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Values on Day One

Published March 31, 2015 by David Horowitz

[ Cross-posted from dshorowitz.com ]

T
he idea behind Retrium, that distributed scrum teams should be able to run effective sprint retrospectives, was born many months ago on a park bench in Washington, DC. Early on, my co-founder and I agreed on the need to establish a set of core company values that underpin who we are as a company, as well as how we interact with each other and our customers.

We are excited to share our first list of values with you. While we are confident in the values we have identified as core to our company’s ethos, we are also sure that our culture will change as we grow and mature as a company. Without further delay…

RETRIUM VALUES

Respect and Trust

  1. Everyone gets a minimum number of days off each year (this one requires further explanation and I will follow up with a blog post soon)
  2. Work from anywhere, at anytime
  3. Respect the flow of others; use non-intrusive communication whenever possible

Measuring Success

  1. Quality of your work over number of hours you put in
  2. Failure is an opportunity to learn

Company Structure

  1. Holarchy over hierarchy (title doesn’t matter; good ideas do)
  2. Everyone, from the CEO down, is responsible for customer support

How We Act

  1. Be the first to identify and flag problems; be the last to brag about successes
  2. Be part of the community, by volunteering in the physical world and open-sourcing what we can in the virtual world
  3. Be curious about our market, our product, our business, our customers, and ourselves. Continuously improve in all these areas