How do you create a company culture document that has a lasting positive impact? A document that aligns your team and not just another document? Here is one way to do it! Excerpt from our latest Level-up Engineering podcast interview with Rob Volk, Thread👇
#1 Take notes of your current values 🗒️
Take note of things that are meaningful to your culture and set your organization apart. Take your time. It requires collaboration and many iterations to get right.
#2 Involve key people 🧑🤝🧑
Involve key leaders in your company, engineers, and even people who were outside the company but close to it. They have a valuable perspective, seeing your culture from the outside.
#3 Get an outside opinion 👩🚀
Do you work with someone on a contract basis? Involve this person! She probably understands your culture, but not with you every single day. This gives her an outside perspective.When you're inside your problems, sometimes you can't see the solution
#4 Define it ✅
Do some soul-searching, and define the aspects of your existing culture. You have to make yourself aware of it, put it into words, and write it down.
#5 Communicate it 🗣️
The next step is to roll it out and make everyone aware of it. We started out with one-on-one trainings, and I held some sessions for small groups myself.
#6 Lead by example 🏁
The most important thing is to lead by example.
For instance, if you have a “Don't be late” rule, the CEO and the management have to arrive a minute early to every meeting. Only then can you expect the developers to follow this as well.
#7 Hold people accountable 📊
We’ve included sticking to the guidelines of the company culture document as part of our performance reviews as well.
We look at performance, and how the employee is doing as far as our culture document goes.
Their role is to remind you of the things you’ve learned during your career. What you need to do and what’s best to avoid. Phrase them like “I normally prefer X over Y;” single words don’t cut it.
2. Decide and communicate
Your decision principles help you find the path forward in difficult situations and more. They are a tool to clearly communicate the reasons behind your decisions. They help you build trust and align with your team, your peers and your manager.
The State of Software Development 2021 is finally out!
Check out the research data on the latest trends in #SoftwareDevelopment. The report covers the effect of COVID, tech trends, tools, hiring, performance, and more!
Over half of the tech companies were only minimally affected by the pandemic, and almost as many experienced positive effects as negative effects.
About one in three of them was forced to downsize.
2. Remote work blew up
We’ve seen remote work become more accepted over the past few years, but now it’s literally everywhere in the software industry. Almost every tech company allows (or expects) employees to work remotely.
1. The first challenge is that you may not know what your brand is. The topic of your engineering brand doesn’t tend to come up until you start thinking about how to represent it.
2. The second challenge is that it takes time and effort. Building your brand isn’t an engineering task, but you need people who take it seriously and keep up the effort. You want people to know that they can come back later for more great stuff to have a real impact.
1. Go easy on yourself
Engineering management is a difficult job to do well. Becoming a great engineering manager means doing a couple of things every day. You can’t get there overnight, so cut yourself some slack, and you'll be under less stress.
2. Do a calendar audit
This is the very foundation for everything you do to manage your time effectively: examine your calendar and take stock of your time. Doing a calendar audit only takes a few minutes, but it’ll help you tremendously.
How do you create a company culture document that has a lasting positive impact? A culture document that truly aligns your team and not just another document? Here is one way to do it! Excerpt from our latest Level-up Engineering podcast interview with Rob Volk.
#1 Take notes of your current values 🗒️
Take note of things that are meaningful to your culture and set your organisation apart. Take your time. It requires collaboration and many iterations to get right.
#2 Involve key people 🧑🤝🧑
Involve key leaders in your company, engineers and even people who were outside the company but close to it. They have a valuable perspective, seeing your culture from the outside.