So, you know where the coffee machine is. You are even pretty sure you know what that one guy's name is. You are not freaking out anymore. You are ready to show up to work this morning, turn on your computer, then what?
This next section walks you through figuring out what to work on. You will learn what we expect from our tools, who decides the work content, what we mean by teams, and general office dynamics.
Master the tools
A great hammer doesn't make a good carpenter, but a good carpenter will always want a great hammer.
When we choose a tool, it needs to be useful, save us precious time, and accomplish more. Every tool you will see at Agilytic has been tested for a while before we decided to deploy it to everybody.
We like tools that allow casual users to use them easily and quickly while having enough potential to empower the most advanced users. That is why it is OK to have varying degrees of involvement with the various tools depending on your use cases or preferences.
All we ask of you is to
- Understand which tool does what: you will find more details on Confluence, but feel free to reach out to Julien if you have any question.
- Play along: most tools are collaborative, so please avoid being your "team of one," requiring others to spend time to adapt to your unique style. It is OK if you don't like a tool, but it is not an excuse to shut yourself out of potentially important interactions.
- For each tool, take the initiative to train yourself to the level of mastery required by your role: this is self-explanatory. Cf. our values, speak up if you need assistance.
When you need them, it will be too late to learn.
We advise you to get up to speed with the tools early, as your first weeks are usually a quieter period. Our tools can help you save precious time when used well.
When you are under the pressure of a deadline, usually it's when they shine to help you prioritize and accomplish your best work. If you are not ready to use the tools at that moment, you won't have time to catch up, and the unfamiliarity might be frustrating for you.
What to work on
Who decides on the projects on which I work?
We have heard that other companies have people allocate a percentage of their time to self-directed projects. At Agilytic, that percentage can go up to 100%.
Since Agilytic is flat, people don't have to join projects because management tells them. Instead, you have the opportunity to influence what you will work on after asking yourself the right questions (more on that later). Strong projects are ones in which clients and consultants alike can see demonstrated value; they are easier to sell and staff.
How do I influence things on which to work?
Deciding what to work on can be a challenging part of your job at Agilytic. Indeed, as you have found out by now, we did not hire you to fill a specific job description. We hired you to contribute to the most valuable work you could be doing. At the end of a project, you may end up well outside what you thought was your core area of expertise.
There is no rule book for choosing a project or task at Agilytic. But it is useful to answer questions like these:
- Of all the projects currently underway, what's the most valuable thing I can prioritize?
- Which project will have the highest direct impact on our customers? How much will the work I do benefit them?
- Is Agilytic not doing something that it should be doing?
- What's interesting? What's rewarding? What leverages my strengths the most?
How do I find out what projects are underway?
Some tools track our sales pipeline, projects, timesheets, and invoices, but by far, the best way to find out is to ask people. Anyone, really. When you do, you will find out what's going on around the company, and your peers will also find out about you. Many people at Agilytic want and need to know what you care about, what you are good at, what you are worried about, what you have got experience with, and so on. And the way to get the word out is to start telling people all those things. While you are getting the lay of the land by learning about projects, you are also broadcasting your status to a relevant group of people.
Got an idea for how Agilytic could change how we internally broadcast project/company status? Great. Do it. In the meantime, the chair next to anyone's desk is always open, so plant yourself in it often.
Short-term vs. long-term goals
Because we all are responsible for prioritizing our work, and because we are conscientious and anxious to be valuable, as individuals, we tend to gravitate toward projects that have a high, measurable, and predictable return for the company. So, when there is a clear opportunity on the table to succeed at a near-term business goal with a clear ROI, we all want to take it. When we encounter a problem or a threat, and it is one with a measurable cost, it is hard not to address it immediately.
A "quick win" sounds like a good thing, and it often is, but it has some downsides worth keeping in mind. Specifically, if we are not careful, these traits can cause us to race back and forth between short-term opportunities and threats, being responsive rather than proactive.
So, our lack of a traditional structure comes with an important responsibility. It is up to us to spend effort focusing on what we think the company's long-term goals should be. The long-term benefits might not align with your individual short-term goals: if that is a concern to you, raise the issue, and let's work together to align your long-term path to Agilytic's.
Someone told me (not) to work on X, and he's been here a long time!
Well, the correct response to this is to keep thinking about whether your colleagues are right. Broaden the conversation. Hold on to your goals if you strongly believe they are correct. Check your assumptions. Involve more people. Listen. Don't think that anyone holds authority over the decision you are trying to make. They don't, but they probably have valuable experience to draw from, information/data that you don't have, or new insight. When considering the outcome, don't believe that anyone but you is the "stakeholder." You are it. And our customers are who you are serving. Do what's right for them.
Whether you are delivering on a project, building sectorial expertise for business development efforts, whatever group you are in, this applies to you. It is crucial that you believe it, so we will repeat it a few more times in this book.
What about all the things that I'm not getting done?
It is natural in this kind of environment to feel like you are failing because for every task you decide to work on, there will be dozens that aren't getting your attention. Trust us, this is normal. Nobody expects you to devote time to every opportunity that comes your way. Instead, we want you to learn how to choose the most important work to do.
How does Agilytic decide on what to work?
The same way we make other decisions: by waiting for someone to decide that it is the right thing to do and then letting them recruit other people to work on it with them. We believe in each other to make these decisions, and this faith has proven to be well-founded repeatedly.
But rather than just trusting each other to be smart, we also regularly test our own decisions. Whenever we move into unknown territory, our findings defy our predictions far more often than we would like to admit. We have found it vitally important to, whenever possible, not operate by using assumptions, unproven theories, or folk wisdom.
Accepted truisms about sales, marketing, regionality, seasonality, purchasing behavior, economics, and recruiting have proven wrong surprisingly often. So, we have learned that when we take nearly any action, it is best to do so in a way that we can measure, predict outcomes, and analyze results.
Recruiting can be a complicated process to instrument and measure. Although we have always tried to be highly rational about hiring people, we have found much room for improvement in our approach. We have made significant strides toward bringing more predictability, measurement, and analysis to recruiting. A process that many assume must be treated only as a "soft" art because it has to do with humans, personalities, language, and nuance has ample room for a healthy dose of structure[1]. We are not turning the whole thing over to robots just yet though.
Can I be included the next time Agilytic is deciding X?
Yes. There is no secret decision-making meeting. No matter what project, you are already on the guest list. All you should do is either (1) Start working on it, or (2) Start talking to all the people you think might be working on it already and find out how to be valuable. We'll welcome your proactivity. There is no approval process or red tape involved — quite the opposite — it is your job to insert yourself wherever you think you should be.
Teams, Hours, and the Office
Teams
Depending on the project/goal, specific teams will form. They exist to complete a project or cover a particular technology/sector. Like any other group or effort at the company, they form organically. People decide to join the group based on the belief that their work is important.
Team leads
Often, someone will emerge as the "lead" for a project. This person's role is not a traditional managerial one. Most often, they are primarily a clearinghouse of information. They are responsible for making sure the project is advancing to plan and empowered to take as much initiative as possible to eliminate roadblocks. They are keeping track of the whole project (ClickUp is the ideal place to do that) so that people can use them as a resource against which to check decisions. The leads serve the team while acting as centers for the teams.
Where to find those teams?
We don't necessarily formalize each team, but if they are, they will probably materialize in ClickUp or a GitHub repository. If you are not finding what you are looking for, ask around and suggest an ideal way of working.
Structure happens
Project teams often have an internal structure that forms temporarily to suit the group's needs. Although people at Agilytic have broad job descriptions, they usually have clarity around the definition of their "job" on any given day. Along with their peers, they effectively create a job description that fits the group's goals. That description changes as requirements change, but the temporary structure provides a shared understanding of what to expect from each other. If someone moves to a different group or a team shifts its priorities, each person can take on a completely different role according to the new requirements.
Hours
While people occasionally choose to push themselves to work extra hours at times when something big is going out the door, for the most part working overtime for extended periods indicates a fundamental failure in planning or communication. If this happens, it is a sign that something needs to be re-evaluated and corrected. If you are looking around wondering why people aren't in "crunch mode," the answer is simple. We work hard at hiring good people, so we want them to stick around and strike the right balance between work and the rest of the important things in life.
If you find yourself working long hours or just generally feel like that balance is out of whack, be sure to raise the issue with whomever you think would help.
Another extreme would be to religiously stick to the "9 to 5" regimen when clearly, you'd need to give an extra push to deliver on a project; this, too, is not an acceptable attitude.
We trust you to use your best judgment to allocate your time for optimal impact. Again — and we can't stress this enough — if you'd like to talk about it, raise the issue without hesitation with any MP.
The office
Sometimes things around the office can seem a little too good to be true. If you find yourself walking to the "playground" area one morning with a good cup of coffee while enjoying the sunny view of the park, don't freak out. All these things are here for you to use. And don't worry that somebody's going to judge you for taking advantage of it — relax! And if you stop on the way back from your massage for a game on the PlayStation or work out in the gym or whatever, it is not a sign that this place is going to come crumbling down like some 1999-era dot-com start-up.
Risks
What if I screw up?
We never fire anyone for making a mistake. It wouldn't make sense for us to operate that way. Providing the freedom to fail is an integral part of learning together. We couldn't expect so many talented colleagues if we penalized people for errors. Mistakes are genuine opportunities to learn. We can always repair or make up for it.
Screwing up is a great way to validate that your assumptions were wrong or that your "model" of the world was off. If you update your model and move forward with a better picture, you are doing it right. Look for ways to test your beliefs. Never be afraid to run an experiment or to collect more data.
It helps to make predictions and anticipate nasty outcomes. Ask yourself, "what would I expect to see if I'm right?" Ask yourself, "what would I expect to see if I'm wrong?" Then ask yourself, "what do I see?" If something unexpected happens, try to figure out why.
There are still some wrong ways to fail. Repeating the same mistake over and over is one. Not listening to customers or peers before or after a failure is another. Never ignore the evidence, particularly when it says you are wrong.
But what if we ALL screw up?
If everyone is making their own decisions, how do we make sure that the company is heading in the right direction? With everyone sharing the steering wheel, could one of us veer the Agilytic car off the road?
Our collective ability to meet challenges, take advantage of opportunities and respond to threats is far more significant when the responsibility for doing so is distributed as widely as possible, namely, to every individual at the company.
We are all stewards of our long-term relationship with our customers. They watch us make mistakes. Sometimes they get angry with us. But because we always have their best interests at heart, there is faith that we will make things better and that if we have screwed up today, it wasn't because we were trying to take advantage of anyone.
