Tell students about the maverick companies

Students already know about the famous companies. Tell them about the cool ones that go their own way.

In one of my classes I regularly talked about how the entrepreneurship side of business. Part of this was how businesses set their pricing, and also how the companies made decisions. Part of this would also be how companies organised their software development activities.

A key part for me was to tell them about companies that valued the professional collaboration skills I was talking about. Yes, being good at programming is useful. However, it’s more important to talk to your team so that you know you’re all going in the same direction.

For me, I always took notice when companies did things differently, and especially when they provided links covering how they do the work. With these I could use their material in the classroom.

My goal was always to show students, that they have choices in how they might organise their own work if they form a startup. I also wanted to show them they could ask questions in any company they work at too.

There are lots of ways to run a business. This applies to how decisions are made, as well as career progression in the company. Students should be aware of these differences so that they enter their placements, and graduate positions knowing that some companies don’t follow the general pattern.

Public handbooks tell you how a company builds software

If we start with the basics of software engineering, then we can point students to what companies offer in their handbooks. How do they want people to work together? What is expected behaviour? How do they organise their time? This varies from company to company, especially for Human Made, which only does remote work. Made Tech does lots of work for the UK government, as well as training. Made Tech is good on development practices.

The beauty of these is that you can see company expectations, and the values that everyone follows. This is almost a team charter. This is the stuff you don’t see in software engineering textbooks, but which make work better for the team, and leads to better outcomes for clients.

These examples show collaboration with team members is paramount

Roles are not always important at these places. While Made Tech sets out their roles, others like Mindera, say this isn’t important. The Mindera handbook says it is important to talk to your team, as ‘they insist on working collaboratively. No rockstars. No departments. The whole team owns the whole project, collectively.’

Valve, who built and run Steam is similar. ‘welcome to flatland’ as it says in its handbook. While the handbook is from 2012, per Reddit, it is still accurate in principle. You can choose your project. You move your wheeled desk to where your team is. As you choose your project, you choose how to spend your time.

Lunar Logic is similar. Everything is transparent. Yes, even salaries. There are no managers.

Menlo Innovations is similar. There is one large room where everyone works together. Desks have wheels, and ducting above desks to move power cables too. You’ll also see that they have no boss. The team does the hiring, etc. Everyone contributes to these decisions. They also pair for everything, and rotate pairs every two weeks. As the rotation might see you change teams, this means everyone knows about all of the work. Here, you can have anyone help because everyone knows about all of the projects.

Go read Joy Inc for more details about Menlo. Sign up for one of their tours to ask more questions. Watch their videos. Find out why they have dogs, and babies in the office.

Following ‘best practices’ just means the company is average

Being average is boring. The companies make their own rules. These businesses thrive. They are doing more than surviving. They are spreading their ways of working. Each of them is unique.

Each of these companies found a different way to achieve their goals. They found they could work their way, to make work that mattered. They did not have to follow the path other companies to achieve the outcomes they sought in their work.

We owe it to our students to tell them about companies like these. These are examples of what is possible.

The items above are all software related. There are also other companies that provide examples too, which point to different ways of working. I mention these for the record, and to point out what others are doing.

These mavericks are not just software companies

The story of Semco in Brazil discusses how someone, who doesn’t want to be in charge does himself out of a job. This is the story of Richardo Semler, who changed the company, so that everyone could make decisions. This meant he didn’t have to. It shows you can open up the decision-making to those who are interested. Anyone can see the books, attend meetings, make decisions. His book, Maverick, explains the story. His TED talk briefly mentions this too.

After you read Semler’s book, you see why some of the decisions at the other companies are not as radical as you might think. They were moving in a path already followed by others.

You can find lots of corporate examples in this space on the Corporate Rebels website. The basics come down to the eight trends they observe. A number of these will now be no surprise to you.

This is also codified in the sociocracy path that some groups are using too. This is all about formalising peer-consent. It is sometimes also tied to participatory budgeting too, and the notion that everyone should have a say in how money is spent.

Sticking to more traditional business models, you can also tell students about co-operatives too. This is where all employees are part-owners and make collective decisions. These go from small to large. In Scotland, these are the one that I know about. Fractals Co-op a design and facilitation agency, and Open Data Services, who do data projects for clients.

For completeness I should also mention Black Cat Workers Collective, which organises a bar in Aberdeen. Black Cat follows an anarcho-syndicalist approach. In their manual, you can see their thinking of how to operationalise their philosophy of capitalism.

How to share this with your students

The key aspect that I find interesting in these manuals is this: the key skills all employers are looking for is knowing how to collaborate in a team. Collaboration skills are professional skills.

Yes, employers want to know that your students know how to code, and to write tests. These are useful. They are NOT the key skills for all employers.

Tell this to your students. Discuss with them how they evidence collaboration skills on their CVs and on LinkedI. Maybe highlight how they helped their teams collaborate.

Talk too about what kind of company policies they would enjoy seeing. What would they say ‘no’ too in a job?

---