A Collective Approach to Team Projects

Preface

For much of my career I have primarily just been an individual contributor, an IC. I'm given a task and I do it. It's entirely reasonable for most managers and leads to see my job and skills and expect it to end there. Though it's rare, I've been in teams where managers and leads have requested feedback, and adjusted processes to ensure that everything works smoothly for all contributors on a project.
I believe this strategy of giving ICs a voice in a project can lead to great boosts in not only productivity but also work ethic and attention from contributors. If you let ICs guide the project, they will have some personal ownership of it, and want it to succeed. If you silence them and use them as a tool, they're only going to care that their task is done at the end of the day.

Warning

This is a work in progress! I'm absolutely still writing this, but also, you can expect it to evolve with time, as I learn what works, gauge feedback, and try to keep my opinion from muddying the waters too much of what I believe could be a reasonable collective working environment.
This document is how I would organize a team. I don't know if it would work, I don't know if people would be on board. I am not a lawyer, I know nothing of business, I'm just a guy, so take everything with a grain of salt.

The concept

This document is written as an agreement of key values by means of consistent practices. Should the team find those practices and values lacking in any way, they can be modified through a voting method.

Terminology

Term Definition
Active Project The project the team as a whole is working towards finishing.
Key Value A value the team agrees to, what we stand for as a team.
Living Document A document regularly kept up to date.
Process The series of actions or steps we take to meet the expectations of our key values
Team chat A group messaging chat with all members of the team in it. Think "A Discord channel restricted to only team members"

Key Values

Every member has a voice.

  1. Through Decision making via voting, we ensure every member has a say in every team-level decision.
  2. Through An actively evolving agreement, we ensure our processes meet our key values

Every member is on the same page.

  1. Through A living document for team-level priorities, we ensure everyone is aware of which decisions are being made, and what the primary focus is.
  2. Through Transparent financing, we ensure everyone has reasonable expectations of how much we can afford.

Work-life balance is non-negotiable.

  1. Through Respectful asynchronous communication, we ensure everyone can work when they can do their best.

Processes

An actively evolving agreement

If the team finds any of these processes or key values harm more than help, they can be changed. This document can be modified, and a decision of whether or not to go forward with the changes should be voted on.

Respectful asynchronous communication

Team Chat

  1. The primary communication method should be through a team chat, allowing members of various time zones to read up and see what they've missed.
  2. The team should do their best to organize chats into channels or threads, to ensure members of a particular skill know where to look for information that pertains to them.

Private Chats and Meetings

  1. The team should refrain from having private conversations about team decisions, as that may lead to needing to reiterate context that would've been already handled if it were a public conversation.
    1. Private chats should be truly private, keep work chat public for all members to be kept up to date and on the same page.
  2. There are decent reasons to have meetings, though like private conversations, it requires people to be there or they miss out on context.
    1. Meetings should be optional, rare, and preferably fun.

Public chat

  1. Public communications should be friendly, respectful, and understanding. As a team, we represent each other.

A living document for team-level priorities

A living document should exist to answer the following questions.

  • What is the current Active project?
  • What are the current decisions to be made?

Decision making via voting

Two-choice

If the choice is a simple A/B option, such as yes or no, or deciding between two options

  1. Members chose either A, B or Abstain
  2. Tally up all votes, majority wins.
    1. On the case of a tie, discuss more and try again.

Multi-choice

If the choice is between many options, such as between a list of options:

  1. Members are given x/2+%2 votes, where x is the amount of option. for example: given 5 options they're given 3 votes, which they can distribute as they wish. [3,2,1,0,0], [3,0,1,1,1], [1,3,0,0,1]
  2. Once all votes have been distributed, tally up all the votes
    1. If there's a majority winner, that is chosen as the option
    2. On the case of a tied majority, divide the amount of options by removing the bottom voted choices (rounded down) and revoting.
      1. If only two options are left, use the 2 choice voting system described above.

Transparent financing

Using Open Collective to manage finances will ensure that our income and spending is visible to all.