Ways of working

Ways of Working (WoW) is a phrase that describes how people collaborate. Also known as working agreements, principles, values, tenets, norms, ground rules, group expectations, team aspirations, group understandings, company culture, and more.

You and your teammates can use this document to help with Ways of Working. This document provides an introduction then many examples of Ways of Working created by many teams.

What are Ways of Working?

Ways of Working describes a team's set of expectations for participating, collaborating, and interrelating.

• Principles are fundamental truths that are the foundation for beliefs, behaviors, and reasoning. Principles are intended to be universal and permanent. Examples: "be kind", "bias for action", "encourage participation", "seek improvement", "train as a team", "think big", and "tell the truth".

• Values are virtues that you want such as: kindness, innovation, community, learning, teamwork, honesty. Values can be subjective and impermanent, such as "happy customers this year, large profits next year". Values can be comparative, such as "responding to change over following a plan".

• Whys are explanations of why something matters. Whys help people understand context. Examples: "Why is our principle X?", "Why do we value X?", "Why do we do X?", "Why are we working on this together?".

• Tenets are desirable attributes that should be built into all plans, directly related to the operational concept. Tenets should provide planners with criteria to evaluate whether their plans are likely to succeed. Examples: "Involve users early and often", "Leverage domain-driven design", "Drive decisions via metrics".

• Ground rules are guidelines of how people need to behave, for specific situations such as meetings, or activities, or tasks. Examples: "At our meetings everyone gets the opportunity to speak", "Proofread your work", "Communicate directly irrespective of hierarchy", "Use safety gear here".

• Aspirations are statements intended to guide interactions and decision making within the group, and also across other groups within the organization. Example: "Every challenge is an opportunity to learn".

• Norms are informal implicit standards of behavior that emerge over time from the interactions of the group. Example: "By observing the team, we see that teammates are punctual".

• Working agreements are protocols that the group develops together, commits to follow together, and agreed to uphold together. Example: "Code is complete when all tests pass".

• Culture is the customs, arts, groups, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. We advise phasing out the word "culture" for ways-of-working, in favor of "principles", "values", "practices", etc.

Success looks like

Your ways of working are explicit. Example: your ways of working are written, and also easy to access and read any time, such as in your team's documentation.

Your ways of working are understood. Example: you confirm that each of your teammates is familiar with all the ideas, and also knows where to find out more about the ideas.

Your ways of working are open to debate. Example: you confirm that each of your teammates knows how to suggest changes, and also can provide comments, feedback, and opportunities for new ways of working.

Your ways of working are alertable. Example: your teammates all know quickly if someone breaks the ways of working, and also all know who is responsible, accountable, and capable of handling the breakage.

Resources

Overviews:

• Team Norms, Working Agreements, and Simple Rules - by Esther Derby
• Working Agreements - by Jane Haskell

Supporting repositories:

• Leadership
• Principles

Supporting files:

• Adult Principles - by John Perry Barlow
• Principles - by Nabeel S. Qureshi
• Ground rules at Tesla - by Elon Musk
• Ground Rules - by Tree Bressen
• Ground rules for effective meetings - by Get The Picture
• High-velocity decision making - by Amazon
• How to send progress updates - by Slava Akhmechet
• How we structure our work and teams at Basecamp
• People are package deals - by Steve Jobs
• Project management practices - by Hacker News participants
• Rules of the Road - by Jerry Perenchio
• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
• Software Engineering at Google
• Software working advice - by Cyranix
• Team working agreements example by giffconstable
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• The Core Protocols - by McCarthy
• The Five Keys to a Successful Google Team
• The Pragmatic Open Source Contributor
• The unwritten laws of engineering at Stedi
• Engineering management checklist - by Patrick Newman
• Strategies to improve workplace communication - by Calm Business
• Onboarding and induction checklist - by employmenthero
• Our Values - What it Means to Work at ZOE
• 101 Additional Advices - by Kevin Kelly

Ideas

For goodness

Be creative. Be constructive. Be collaborative.

Be prepared. Be present. Be productive.

Be respectful. Be trustable. Be truthful.

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For focus

Focus is limited so budget it wisely.

Focus is critical for deep work, so decide on team indicators that mean "do not disturb", then respect them.

Focus yourself and your team with practices such as TEAM FOCUS, OKR, SBS, VSM, GIST, SMART, etc.

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For respect

Presume good-faith intentions.

Debate the issue, not the person.

Test assumptions and inferences.

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For collaboration

View the issue as “we” not “me”.

Consider what's happening from each person's perspective.

Create more understanding, and less conflict.

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For discussions

Encourage everyone to participate fully.

Listen actively and attentively.

Build on one another’s comments, to work toward shared understanding.

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For mutual participation

Emphasize mutual respect.

Emphasize mutual purpose.

Emphasize mutual communication.

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For team success

Psychological safety: Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?

Dependability: Can we count on each other to do high quality work on time?

Impact of work: Do we fundamentally believe that the work we’re doing matters?

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For communications

Communications are radiated when events happen, so teammates can be in the loop.

Communications provide equitable participation for everyone involved.

Communications use relevant channels, such as chat, or email, or video, or wiki.

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For messaging

Minimize first messages that are vague, such as "Hi" or "Have a minute?". Instead, state your idea, question, etc.

Favor shortcuts such as symbols, hashtags, emojis, etc. Example: "+1" means "I agree", "#todo" means "For our TODO list", and a green-checkmark emoji means "Done".

Prefer using topic channels over direct messaging, because topic channels can help more people, in more ways, over more timelines.

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For feedback

Ask for feedback often.

Ensure you’re giving lots of positive feedback.

Formal feedback works best when its SMART: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, Timely.

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For meetings and briefings

Set the stage. Example: "The purpose of this meeting is X because Y".

Announce the agenda. Example: "The plan of this meeting is X because Y".

Optimize the outcome. Example "At the end of this meeting we want X because Y".

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For asynchronous and remote

Ensure that everyone can participate equitably, where they want, when they want.

Structure work and communications for parallel work streams, so people can work on one task while awaiting a response on another task.

If a blocker turns asynchronous work into synchronous work, then work hard to unblock it.

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For schedules and calendars

Emphasize time for focus and deep work. Example: use the strengths of "maker's schedule, manager's schedule".

Ensure all stakeholders know the expectations for availability, attendance, RSVP, and the like.

Automate. Example: use a group schedule system that create a calendar event using a group's first available date and time.

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For hand signs and visual communication

For votes: thumb up means yes; thumb down means no; thumb sideways means maybe. Everyone votes. The moderator tallies.

For clarification: anyone at any time can ask for clarification, by making the one-hand sign "C". Everyone pauses. The speaker takes charge. The speaker and the asker discuss.

For time out: anyone at any time can ask for a time out, by making the two-hand sign "T". Everyone stops. The moderator takes charge. The moderator and the asker discuss.

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For team bonding

Team bonding is good and valuable because it improves communication, trust, and teamwork.

Try multiple kinds of bonding events, such as all-hands, kick-offs, offsites, outings, fun events, etc.

Respect people's differences. Examples: people who are focusing on their health may not be able to go to bars for beers; people who have child care responsibilities may not be able to do after-hours events; people who have planned commitments may not be able to do ad-hoc events.

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For orientation

We use a "people" document. It lists our names, contact information, roles, responsibilities, etc.

We use a "projects" document. It lists our projects, their purposes and progress, like startup pitch deck.

We use an "onboard" document. It explains how to join our team, how to set up, and how to collaborate.

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For credentials

Each teammate gets their own credentials, such as a username, a password, a security badge, etc.

Each teammate knows how to manage their credentials securely, such as by using a secrets application.

Each teammate knows how to report their credentials as lost, or stolen, or otherwise at risk.

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For shared spaces

Post relevant information prominently, such as phone numbers, wifi codes, room reservations, etc.

If you use confidential information in the shared space, then you must ensure the information stays confidential.

When you finish using a shared space, ensure it's in correct condition for the next people.

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For emailing

If you need the reader to do something, then write "ACTION NEEDED", "REPLY PLEASE", etc.

If you need the reader to schedule, then write "DUE BY X", "DEADLINE IS X", etc.

If you need the reader to be fast, then write "URGENT", "EMERGENCY", etc.

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For safety

Each teammate knows what to do if another teammate is absent, including who handles what, how, when, and why.

When there's an issue, then we have a way to triage it, handle it, learn from it, and improve because of it.

When we have dangerous setups, we use lockout/tagout.

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