The Valve Employee Handbook, a must read for anyone sick of the traditional workplace and dreaming of a better way. It looks like at Valve, they have the courage of their convictions to put the ideal of the Enterprise 2.0 movement into actual practice, to not constrain themselves by the fetters of doing things the way they have always been done. Interestingly, the first step in pulling this off is hiring the right people, then getting out of the way and letting them do their jobs.
Why do so many organizations get this last part wrong? (more…)
This is awesome. It’s Netflix’ Guide on Freedom, Responsibility and Culture.
Parts of it seem frightening and unfair and draconian, other parts seem absolutely spot on or even, amazing. It’s kind of a chiral reflection of how things work at Valve: very careful hiring, very specific cullings, very little of most of the garbage that comes from Taylor…
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…
