lessons from valves flatland rules no hierarchies no forced project work

news

thesuccessmanual on 16/05/12 city: New-York tags: management mba remarkable Comment: 0 Save: 0

Game development company Valve has made available its handbook for employees free for others to see. In short, the handbpok says, Welcome to Flatland - no hierarchies. Now, there are two ways of seeing at Valve's employee handbook - 1. As a Google 'Do no evil' type marketing ploy to promote its 'coolness', recycling old ideas of employee empowerment and all that, or, be less cynical and see what useful we can glean from it. My favorite part is about the anture of work in the company:

1. Any time you interview a potential hire, you need to ask yourself not only if they’re talented or collaborative but also if they’re capable of literally running this company, because they will be.

2. Since Valve is flat, people don’t join projects because they’re told to.
Instead, you’ll decide what to work on after asking yourself the right questions (more on that later). Employees vote on projects with their feet (or desk wheels). Strong projects are ones in which people can see demonstrated value; they staff up easily. This means there are any number of internal recruiting efforts constantly under way

3. There’s no rule book for choosing a project or task at Valve. But it’s useful to answer questions like these:
- Of all the projects currently under way, what’s the most valuable thing I can be working on?
- Which project will have the highest direct impact on our customers? How much will the work I ship benefit them?
- Is Valve not doing something that it should be doing?
- What’s interesting? What’s rewarding? What leverages my individual strengths the most?

Share This Contact Publisher Permalink

Flag This Item (0)

Latest Comments

Would you like to comment on this item?
Join BigHow for a free account, or login if you are already a member

	Countries \| Cities \| Localities \| Groups \| Tags \| Best of Bighow	Publish \| Join Login
	Our Blogs \| BigPedia \|

Lessons from Valve's Flatland Rules: No hierarchies, No forced project work