The 5 secrets behind our success
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What does it take for a tech team to be successful?
Technology and innovation sit at the core of Dialectica’s operations and power everything our people do on a daily basis. Our company invests heavily in its proprietary technology and data assets that help Dialecticans to deliver high value to our customers at a great speed. At the same time, our team is growing rapidly and it has more than doubled over the past year, welcoming dozens of talented engineers, product managers and product designers. What is the secret to our success that enables us to dream bigger day by day and which guides our vision to design more information services products in the future?
Clear goals and dedication to our team’s product principles. Dialectica’s Tech team works together towards one common goal to shape the global information services industry and our product principles are there to constantly remind us who we are, what we aim for and how we’re getting there.
Principle #1: We are customer-centric
To have a competitive advantage in today’s fast-paced business environment you have to know and truly understand the wants and needs of your clients. To design our own knowledge-sharing platform as well as new products and services, we put the customer needs at the center of our decision-making process and ask one simple question: what is it that we need to do to provide them with a high-quality experience? At Dialectica we are not just coming to work. We are working together to create innovative services that will provide an exceptional experience to our clients and give great value to their work.
Principle #2: We strive for outcomes over outputs
When it comes to product design and development the “outcomes over outputs” phrase is a mantra. Our team is here to create positive change to Dialectica’s team, its clients, its experts and the business world as a whole. We are passionate about solving tech problems by improving our products and building new things from scratch and measuring our progress based on whether we are getting closer to that outcome.
Principle #3: We prefer data over opinions
As a team, we cherish collective creativity and collective responsibility. Having multiple different ideas, opinions and feedback at the early stages of the product design process is always beneficial, as it helps us to see things from a different perspective. However, during the decision making and measuring results stages, data always comes first. Our company’s flat and transparent culture enables us to propose improvements and changes based on data rather than a manager that decides what’s best for the team without supporting their opinion with evidence.
Principle #4: We think big but start small
We are innovators. We start from scratch with the aim to build the most powerful knowledge-sharing platform in the world and rewrite the rules of our entire industry. And then we continue step by step. Rather than just brainstorming and deciding on what we think is the best new feature or product that we can launch, we take a step back and start working on the idea by breaking it down into smaller pieces. We then test it in order to collect real data that showcase that our idea is indeed valid and proceed to deliver incremental value, while making sure that we keep testing and adjusting our approach with each step.
Principle #5: We favor simple over complex solutions
We don’t fall into the trap of looking for the most complex solution just to prove that we have put a lot of work and sophistication into it. Adding unnecessary complexity leads to wasting time, creates confusion and increases frustration amongst team members. We approach problem solving by thinking that our solution just needs to be quick and effective. While sometimes the simplest solution might be the hardest to get, it’s almost always the best.
Our product principles are the fundamental values behind each of our thoughts, decisions and actions that move our team forward and lead to our success. They work as the guiding light and the motivation behind everything we do here at Dialectica and keep us united at all times. When we feel uncertain about something, confused or even frustrated we always point back to our product principles to ensure that we are still on track. By staying connected to these principles and working closely as one team we’re enabling Dialectica to be a truly industry-leading organization.
