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The way a company runs is called the business model or operating system. With a hat tip to our engineering background, Axelerant's operating system is simple. Through all levels of the organization, we bind people through a common why, what, and how. The following are ways we apply them at Axelerant.

  • As an organization, we have a common purpose (why), a mission we align to (what), and shared cultural values (how)

  • A domain of authority bounds our departments and service areas, have a shared mission (why), prioritized goals (what), and success metrics (how)

  • Project teams have a shared desired outcome (why), prioritized goals (what), and expectations (how)

  • A domain of authority bounds roles (why), core responsibilities (what), and verifiable expectations (how)

Through semantics of why, what, and how, we unite our organization for success.

Making Why/What/How Practical at Axelerant

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, introduced the V2MOM over 20-years ago to focus their collective energy towards success via constant communication and complete alignment with the help of a management process based on aspects of Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures.

Much of what we do in Axelerant’s day-to-day operations is defined by V2MOM documents that tie back to our Being Axelerant, and organizational objectives. Each domain and some smaller groups have a V2MOM they jointly work towards.

The V2MOM enables Axelerant to clarify what we’re doing and then communicate it clearly to the relevant domain through these five points, which create a management framework for alignment and leadership:

Vision: Defines what we want to accomplish.

Values: Principles and beliefs that help us pursue the vision.

Methods: Actions and steps to take to get the job done.

Obstacles: The challenges and issues we have to overcome to achieve the vision.

Measures: How we measure achievement.

These five V2MOM parts provide us a guide of where we are going and understand how to get there in line with our simplified business modeling.

  • Why in vision

  • What encapsulates values and methods

  • How of obstacles and measures

Why Use V2MOMs?

V2MOMs work because of four underlying principles.

Alignment: Every V2MOM aligns with V2MOM, ensuring that all team members work toward the same goal. In addition, everyone can see how their work is connected to the bigger picture.

Priorities: Using V2MOMs to manage how team members spend their time and resources make it clear to everyone what tasks are most important to the company. E.g., please Don’t ask people to work on something inconsistent with their V2MOM.

Accountability: Since the V2MOM is public, everyone knows where they stand. Progress is easy to monitor and track, creating a high level of accountability.

Adaptability: Business plans tend to be static and oft-forgotten. A set of tightly linked V2MOMs makes far more sense in a fast-moving business. When you need to change direction, update the V2MOM at the highest level, and people will switch gears.

Kick-Off the V2MOM

Each domain should have a shared, high-level strategy document as part of its service handbook. This document serves as the glue for a group's mission and underlying framework towards https://axelerant.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OA/pages/1447493744/Being+Axelerant#Decision-Making.

https://axelerant.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OA/pages/2400190537/V2MOM%2BDOMAIN%2BTemplate

V2MOM Tips

Vision

The vision is the 6-month to 3-year targeted high-level context of what to accomplish.

Values

While Axelerant’s values themselves remain don’t change, there might be intentional meanings, behaviors, and attitudes of values that can change per group besides additional values themselves. For example:

  • Organization - Enthusiasm: We regularly learn, do, retrospect, iterate, and share what works.

  • Engineering - Enthusiasm: We constantly learn and improve ourselves and our ways of working

  • Excellence - Striving for top 1% effectiveness

Methods

These are ways we will go to accomplish what we’ve declared to do. These are often qualitative, inspirational reasoning, or intended behaviors of how a group will fulfill its V2MOM.

Towards focus, the number of methods should be reasonable, like no more than five. Hopefully, in a prioritized order, so we might know that precedence towards decision making.

It would be best if you considered the outcomes of methods like meaningful intent and unintended behaviors. Then, optionally, prioritize methods by department ownership, improve external interactions, improve internal operations, and develop our people.

Priority Examples

  • Encourage customer retention by providing staffing services in a consistent and meaningful manner.

  • Create a sustainable Axelerant by generating consistently profitable revenue

  • Improve cross-functional morale and engagement clarity by removing silos between teams

  • Ensure role success through clarity of role expectations

  • Increase sales opportunities because of our industry-leading quality assurance practices

  • Demonstrate Axelerant's relevance as a leader in the Drupal ecosystem

Obstacles

Recognition of the things that get in our way of our desired state of being.

E.g., Development environments change project to project; NPS data isn’t clearly connectable to projects and their team members.

Measures

Desired outcomes, measures, and metrics are used to determine when the V2MOM is a success. Typically, these are something we're working towards on an ongoing basis. One-off measures, like documentation, should be considered a method, obstacle, or outcome than a metric.

Sample Measures

The following happenstance aspects have been vetted as desired outcomes that we might measure.

  • Lean processes

  • Consistent operations

  • Useful documentation

  • Better hiring practices

  • Clear onboarding expectations

  • Integrated systems

  • Iterative improvements

  • Relevant training & education

  • Living Axelerant's EKO values

  • People skills - Certifications, Events, Training

  • Technology plays

References

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