The Tenets of Sustainable SuiteScript Leaders

Originally published to the Sustainable SuiteScript newsletter.

Previously I shared my Pillars of a Sustainable Software Practice in the professional services space.

Each of those Pillars is formed from beliefs and behaviours shared by the leaders of such teams.

Invest in your people first

• We define success with employee engagement and repeat clients.
• We work reasonable, predictable hours and take regular vacations.
• We do not negotiate salaries because we pay top dollar and publish such.
• We hire to expand our perspectives and our capabilities, not only our capacity.

Cultivate valuable, visible, accessible expertise

• We develop deep, unique, valuable expertise, and we share it generously.
• We measure growth with profitability, not revenue or head count.
• We charge fees appropriate for the value of the outcomes we deliver; we do not bill for the hours we put in.
• We allow our leaders to focus on enabling their team instead of working inside it.

Question and learn continuously

• We enable, encourage, and thrive on frequent feedback.
• We invest continually in the personal and professional development of our teams.
• We create new leaders, not new technicians.

Be intentional and habitual in delivering value

• We do not agree to deadlines before a project starts.
• We debate, decide, and document our conventions, then we automate them.
• We diversify our services beyond writing code.
• We advise, consult, and build; we do not take orders.

-EG