Be easygoing
Hire for culture
Bring on people who love what they do
Encourage diversity
Take ample time off
Deliver WOW Through Service
Embrace and Drive Change
Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
Pursue Growth and Learning
Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
Do More With Less
Be Passionate and Determined
Be Humble
Be optimistic
Collaborate
Embrace ambiguity
Learn from failure
Make others successful
Take ownership
Talk less, do more
Office walls into converted into big black chalkboards, and they made colourful markers available so that the employees can create their own useful office decoration
Future Processing in Gliwice, Poland, has walls full of photographs and names of all its employees.
It is a tradition at this company to take a picture of every new employee and to hang those pictures in the lunch area.
They also plot the rapid growth of the company over the years with a graph made out of people’s names.
Separate open work spaces from corridors by using a mesh of wires, instead of using glass or walls. This gave people both a sense of transparency and privacy at the same time.
Evaluating potential candidates◦ Would I want this person to be my boss?
◦ Would I learn a significant amount from him or her?
◦ What if this person went to work for our competition?
◦ Value highly collaborative people with T shaped skills
◦ “Hiring well is the most important thing in the universe – nothing else comes close” –Valve Handbook
Goals for recruiting◦ Don’t increase headcount, increase
team’s output
◦ Get new hires up to speed quickly
◦ Continue work while interviewing
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1. First interview– All candidates given an overview of XP– Evaluated not on programming skills but ability to think
critically, ask good questions and make their partner feel good– Given 3 twenty minute exercises – after which candidates
sorted based on team work skills– 15 of those with the strongest team work skills invited back for
second interview
2. Second interview ◦ work on actual Menlo tasks by pairing with an existing
employee
◦ Assess technical skills and the candidate’s fit at Menlo
◦ Candidate gets a feel of what work is being done
3. Make the decision◦ Ranking based who would make great pairing partners
◦ Letters of offer released to top 8 candidates
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Stimulate creativity, they help solve actual problems, they increase knowledge and experience, and they are a lot of fun.
More focused and open working environments
Increase social connections between people, help them to self-organize, and increase commitment among employees.
stopped defining how many hours per day people should work and how many days in the year they can go on a vacation.
with an unlimited number of vacation days and without any guidance on how much vacation per year is reasonable, it appears some people actually take less time off than they should.
better morale, increased productivity, higher retention, and higher engagement
A happiness index is a measure of people’s mood.
Happiness indexes can be raised on a personal, team, or even organizational level - track the mood over time
Happier people perform better, achieve higher pay, and have less absenteeism
How happy are you with your company? (scale 1-5)What feels best right now?What feels worst right now?What would increase your happiness index?
Innovative practices at Menlo Innovations
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• Pairing• High Tech Anthropology• open and collaborative
workspace• high speed voice
technology• daily stand up• 40 hour work weeks• pets and babies at work• making mistakes faster
• doing the simplest thing that could possibly work• origami project mgmt• work authorization boards; story cards and stickers• estimation without fear• Lunch and Learn• Show and Tell• test-driven development
Two heads, two hearts, four hands, one computer
Pairing ◦ fosters a learning system◦ builds relationships◦ simplifies on boarding of people ◦ flushes out performance issues◦ Tear down “towers of knowledge” – eliminate
knowledge hoarding Pairs assigned and switched every week Give the team permission to learn through
pairing
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Research what makes users successful in their interactions with an application.
“The only way to understand what makes a new system successful is to study and observe the potential end users in their native environment”
Gather requirements by designing potential solutions and checking design assumptions with representative users
Techniques used◦ job shadowing
◦ Personas
◦ use cases
◦ hand-drawn screen mock ups
◦ workflow assessments,
◦ high-level screen designs
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Set in a big “open factory” – no walls, offices, cubes or doors
Space can be reconfigured regularly as projects end, new projects begin, or current projects change size – No permission from Facilities required
Pull-down power and network drops from the ceiling
counting on teams overhearing one another - exchange of knowledge across projects is a big factor in their success
Client discussions also take place in these open spaces
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“The Zappos Culture is unlike anything that I have ever experienced. Coming to work doesn’t actually feel like coming to “work.” It feels like hanging out with extended family and friends. I mean, sure, we do work, but enjoying where and who you work with is a great feeling. I don’t dread Mondays any more; in fact, I can’t wait for the weekend to be over so that I can see my co-workers. Name any other company that you could say that about! I bet you can’t. Zappos is the best of the best, the cream of the crop, and I am happy – nay – honored to have been chosen to be an official Zapponian. Here is to many more years to come “
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2012/12/31/6-ideas-to-promote-innovation-in-your-workplace-this-year/2/
http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf http://www.slideshare.net/timbrown/ideo-values-slideshare1 http://www.zapposinsights.com/culture-book http://www.amazon.in/Workout-Practices-Improve-Delight-Management-
ebook/dp/B00N6REYKQ/ http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/02/innovation/ http://www.amazon.in/Joy-Inc-Built-Workplace-People/dp/1591845874/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407154016&sr=8-1&keywords=joy+inc
http://positivesharing.com/2006/09/extreme-interviewing/ http://www.menloinnovations.com/our-method/high-tech-anthropology
http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-team-spaces