Gabe Newell is one seriously awesome dude. It’s not so much that he runs, Valve, one of the most significant video game companies in the world; but that he runs it as a flat organization without traditional “management” roles.
It’s a fascinating organization because their practices fly in the face of many other practices you find in the software industry today. Amongst some of the more interesting facts about life at Valve include,
Management is for n00bs
Everyone in the organization is expected to talk with customers. It’s not the roll of a special department…
Projects are expected to recruit interest internally. There’s not someone telling you what to work on…
Tell someone what to do, and you’re a tech writer or trainer.
Tell someone why they should do it, and you’re a consultant.
Seems like a false dichotomy to me. Talking about What to do without the Why is insipid. Regardless of your title, the job is to make sure your client experiences the most value from the product, the most value per word.
Let’s be clear. Your job as a designer is to improve the customer experience in some measurable way, right? If you do a complete redesign, and every designer you know loves it, and it wins awards from experts, but every single one of your users hates it and leaves and stops giving you money, then that’s a failure for the company.
