandatory for everyone. Everything else can be taught.
Training
Since the best people should work in the company, we need to give them the opportunity to develop and learn (otherwise how will they become the best?) First we introduced Friday's Shows - these are Friday events where we watched some video (an hour and a half) and then had a discussion on him It was quite interesting. Also at this time, a sufficiently large number of workshops was held. What we have now:
- opportunity to attend a class conference once a year at the expense of the company. These are leading software development conferences in Europe. For example QCon .
- the opportunity to spend 5 hours of working time on self-education or their projects. This is more than half of Friday. Not everyone uses this opportunity. Often the sense of responsibility outweighs and I want to finish this important task today. For now, the real result is a tag game for iOS
- salary increase is tied to learning. If a person does not learn anything significant new in six months - this is not good.
- buying any books with oz bai or amazon
- internal conferences every six months. The conference takes a whole working day.
We do not take on the work of people who do not really like to learn. If a person at an interview can not say anything intelligible - this is a big minus. A curious person is always learning. We like curious people.
Best place to work
It’s stupid to save in the workplace when the best people work for the company, right? We have expensive comfortable furniture. The table is wide and spacious, you can put a lot of unnecessary things on it and comfortably program in a pair when necessary. Everyone chose the chair himself on the basis of a budget of about $ 350. At Aerona, we still have no money, unfortunately. Monitor two and large. Working comp powerful. People do not sit on each other. Huge open spaces and never will be. Ideal - rooms for 4-6 people. We have one room for 10 people - the rest is getting smaller. Free lunches, good coffee, fruits and sweets - all this is very trivial and just should be in any good company.
The best people
How difficult is it to assemble a team that does something better than anyone else in the world? Depends on this “something”. For example, making the world's best operating system is quite difficult. And to make the world's best tool for managing flexible projects is much easier - the scale is different. The team should have excellent programmers, great testers, awesome designers, cool support specialists and product visions. Must be a clear focus. Must be all-in. It is easy to make projects to order, which are paid according to a predetermined schedule. It is much more difficult to decide to put everything on one product. But this is the only way to create something new. Only in this case, you can break the bank in the market.
Best product
Our product is not the best yet. He is generally not bad, but such global reversals are not instantaneous. Now we are making a new version, which is very cool. If it does not break the market of project management systems - I will be very surprised. Of course, anything can happen. But something tells me that our goal is very close.
When there are such principles, the decision-making mechanism is simplified. It is often enough to simply say “this idea is bad because it is contrary to the principle of trust” - that's all.
We can no longer afford to do something bad. We can not have an average site. We cannot have average marketing and average design of any materials which somehow concern the company.
Everything has to be very cool. As much as we can do at a given time.
PS If the post seems too rosy, then I hasten to assure you that everything is not as beautiful as you might think. We have enough problems in all areas. Here are just voiced goals and principles on which the company is built.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/146182/
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