Growing Up and Taking Our Culture With Us
In a small team, rituals form quickly and easily and take little effort to maintain. The bond between members is close, strengthened by wins and losses alike. Transfer of knowledge is generally face to face; if you want someone to know something, you stand up (if that) and tell them. Any fallout or negativity that arises doesn’t have far to go and the capacity for things to be lost in translation is minimal.
Croomo was a small team until about 2014. While there wasn’t one point when we suddenly grew, at around 15 people things started to change. Personalities had broadened considerably. Emails, especially group ones, became less efficient means of communication. It was no longer good enough to just tell coworker #1 that ‘I need this like this from now on for this reason’ because coworker #2 and #3 would also be affected and in 6 months time there’s no record of the decision or why. Anything implicit — culture, standards, processes- started to adapt. Sometimes this was for better, sometimes for worse but, generally, it was unpredictable and without much oversight.
While we still managed to create some of our best work in this time, there was room to work smarter.
To do this, we started writing stuff down.
We wrote ‘Knowledge Bombs’ to pass on information. We standardised policies and manuals to ensure everyone was on the same page. We created a glossary of terms and acronyms (there are lot) to help those new to the crew get up to speed quickly. We took the time to explicitly discover and refine our values as a company and we officialised the shape of the teams within Croomo and how they’d tackle their work. This obviously wasn’t the first time we had formalised aspects of our company but from this point forward it became a strong focus to stop letting our culture fend for itself.
On top of writing, we’ve found tools and implemented rituals to help us. Anonymous surveys to try and make sure nothing too small or too awkward goes unsaid. Weekly show-and-tells because it’s hard to keep up with what everyone is working on these days. Most recently, a wall for props and kudos went up so when someone really kicks ass and deserves a shout out, it’s written where everyone can see.
None of these are perfect and some initiatives will last longer than others. But perfect isn’t the goal. Now we take pride in recognising the awkward, the uncomfortable, the wicked problems that crop up. We won’t stop trying. We won’t stop adapting, redefining and expanding as we push more towards a medium sized team and beyond. Perfect for now is just fine.
