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bluehaze92 's review for:
It Doesn't Have To Be Crazy At Work
by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
Jason Fried and DHH run their software company in a way that seems to be the opposite of typical tech startups. It’s not really different, it is a (profitable) business after all, they just have different priorities and therefore make different choices. This quote from the book sums it up nicely:
“A business is a collection of choices. Every day is a new chance to make a new choice, a different choice”
Throughout their book of short essays, they expand on the business choices they have made as they strive to create a ‘calm’ workplace, as opposed to a ‘crazy’ one. The essays are grouped into several topics:
• Curb Your Ambition – To strive for a calm workplace, forgo the mindset of ‘market domination’, chasing unreasonable goals and the idea of requiring pain to make progress. Choose
• Defend Your Time – To strive for a calm workplace, focus on quality time at work and away from work rather than tricks to push employees to burnout.
• Feed Your Culture – To strive for a calm workplace, support work happening during work hours and encourage non-work hours to be a recharging time. Drop common ideas about salary and benefits in favor of a simpler more equitable approach and offer benefits that encourage work-life balance.
• Dissect Your Process – To strive for a calm workplace, use deadlines that fix the date but vary (downward) the scope to be fair to employees impacted by bad scope management. Practice disagree-and-commit to allow all voices to be heard but not allow progress to come to a halt.
• Mind Your Business – To strive for a calm workplace, take reasonable calculated risks, focus on being profitable, do not over promise and remember that the easy part is the launch, the hard work is to stay in business after launch.
I am a software developer and I use the same programming language and framework used by the Basecamp team. I have followed their work since they were name 37Signals.com, so I started with a positive opinion of the authors and their business perspective before I read this book. The thing I appreciate most about the book is the clear, simple way they explain their priority and rational for their collection of choices. If I were to one day run my own software company, I expect to have the same priorities and I would strive for a calm workplace.
“A business is a collection of choices. Every day is a new chance to make a new choice, a different choice”
Throughout their book of short essays, they expand on the business choices they have made as they strive to create a ‘calm’ workplace, as opposed to a ‘crazy’ one. The essays are grouped into several topics:
• Curb Your Ambition – To strive for a calm workplace, forgo the mindset of ‘market domination’, chasing unreasonable goals and the idea of requiring pain to make progress. Choose
• Defend Your Time – To strive for a calm workplace, focus on quality time at work and away from work rather than tricks to push employees to burnout.
• Feed Your Culture – To strive for a calm workplace, support work happening during work hours and encourage non-work hours to be a recharging time. Drop common ideas about salary and benefits in favor of a simpler more equitable approach and offer benefits that encourage work-life balance.
• Dissect Your Process – To strive for a calm workplace, use deadlines that fix the date but vary (downward) the scope to be fair to employees impacted by bad scope management. Practice disagree-and-commit to allow all voices to be heard but not allow progress to come to a halt.
• Mind Your Business – To strive for a calm workplace, take reasonable calculated risks, focus on being profitable, do not over promise and remember that the easy part is the launch, the hard work is to stay in business after launch.
I am a software developer and I use the same programming language and framework used by the Basecamp team. I have followed their work since they were name 37Signals.com, so I started with a positive opinion of the authors and their business perspective before I read this book. The thing I appreciate most about the book is the clear, simple way they explain their priority and rational for their collection of choices. If I were to one day run my own software company, I expect to have the same priorities and I would strive for a calm workplace.