Values and tenets
AM's values are to be bold, distinctive, honest and accountable. In the Technology department we add a set of tenets that describe how those values show up in the way we build and run software.
Our principles are the permission-to-play tenets. We hold each other to them, use them as the basis for feedback, reflect on them in retrospectives, and change how we work when we find we are falling short of them. Our ideals are what we aspire to.
Principles¶
Continuous improvement. We are always experimenting and learning, and we aim for continuous discovery. We will never know less than we do right now, and learning takes effort and focus. We value iterative and incremental improvement, learn from failure, challenge ideas rather than accept them on merit, ask difficult questions, respect every opinion, and give and take honest feedback.
Continuous collaboration. We communicate constantly, because a remote and distributed department needs more deliberate communication than a co-located one. We make a noise when blocked, share progress without being asked, and solve problems together so that knowledge does not sit in silos. See Collaboration.
Continuous deployment. We break value into the smallest deployable increments and deploy them constantly. We keep manual steps in the release process to a minimum and aim for fully automated deployment, so that value reaches users often and without friction.
Continuous quality. Quality means valuable as well as functional. We form hypotheses, design solutions and evaluate the outcomes. We design for security, privacy, accessibility, reliability, scalability and sustainability from the start, and we decide what success means and how we will measure it before we begin. See Shared quality.
Continuous planning. We plan and re-plan our short, medium and long-term objectives. We consult stakeholders and keep them informed. We are all responsible for delivering our objectives, and we are trusted to find the most effective way to do so.
Continuous autonomy. Every team member is trusted to do their work without interference. We provide clarity on the standards we expect and trust teams and individuals to work autonomously within them, accountable for their own time, their engagement and the way they work. See Autonomy and guardrails.
Ideals¶
- Locality and simplicity. Decisions and processes sit close to the teams they affect, and workflows stay simple.
- Focus, flow and joy. Deep work with few interruptions makes for better software and happier people.
- Psychological safety. Everyone feels safe to take risks, raise concerns and be wrong.
- Improvement of daily work. We keep refining the everyday tasks and processes, not just the big ones.
- Value focus. We prioritise the work that delivers the most value to customers and the business, and we say no to the rest.
- A bias towards action. We favour acting and deciding over waiting, even when uncertain.