Not Values
Last month I wrote about Focus, which is one of the Scrum Values. I don’t think I’d write about the remaining 4 values, but thinking about them made me reflect on Odd-e’s company values: we don’t, exactly, have “values”.
Instead we have what we call the “Not Values” — things we shouldn’t do. As I understand it, we went with listing the things we shouldn’t do as it was easier to do that. It turns out the Not Values were more concrete, and more effective in guiding us in what we do everyday.
One fairly unique Not Value is to “Never let others control your schedule”. A few years back I attended a Certified LeSS Practitioner workshop in Singapore. It ran from Tuesday to Thursday, so I flew in Monday night after spending the day with a client, and was back at their office Friday, having arrived back in Manila just a few hours before. I complained about how tight things were, until a colleague pointed out that I could have decided not to design my week like that. He was right.
I turn 7 years in Odd-e in a few weeks. We see the company as an experiment in doing organizations differently, and have our own set of benefits and challenges due to this. We pass on this institutional knowledge through our Gathering and Campfire sessions — like the one pictured above. We don’t always have the answers, but we are in a situation that allows us to find one that works for us as a whole.
