(Real) self-governing organization

Almost everyone in the agile world is talking about self organizing teams and self-management values. Only a handful of people are willing to push themselves to the next level: really in the absence of a manager, no coordinators, no predecessors. Simply put, you have to tell your partner (including yourself) what you have to do without anyone (including yourself). There is a natural reason for this phenomenon: self-organization is not easy, and everyone knows it is almost impossible to work. We/ut7 not know more than others, and we had no guarantee at the time. So we tried to manage ourselves. In reality, we have learned some lessons about self-management and life.

All of this goes back to July 2011 when we bought/UT7 and turned it into a cooperative enterprise. Or it may be said earlier, in 2010, some of us announced that/UT7 would be in the permanent state of open space. Maybe even earlier, when the company was first created, we heard that the company wanted to recruit agile experts who wanted to take their knowledge and trust the company level. To be sure: in a self-management structure, you never know when and where things happen.

/ut7 is a team of experienced agile experts who have solid expertise in software programming, product positioning, team promotion, and self-organization. No matter how bad the situation is, we can always deliver working software to our customers in a timely and continuous manner, and because of this, customers always come back to us. Our students keep coming back because they understand that we are fully committed to raising the expectations of what is a professional code writer and our friends are always visiting because we are free to open our space. Or because we're all good people, or because there's always beer in our fridge.

Our company belongs entirely to the staff. They may decide for the future of the company, they can enjoy most of the profits generated by their work, but they cannot privately assess the value of the company, or profit from selling shares. /ut7 is one of the few companies in the IT industry that has been implementing self-organization principles. But what is a company-level self organization? Fundamentally, it means that the company performs management according to the free will of every employee, and that all employees are free to work together to achieve certain goals. We can discuss it in more detail together.

The law of two feet

Our core understanding of self-organization is a state of being in an open space meeting. In the 2009, three of us were experienced open space meeting organizers, while others had at least one open space meeting experience, so the concept became a simple reference point. If we just want to feel open space, why not use the same framework in our work environment?

Generally speaking, all meetings and activities (including administrative and client work) are open and public. Anyone can join, participate, or just be an observer. All activities and meetings are voluntary. When something is worth doing, we find that we should not go this way if no one else is willing to participate in it. Of course, this will cause some important, less enjoyable tasks left behind, causing long-term problems. In other words, this approach helps to periodically confirm whether we are willing to continue to keep the company running as a group. As long as we are here, we are still committed to the development of the company.

In order to ensure that the company continues to provide customers, partners and the French various provisions of the corresponding diversity of commitments, we paired work. As long as we allow, we will regularly exchange matching partners, on the one hand, in order to maintain freshness, on the one hand, to coordinate the agenda. We also operate in this way both in terms of both administrative and client work.

Every week we hold a formal open space, including opening, marketing and ending. We use it to locate content that needs to be negotiated before making a formal decision or exchanging information. Also, we use it to share the momentum that drives us forward, usually by following these behaviors, such as programming, writing articles or songs, cleaning the office, or playing all kinds of games, serious, simple entertainment. We also occasionally invite people outside to join us in our open space for a half-day, so we still have time to discuss our private affairs.

We take "the law of two Feet" (Two-legged laws, or someone called bipodocracy) as the core of the management plan. That is, you are doing something in a place, either because you are studying or you are contributing to the team.

How can you guarantee that no one will relax? The short answer is that we can't guarantee it. (The longer and more ingenious answer is that it is based on trust, communication and healthy expectations of each other) we believe that everyone is doing what they can to develop the company. If someone does less than others, we say, "It's up to the individual." Sometimes this is really frustrating. Some people may be discouraged to a certain point, can not stand to leave the company, even if you do more, your salary is still the same. Of course, if you can handle this very well and do not think about what other people are getting (or not), you will always find happiness in what you do.