Turning our Vision to Reality — How we work on becoming the best place for techies
Our vision is to become the best place for techies. Naturally, this is a rather abstract goal. In this blog post series, we will explain how we turn such an abstract vision into reality. Today, we will look at three concrete methods that make clear how everything we do pushes us towards the realization of our vision.
What makes us the best place for techies?
In our day-to-day work, our vision serves as a guideline for all of our actions, goals and decisions. Everything gets assessed with “Does this make us a better place for techies?”. If yes, it provides Motees with more opportunities to act on their skills and have a bigger impact on the products of the future — which is why we founded Motius in the first place. So, let us have a look at concrete methods that drive our vision.
#1: Focus on big innovative projects
On 11th April 2019, SpaceX successfully managed to land all three boosters of its Falcon Heavy rocket after launch. Two decades ago, that was thought to be impossible. But from the very start, SpaceX set out to revolutionize the industry, to shape the rocket business of the future.
In order to do that, they had to turn down collaborations with government agencies or big companies that were stuck in old technologies and routine “innovations”. You simply cannot build reusable boosters when you work with partners that rely on technology from the 1970s. But how does this short field trip relate to us?
Well, cutting-edge technologies are part of the Motius DNA. Specializing in those technologies allows us to do what we want to do: build the products of the future and have an impact on it. Also, it turns out to be very attractive to talented and motivated Techies: radically innovative projects are what they are interested in the most.
So, in order to be the best place for techies, we constantly need to have highly-innovative and attractive projects for Motees to work on. This also means that sometimes we have to turn down projects for the simple reason that they are not innovative or not impactful.
The projects that help us to realize our vision are bigger, long-term, radically innovative projects with the possibility to apply the newest technologies and thereby shaping the future. This is the sweet spot we aim for. And it is the sweet spot for the best techies, too.
Consequently, if we want to be the best place for techies, we cannot — just an example — focus on building traffic lights with increased energy efficiency. Instead, we need to focus on building really smart poles. And that’s exactly what we do.
#2: Creating room for curiosity
In our opinion, curiosity is a key to innovation. So is our Motius Discovery Camp. It is organized like a barcamp — an open conference with open workshops where the participants themselves determine the content and process of the conference.
For that, they first have to propose topics. Since the whole point for us is exploring, learning about and implementing the newest technologies, topic proposals have to meet three criteria:
- The technology is new, i.e. a corresponding paper was just released, an Open Source tool was just published etc.
- The technology has new potential, for instance when an old algorithm can finally be implemented because new tech developments allow it
- It is realistic that we draw an informed conclusion about the discovered technology within the given time.
The Discovery Camp is part of the whole Motius Discovery Concept which continues with working slots and a conference day. The process goes as follows: we first gather project teams around the topics which explore them throughout several hackathon-style working slots. Then, it all peaks with a conference day on which teams explain their technology, share their learnings, and demonstrate what they built.
In pursuit of our vision, this is how we innovate, stay close to the newest technologies and foster self-development. Needless to say that it also helps us to increase our employer attractiveness which in turn gets us the best techies which then makes us an even better place for techies. Just like ELU was, it is also closely tied to our company values. The graphic below gives you a hint at what kind of stuff we built in previous ELU rounds.
#3: Decentralization and Flat Hierarchy
At Motius, we do not pursue top-down management — it is not our style. Instead, we want to foster collaboration, empowerment and a strong community. And by saying that we want our techies to have an impact, we do not just mean the external world but also within the company. That is why we apply different decentralization methods.
#3.1.: Team performance management
One very important measure was to tackle manage team performance in a personal, fair and transparent way.
To do so, we built our own team performance management system. Through answering the following questions, it ensures maximum personal growth for Motees:
- How can we create a company-wide understanding of the different roles and clear expectations for each Motee?
- Being decentralized, how can we ensure that each Motee can benefit from an individual performance review in order to stay aligned with our growth mindset?
- How can we translate that performance review into the best possible yet individual feedback and create a personal development plan?
For instance, in tackling the first question, we created competence models and a special rating system for these competencies. Combined with the Motius Talent Journey (see below), Motees have a clear prospect on personal growth and know exactly which competencies they have to develop in order to grow.
If you want to know more about our team performance management system and how it enables managing a decentralized organization like Motius, check out this blogpost right here.
#3.2: The Motius Talent Journey
One of the three main objectives this year was the structural re-engineering. The goal? Improve the overall Talent Experience with a dedicated Talent Journey from the Talent Pool to the Core Team.
Motees (and techies in general) come from a wide range of fields. Although they are similar in many aspects, they are also very different from each other, just like we all are. For example, we all have somewhat different needs and desires in our work environment and careers. Obviously, we need to take that into account. So in order to combine individuality with a clear picture for the future, we created a roadmap for Motees: the Talent Journey.
As you can see above, the Talent Journey consists of several branches and paths. It serves as a blueprint for Motees to see how they can grow with(in) Motius. Based on extensive discussions with our Motees, we defined several tracks that fit the needs of techies: from being a tech specialist and driving technical expertise in our hubs to owning project management and sales activities for R&D projects.
This helps techies to realize individual careers based on goals, dreams and aspirations. Want to know more about the Talent Journey, the underlying challenge and the key ideas we built it on? Check out our last blogpost!
Towards the best place for techies
Based on our core values enabling, creating, curiosity and community, we decentralise strategic work, decisions and processes. Does this make us a better place for techies? A clear yes on that!
First, the Talent Journey reflects how we promote personal and company growth similarly. Moreover, for personal development and innovation, our own team performance management system and the Motius Discovery Camp are crucial. Last but not least, we focus on innovative projects because we cannot bear to work on projects that do not fit our vision.
With all of this, you can now see how everything we do pushes towards becoming the best place for techies. In the next blog post, we will take a closer look at why the Talent Journey is how it is, we will show you the underlying ideas and principles. In the meantime, check out our current job openings to find your spot at the best place for techies!
