How We Work (Runa)

What we love about this handbook section

🖤 We absolutely love the detailed focus on meetings and meeting cadence & rhythm from Runa here. Also the ‘Rules about making mistakes.’ Wow. What a way to to show people that it’s ok to make mistakes. This builds psychological safety, and the meeting cadence goes a long way with applicants who care about how long they’ll be spending in meetings if they join you (trust us they care). Brilliant page from Runa! 👏

****Check out their entire handbook for inspiration here: 🔗Runa's full handbook

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How we work

We don’t like to make many rules, but we have a few simple tenets we try to work by:

Take initiative. Honestly this is the most important thing.
Share progress frequently. Try not to go away for a week or even a whole day and then come back to discuss output. Share and feedback to each other as you go.
Constant feedback. We all put a lot of hard work in, but sometime a fresh pair of eyes can make all the difference. So help each other out, give each other feedback.
Don’t assume someone is wrong. Ask why and about their thought process. We’re all on the same side, so just remember to start from a position of respect for the work the person has done
Challenge each other. We all respect each other. We’re all here to support each other in getting the best results possible. We all have different points of view, which means we can ask and challenge each other in order to HELP each other succeed. However, don’t be an asshole. Pretty simple.
Accept new ideas. Everyone should be open to new ideas about work processes, structure, best practices, conventions etc.… If we’re all open and embrace new things we can’t overlook great ideas when they do come around.
Share what you have learnt… post it on slack, start document articles or videos in categories on asana, bounce ideas of each other, let people know what you’re thinking.
Work hard. We’re in an undeniable position. It’s going to be hard work, but it will be fun. Accept that, embrace it, hard work has its own rewards, it also brings teams closer, makes achievements sweeter, and makes the times when you can relax all the better.
Work smart. If you’re performing repetitive, time consuming tasks, you might be doing something wrong. Always ask yourself, “Am I working smart?”
Progress not perfection. OK maybe not when it comes to coding, but generally speaking you’ll find it more productive and less stressful if you get a version of your objective done quickly and iterate, than agonising over getting it perfect first time. Remember, we don’t always know what successful output should look like, and usually the only way to find out is doing it first and then stepping back to reflect. Producing 80% quickly, rather than agonising over delivering perfection that might never materialise, is the preferred way to go.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. OK, things have been consistent so far, so please give us a chance to contradict ourselves. There are times when it is actually faster to take your time and get some work done slowly BUT finish it comprehensively and correctly the first time. Product planning and coding are good examples, or anywhere were data is involved. In these cases rushing usually means having to spend 3 times as long working out and fixing the issues the rush caused, rather than being able to continue building from a strong base. As always, use your judgement.
Test, Test, Test. Learn, Learn, Learn. Before you start something new, try and do it on a small scale, before spending the bulk of time/money/resources going the whole hog. Usually things will change as a result of testing and learning. Small tests help us be more economical with time and resources. For example choosing small first time print runs over ‘cheaper’ but larger order etc. Send a new email to 5 customers as a test rather than all 10,000 the first time.