The following is the organizational framework we use to self-organize, grow our company, and enjoy our work. It outlines how we work together, complete client projects, and work towards realizing our vision.
We started out as a very small agency, but we've quickly grown to over 30 people and we continue to grow. When we were small, all decisions could be made by everyone on the team. As we've grown, it's harder to make decisions as a group.
Happily, we've managed to build our team on talent and trust, and thus we've decided to outline a framework by which we can continue grow, while at the same time retaining the culture we've fought so hard to build.
Our mission is to create genre-defining, innovative entertainment experiences that inspire consumers and create outstanding value for all stakeholders.
In no particular order, we value:
- Strong Opinions, Loosely Held
- Brutal, Respectful Honesty
- Passion, Integrity, and an Adventurous Spirit
- A Positive and Fun Work Environment
- Dedication and hard work
- Being platform and tool agnostic
- Personal Growth
- Maintaining a work life balance
- Working together
- Build community in Upstate NY
- Individual Differences
- Effectively market our passion & experience to our target customers
- Selectively expand our platform business
- Selectively expand our design business
- (Very) selectively add new partners
Each employee at MadGlory is considered a partner and participates in the governance process.
When each partner joins the company, they are hired for a specific role. Over time, they may choose to learn additional roles. The following is a list of roles as they are defined today:
- Designer
- Developer
- Producer
- Spokesperson
Guilds are small groups of people from various roles, that self organize and work towards a shared set of goals.
Each guild will have a mission and track their progress. In addition, each guild will choose a speaker to report back to the larger group.
We currently use three types of guilds.
Initiative Guilds - Organized around a specific strategic initiative, initiative guilds are charged with working on large goals that advance MadGlory as an organization as and/or the partners employed within.
Project Guilds - These guilds are organized around a specific client project. They exist for the life of the project, and typically disolve when the project is complete.
Client Guilds - As an alternative to Project Guilds, we sometimes use Client Guilds. We've identified a few cases where this type of guild is more effective.
- We are working on several concurrent projects for a single client
- A project guild is too small to be effective
- Multiple project guilds would benefit by working closer together, sharing project and organizational knowledge.
Currently we have the following active guilds1:
- Outreach
- Creative
- Corporate
- Product
We do not list client or project guilds here, due to confidentiality requirements.
Each circle uses the organizations mission, vision, and goals to define it's own goals and performance metrics. Guilds meets regularly (needs definition), and report back to the group periodically (needs definition).
Guilds may require their own budget.
Guilds may work together on some large initiatives.
Guilds can be created, and destroyed based on the needs of the organization and the interest of the partners.
This repository will contain all governance documents. Changes and proposals can be discussed, and submitted via pull-request.
The MadGlory Governance Framework is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
