There aren’t layers of management between the workers and the boss. Every employee is assigned to a team that plans its own progress and sets its own benchmarks. Team members are accountable to themselves and the rest of the team.
Teams share knowledge. People often work in pairs so experience is distributed as widely as possible. Before code is committed it is always reviewed by a team member. Documents are visible to everyone – from the change log on the latest release to the first draft of the new business plan.
Every Friday afternoon we open our doors to friends, family, and strangers as our teams show off their progress at our weekly demo. Then, at 4 pm, we break out the beer.
The main principle that we stick to, the one that takes precedence over all the others and makes them possible, is professionalism. We talk about this quite a lot, and we haven’t quite settled on a definition yet. But it boils down to all of us taking pride in the smallest details of our work.
