A Collaborative Handbook for our See-Docs Team & Community
This repository serves these purposes:
- Gives a high-level overview of who we are, what we do, and why we do what we do
- Our compensation, benefits, and employment policies for our staff and team
- A cultural glossary of practices, principles, and operating virtues
- And anything else we might think of...
It's a work-in-progress, something designed to be touched by anyone in our community. I'm particularly interested in getting feedback from new community members as you all will see things that the current team may unintentionally (and intentionally) ignore! Please help us identify our blindspots and question everything—kaizen!
I'm so grateful that you're here and that you've decided to commit a season of your life helping to build meaningful and impactful software for the Navigo community! You're here because success isn't possible without you.
[Feel free to email me at any time!]
- Operating Virtues
- Our Team
- Our Story
- Employment (Compensation and Benefits)
- Cultural Quirks
- Policy Changes, Legal Stuff
Ben Horowitz via his book What You Do is Who You Are helped us frame our own:
Bushido looks like a set of principles, but it’s a set of practices. The samurai defined culture as a code of action, a system not of values but of virtues. A value is merely a belief, but a virtue is a belief that you actively pursue or embody.
The reason so many efforts to establish “corporate values” are basically worthless is that they emphasize beliefs instead of actions. Culturally, what you believe means nearly nothing. What you do is who you are.
Consequently, here are our current operating virtues (taken from our newsletter):
Or, in other words, we “put everything out on the table” — the good, the bad, and most definitely the ugly. Information is the lifeblood of our business which is especially true in a distributed-first organization. This means that we share things in real-time: We don’t wait for the timing to be “perfect” and we’re comfortable with sharing incomplete, imperfect, and unpolished prose.
Consequently, this means that what we share is going to be, quite often, incomplete, imperfect, and in sore need of serious polishing — we treat all updates with respect, knowing of the courage required to share something that may make the person look foolish, silly, or even stupid. Instead, we engage graciously, responding to the update with the care and attention that we’d hope to receive if it was our own, knowing that they’ve successfully modeled this virtue with excellence.
Finally, #sha means that we’ll often share things that are intensely personal and are only meant for those presently at our table. Everything shared in our communication tools should be held in the highest regard and with strict confidence.
Our table is strong when trust is the foundation.
No bullshit: We are in a fight for our very survival and every single day we make life-altering decisions — sometimes, with very little data. Regardless, we agree with General Patton when he said “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.”
That “plan”, by the way, is our first operating virtue, #sha, because our team has mastered the art of communicating plainly the high-level context, the people involved, and the decision(s) that need to be made and by what time (and by whom). We clearly state if consensus or feedback is required and, with enough collective confidence that we can bear, we commit to the decision, even if we may personally disagree. We move the fastest when we are aligned, feelings aside.
Otherwise, you should #sha, providing all the above data and informing the team of your decision with a request for specific people to keep you accountable — this simply means that you will do what you say you’ll do and you’re asking for support in keeping that commitment on track.
Hello, nice to meet you. I'm Patrick Biyaga. I’m a Cybersecurity and Network Solutions Engineer, a product person by conviction, and a generalist at heart. I love complex issues and helping people navigate them.
Project supported by - @patrickbiyaga
#🚀 Improving the health system with an ethical approach
The only constant is change...
We want all of our policies to be living documents which can improve and change as we learn and grow as a company. This is how we'll propose and make changes to our policies.
Right now, we use the following tools to discuss the Handbook:
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GitHub - The canonical resource. Feel free to open a pull request with context!
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In Person Meetings - Our hope is that as we grow and scale, we'll have more opportunities to gather in-person and virtually to discuss the #handbook openly.
This Employee Handbook describes the employment policies applicable to all employees of the Company. Where there are differences in the terms applicable to employees in different jurisdictions, the differences are noted in the Handbook. This Handbook is not a contract, express or implied, guaranteeing employment for any specific duration.
This Handbook is designed to familiarize employees with the employment policies of See-Docs. Employees should read, understand, and comply with all provisions of the Handbook. It describes many of the responsibilities of an employee and outlines the programs developed by See-Docs to benefit its employees.
No Employee Handbook can anticipate every circumstance or question about policy. As See-Docs continues to grow and as business needs, employment legislation and economic conditions change, See-Docs reserves the right to revise, supplement, or rescind any policies or portion of the Handbook from time to time as it deems appropriate, in its sole and absolute discretion. No statement or promise by any other member of the Company can be interpreted as a change in policy nor will it constitute an agreement with an employee. Employees will be notified of such changes to the Employee Handbook as they occur.
Should there be any discrepancy between the Handbook and other documents of the Company, the policies incorporated in the Handbook shall govern. This Employee Handbook supersedes any and all other previous See-Docs Employee Handbooks or other See-Docs policies, whether written or oral.
Policies set forth in this Handbook are not intended to create a contract, nor are they to be construed to constitute contractual obligations of any kind or a contract of employment between See-Docs and any of its employees. No person can enter into an employment contract with See-Docs for a specified period of time or make any agreement contrary to this policy without written approval from CEO.
The provisions of the handbook have been developed at the discretion of management and may be audited, amended or cancelled at any time, at See-Docs’s sole discretion. Whenever the word “Company” is used, it refers to the employer, “See-Docs”.