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Have you ever felt like everybody in your team is working like free atoms? That you put effort into something, and nobody supports it? Some people do things, but when you ask them why they do it they can’t answer. It happens to all of us. Here are a few tools that can help you and your team align efforts around things that really matter.


### Working Agreement


One of the easiest forms to express the hygiene of our day-to-day work. I usually start with an explanation of why we want to create such a document for our team. I start with one, or two rules that feel important and encourage the rest of the team to discuss what content we put there.

It contains behaviors that we expect from each team member; what is undeniable required in communication; what rituals we have in the team; how we treat each other. 

What I recommend is to keep it simple. Add only those points that we feel are essential and avoid dreaming. The best option is to write the practices that the team is already doing. If it's a new team we suggest falling back to the Organization's practices.

A working agreement is an important tool, especially working remotely. 

Here are some points that our teams include in the Working Agreement:

-  If it is possible, we have the **camera turned on** in daily meetings and we are **fully focused** on what others are saying. The daily meeting should have a short and concise form, max. 15-20 minutes. 
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- We communicate on public channels, avoiding direct messages and closed groups
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- We don't leave problems - If things don't go our way and we finish the workday, we share the status of our job.
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- I would like to put one additional point at the top of the working agreement:
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- We agree to feedback on each other if we see a violation of this agreement.


### Team Purpose

Our teams live in a few dynamic environments. Things are changing quickly. We succeed and we fail daily. Sometimes we don’t have control over things that happen to us. That causes a lot of stress, especially for those who like to see the plan for the future. 

One reason we prefer to build long-lasting teams in Appunite is to find a team purpose that helps them to be more resilient to unexpected things. The purpose should be the result vector of individual needs and impact the organization itself. 

Purpose especially helps when you make decisions that might have a big impact on the team. I like to always ask myself and the team if this decision moves closer to the purpose or not.

We want all of our product teams to work in the spirit of getting better in building products. They twist that in their own way and those who have a firm belief in what they want to achieve develop their members faster.

Your team members should identify with the purpose, so they can support it. That’s also a good rule if someone is a good match for your team.

> Find people that passionately believe in making the world a better place. Because if you don't truly believe in making the world a better place —then you may choose to make decisions that aren’t necessarily making the world a better place.
> 

Example purpose: 

***We want to share our extreme ownership approach by growing our team in the spirit of the same culture.***

***We want to be the best mobile team in Poland.***

### Problems and Challenges

Powerful. An important part of fulfilling the purpose of the team. Every team member might have their own perspective on what is currently blocking the team or what is the opportunity that we focus on. 

Making the team aware of its problems, opportunities and challenges is crucial, when we want to use our energy in a smart way. Having the same perspective on what is the next priority for the team allows for moving faster. We concentrate the energy of team members on the same thing. 

### Individual contracts

Something that I love. When a new person joins, we take a moment to express our expectations from both sides, the new joinery and the team leader. We discuss those, create some kind of contract between us and we get back to it from time to time on 1on1s. We usually have some expectations above „writing a code” or „doing quality checks”. It's good to express those even if they seem to be obvious.

I recommend sharing those expectations with the entire team. It makes it easier to understand what each member is thriving for, therefore supporting him/her.

Example: *Having your seniority in mind, I would expect you can guide other members of our team in terms of X.*


>*Side note: We recently started using a tool called **Business as Usual**, to synchronize the efforts across all the teams in our Organisation. We create a hypothesis in a single document - why we feel something is worth investing the effort, what effect we expect, and what needs to happen to make the initiative successful. We track all the discussions, changes, and progress there, so everyone can understand the status and why we do it at all.*

**I'm curious, what tools do you use in your team to build alignment in the team?**

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team building, leadership, crossfunctional teams, alignment

Alignment tools for every leader

Appunite’s mission is:

# Become a #1 partner in building software products and revolutionize the way software is designed, developed, and delivered.

 

But what does that mean? 🤔 

How do you measure if you are already #1? 📈 

What does it mean to revolutionize the way software is designed, developed and delivered? 🧑🏻‍🎓 

Finally, 

#### Is this the right place for me?💞

#### How can you, as an individual, contribute to it?🤯


---

Our conviction is that technology is a tool for solving real-world problems. 

#### → We focus as an organization on growing our expertise in building product teams, 

#### → so we can consciously apply better and better approaches to the businesses of our Clients

#### → so they can succeed, providing us with more challenging problems at the same time

#### → so we can succeed, finding new challenging problems in future

Being a #1 partner is our North Star 🤩, we believe we can get there, but what’s more exciting, we enjoy the journey 🧗. The journey is where your involvement can make the biggest influence. It’s essential for our growth.

## What’s the idea behind it?

We hire both experts and people without any professional experience. We are proud of it. I joined the company without any commercial background 10 years ago. 

How is that even possible? We believe that curiosity and dedication drive growth. We love to give a chance to people who feel they can bring something valuable to the company. 

We trust, that people can make judgments about where is the place they bring the biggest value. We optimize to create an environment where they can shine. 

As with everything, it has its own downsides. The tradeoff is that we won’t tell you what to do. 

We believe you will find out what’s the most valuable, most fun, and what moves the organization forward. 

## So how do you actually build influence in Appunite?

In other words, how did you develop your career in Appunite? Not by earning another point in your skill-set matrix. Definitely not by changing the role next to your name. 

You do that, by changing the angle you look at things. 

You start with your team, as this is the smallest organization unit. By constantly looking at how you can improve the way the team is working, you become an influencer. Then you start to think about what would make your team successful over a longer period of time. What actions should we take to be in a better position later? 

Then you change your angle from the team perspective to something bigger, it can be either the technical tribe, a bigger team, or the company. You look at things with an even longer perspective. 

Lastly, you start to think about how I would like the World to see our Company. What actions can I take to change that perception.

One example can be expanding your emerging practices to other teams. Do you see something is working really well? Share with others, and explain your approach. Do you deal with some problems? Let others know, they might experience the same, maybe you can group around it and solve it together. Do you see some key information missing during the process? Raise that issue, and suggest a solution. Day by day improve your environment. 

You are moving on two dimensions, like in the matrix below.

![Screenshot 2022-10-06 at 15.49.18.png](https://strapi-appunite.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Screenshot_2022_10_06_at_15_49_18_3bfb6d7e70.png)


## How should I know what's needed?

Start with defining your own compass. What do you truly believe in, what are the values you care. Think about what drives you, what feels fun to do. No matter what job you are assigned to, you are empowered to change Appunite. 

Look around. What makes you upset, what stresses you, what feels ineffective. Start with small steps to make your space a bit better. The worst thing you can do is to be focused on something, staying passive at the same time. It will frustrate you, and frustrate others. You don’t have to have ready solution. Sometimes it only takes to pursue the issue. Gather a wider context. Understand why it is the way it is or just raise the importance of the issue in the Organisation. The solution might come later. We do have good tools to do that. You can either raise an issue and explain your perspective in one of the Teams Challenges boards, or if you don’t know where to address your concerns you can create the Business as Usual card in order to identify a working group around it. Again, try not to generalize problems, and don’t project your team’s problems to the whole organisation. Try to solve it locally, if you can’t ask for help.

## Ideas are ten a penny while the ability to execute counts for a great deal more

We don’t force anyone to do things this or that way. Meaning that having a good idea is not enough. It requires effort. The tradeoff is that you actually need to expose the benefit of the change, and convince coworkers that it’s worth putting energy into it. The reason we do so is that none of us own a monopoly on knowledge. We avoid top-down decisions.

We really value doing progress more, than being on the move. Meaning that we look at the outcomes of the initiative, not just actions around it.

## How I can introduce the change?

The best way to expose the benefit of the change is by doing a small experiment. In your local environment, the team probably. If it succeeds, share the result, if it’s convincing, the rest will follow. That is the natural way of leading.

If you are wrong, no worries. That is one of the reasons we tend to do experiments on a smaller scale. Wrap up the results and let others learn from your failure. Decide what next.

## So does this mean that everyone can do whatever they want?

Not really. One of our core values is to give and be open to feedback. You got an idea, gather the feedback from people around you, people who the change might affect. Be curious about what they want to say. No traction? Rethink your approach. Maybe you identified the need inaccurately. 

 

But if you truly believe in something, fight for it, till you convince others that this is the way to go. By changing the environment, you build trust. Trust can level up your actions even higher. The way we look at the trust is perfectly envisioned here:


[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJdXjtSnZTI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJdXjtSnZTI)

## How it can look in the practice?

We put effort into letting our teams find their own purpose, that supports our mission. We encourage you to start the conversation in your team about “what we are actually doing here”. Again, looking at a longer perspective makes you think a bit differently. We do software, so our teams can easily say that their job is to deliver a project. But what do we have from it in a long perspective? The project can end tomorrow, for various reasons. We try to think what are the outcomes of it. What we learned, what people we trained, and what leaders raised from that team. That is what moves us as an organization toward our North Star. That’s why it is beneficial to find common ground between team purpose and individual goals. Not only it helps with motivation, but it ensures that we grow people during the time of a project.

 
![Screenshot 2022-10-07 at 08.37.44.png](https://strapi-appunite.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Screenshot_2022_10_07_at_08_37_44_8a2bc28b5b.png)

## Is it a good place for me?

You probably already can get a grasp feeling who we are. Let me demystify who we are not. 

We do not tell people what to do. 

We do not tight ourselves to our roles and duties.

We don’t limit ourselves to the here and now. 

We don’t have all the answers.

We don’t standardize things until we see benefits from them. 

We don’t follow blindly our competition.

We don’t build leadership around authority.

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Being a #1 partner is our North Star 🤩, we believe we can get there, but what’s more exciting, we enjoy the journey 🧗. The journey is where your involvement can make the biggest influence. It’s essential for our growth.

How do you actually contribute to the Appunite’s mission?

---

Our culture wasn't fully created by design. It's a result of random events as well as conscious choices. Each choice comes with tradeoffs. Some are already addressed but others may still need to be tackled. These choices make our organization a place where not everyone can fit in, but if you do, you are able to achieve amazing things. Let me share some of the choices we've made and the tradeoffs they bring.

**We don't tell people what to do, so they need to find their own fit.**

**Gain**: If you find your own passion that aligns with our goals, you'll get plenty of autonomy. You can act as a partner, not just an employee. You define your impact.

**Tradeoff**: It's not easy to discover your passion, nor is it easy to define how it will help our mission. This can be frustrating for less experienced people who still need guidance.

**We treat code as a tool.**

**Gain**: We move fast when we need to. We make it scalable when needed. We reuse if that's the most optimal way. We see creating software solutions as an investment that has to be adequate for the return.

**Tradeoff**: We expect the teams to understand what we are building and what impact it will have on the business. We expect the teams to focus on the wider context. We expect to choose right tools for the problems instead of building fancy solutions.

**You are responsible for your own growth.**

**Gain**: You can steer where you want to be and how fast you want to grow.

**Tradeoff**: You have to be transparent about it and ask for feedback. If you don't, you might find yourself going in a different direction.

**You shape your career by making a bigger impact, not by changing titles and earning badges.**

**Gain**: You don't need a title to act. If you make an impact, you'll be invited into bigger topics easily.

**Tradeoff**: If you perceive your progress by gaining different titles and seeking authority, you'll be frustrated.

**We prioritize mission-driven teams over setting clear boundaries between roles.**

**Gain**: We want to be pragmatic in solving problems, so we bring the best people for the job.

**Tradeoff**: The same role in different places might look different than here, which can put you outside your comfort zone.

**We share context as widely as possible.**

**Gain**: We don't create unnecessary proxies. Teams talk directly with clients. Stakeholders provide context often. You can easily access the information you need.

**Tradeoff**: Sometimes there's too much information, so you have to selectively choose what can help you achieve better results and what to ignore.

**We communicate on public channels.**

**Gain**: We avoid communication silos. By default, information is public unless it needs to be private.

**Tradeoff**: You have to carefully choose communication channels. We avoid communicating on DMs and private channels, which might feel awkward at first.

**We prefer sensible defaults over processes and procedures.**

**Gain**: We don't want to limit ourselves by having processes and procedures created by design. You can break each process and procedure if it makes sense. If you don't have an idea, you might follow sensible defaults or create them if they don't exist.

**Tradeoff**: Sometimes you might feel lost and take ownership of choosing a different path.

**We expect high ownership.**

**Gain**: You have the autonomy to solve challenges.

**Tradeoff**: You're responsible for choosing the path you follow. We expect you to lead topics you own.

**We expect you to admit when you don't know.**

**Gain**: Pretending you know is wasting others' time, and we don't want that. We embrace saying, "I don't know."

**Tradeoff**: It takes time to get comfortable with saying "I don't know," and it can be frustrating when others say it and you think they should know.

**We don't accept saying, "It's not my job."**

**Gain**: We have each other's backs. We don't ignore problems just because they happen somewhere else.

**Tradeoff**: You might find yourself leading topics until you find another owner.

**We're eager to accomplish our mission.**

**Gain**: You might get inspired only if you want to.

**Tradeoff**: Even though it's unclear sometimes how to do it, we talk about it boldly. Not having a clear path might be frustrating sometimes.

**We don't accept complaining.**

**Gain**: You might get inspired by others' approaches to tackling issues.

**Tradeoff**: Instead of complaining, we expect you to do something about it.

**We embrace failure.**

**Gain**: We learn much quicker if we bring failures to the surface. You might learn from others' mistakes.

**Tradeoff**: Sometimes you might contribute to the failure, and we want to be transparent about it so others can learn.

**We want decisions to be made as close as possible to the problem.**

**Gain**: You're expected to make decisions.

**Tradeoff**: You can't expect top-down decisions. Instead, you receive context instead of decisions.

**We don't compare ourselves to our competition.**

**Gain**: We prefer to get inspired by the best. You'll hear a lot about Netflix, Google, and Apple. Even though our reality is different, we believe our approach is similar.

**Tradeoff**: We might be doing some things worse than our competition.

**We expect everyone to contribute to the mission.**

**Gain**: You're invited to be part of the journey. We listen to everyone, no matter how long you've been here.

**Tradeoff**: If you're looking for a place to just write code or sell software, AppUnite isn't it. You'll be constantly stretched to work around the mission.

**Skills matter, but attitude is a game-changer.**

**Gain**: By being curious and not accepting things, you might bring a lot of value, no matter what skills you have.

**Tradeoff**: Skills are useless if you can't create value with them. We don't tolerate ignorance, even if you're the best specialist on the market.



Piotr Bernad