Why TribalScale? The Great One sent me
By Angus Frame
The Gospel According to Wayne Gretzky, which is taught to all Canadians, quotes The Great One beseeching all of us to “skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.”
While arguably overused, the quote holds more true in the ever-changing digital era than it did during number 99’s heyday. The successful players need to spend energy getting to the destination even before the destination is fully understood.
This is what led me to the team at TribalScale. The core founders at Tribal have their eyes firmly fixed on working with innovative clients to create a uniquely connected future. And they have the talent and discipline to get there first and better than anybody else. This combination of a clear vision backed by daily executional discipline, talented engineers and solid core values persuaded me to join The Tribe as they forge this new frontier.
The Vision
In the near future, billions of objects and devices around the world will be connected, generating data that has the potential to make our lives better. But somebody needs to take that potential and make real, usable applications out of it. This is what TribalScale does.
I first came to know the leadership team at Tribal while they were busy at the legendary Toronto app shop Xtreme Labs: They are the team that accelerated the mobile revolution more than half a decade ago. Xtreme saw the mobile revolution early and quickly grabbed a leadership position. At Tribal they see the next wave: Connected devices, wearables, sensors and the entire IoT (Internet of Things) transformation — many of the applications built on top of this revolutionary infrastructure will come from the talented team at TribalScale.
The Values
Values matter. They need to be written down, discussed and lived every day. The core values at TribalScale align with my personal values and expectations for any organization.
- Empowerment. All members of the team have the power and ability to contribute to the success of the organization in a supportive environment that embraces failure (while constantly driving for more success).
- Meritocracy. Hard work is rewarded. Everybody is encouraged to earn their place through the value of their contributions.
- Transparency. Honest openness with colleagues and clients is a cornerstone of the organization. Transparency breeds trust, and trust is the hallmark of any successful team.
The Process
A disciplined process creates the framework where a great vision backed by strong values can become exceptional work. Tribal follows the core tenets of agile software development and has been following the process for long enough that it is down to a science. The ritual of daily stand-ups, the focus of paired programming, the expectation of weekly demos to showcase shippable software all drive a speed and quality of work that is unparalleled.
I have spent more than seven years implementing, studying and fine-tuning agile processes and the team at Tribal get it, live it and are showing the success that agile done right can deliver.
So when people ask me: “Why TribalScale?” my answer is simple: Wayne Gretzky sent me.
Angus Frame has more than 15 years of leadership experience in the digital media space, shaping digital news products in every new-media epoch: Web1.0, Web2.0, Mobile and wearables. Now he’s keeping up with a new Tribe as the Digital Evangelist at TribalScale.
