Role Responsibilities

[ghost]

We need a stable framework that defines where responsibilities lie in the organisation that will enable us to effectively work as a unit with efficient decision making and autonomy in specialist areas.

[ghost]

Currently it's unclear who the decision making responsibilities sit with in some areas. For example:

People / HR / Culture

• Which employee benefits should be authorised?
• When, what and how organisation operations and decision making should be made public (remuneration, hiring procedure, company finances)?
• How hiring decisions should be made - who decides when and who to hire

Finance

• Budgets for company activities
• Financial policies e.g. no spending without management accounts
• Which banking provider we bank with

Company Priorities

• Where we should focus our time and resources

Company Website

• Content, IA, focus

We need to effectively delegate these responsibilities.

[ghost]

Finance

• Director remuneration
• Financial priorities

[ghost]

+1 Company Priorities - Where we should focus our time and resources

I am still unsure as to who is responsible for this. I assume that currently it is either Inês or a joint voting responsibility of Inês, Nelson and myself.

Either way this would mean that in this case (dwyl/video#29 (comment)) this should remain a priority-2 as both Inês and I think it should. Undermining Inês publicly like this does not make for a stable working Director unit.

In summary we need a clear understanding of who sets company priorities.

[iteles]

I can answer this last one pretty quickly.

I set company priorities. Which of course I will discuss at a high level with my fellow 'directors'.
The issue you are referring to is a bad example of this as the change in priority label came with a clear, concise and polite explanation as to why it was a suggested change. There are better ones.

I agree this needs to be written down and made clear.

[ghost]

company blog

[ghost]

@iteles we should review and close this issue as soon as possible - what's a realistic time for when you can get this one done by?

[ghost]

Who is the PO for https://github.com/dwyl/process-handbook/ ? Will assume me for now

[iteles]

To be clear, we are not operating in a vacuum.

We each have job descriptions as a starting point. However, this is a startup
and therefore needs are constantly evolving and taking new shape. This can manifest
as new challenges that we didn't expect to take on (such as FocusHub) or as things
we thought were going to happen imminently but had to wait until other parts of
the organisation found their footing first (such as the time app).
Working in a startup you actually care about means everyone needs to be ready to
take on the jobs that need to be done, whether they 'fit your job description' or not.

For the record, I have noted below our original job descriptions as agreed
in early February 2017 in bullet points. To these, I have added some commentary
on examples and evolutions where relevant in sub-bullet points and as an
introductory paragraph.

These are all governed by a set of principles which we need to formalised (#407) and importantly, a set of
objectives which were added to the README of this repo 6 months ago https://github.com/dwyl/hq#one-metric-that-matters.

CEO

In essence I see this role as the person who sets the vision and direction of
the organisation and is
accountable for when things happen or don't happen. The 'CEO' is responsible for
allocation of people and money (though I think both of these steps can and should
be delegated to an extent once our financial situation is finally clear) and
building relationships with clients and partners.
In my case, I also do a lot of the day to day project work, establishing our
processes and training people to take over this role.
But most importantly, the CEO is the person in a startup who picks up on the things
that need to be done, no matter how big or small and is responsible for making
sure that they either do them themselves (even if its something like buying a doormat when
it's raining and no one else is getting it done) or more importantly, ensures
someone trustworthy and with the right skillset is actively working on that
task or group of tasks/area of the business.

Official role description from February 2017:

• Defining and disseminating the overall vision and direction of the company
• Determining the business goals deriving from this and associated timelines
• Setting and modelling company values
• Business development and relationship management with potential new partners and clients
• Building and leading the senior team to the point where hiring of staff outside of this team can be delegated
• Allocating the company’s resources
• Overseeing financial and fiscal commitments
• Publicising dwyl and its offerings through personal appearances, talks and
  modelled behaviours in the technology community
• Passing on client, stakeholder and project management skillset to the rest
  of the company through shadowing and documentation
• Evaluating the success of the company and its goals
• Awareness and dissemination of the internal and external competitive landscape

COO

There are two key things to remember in this role:

• This role is summarised as 'to support the CEO in developing the organisation'
  and is therefore ever-changing based on the needs of the organisation
  • The idea being that there are a lot of things that need to be done at a
    company that are not just the delivery of service and they are too many for a
    CEO to do alone; having a single view which is uninformed by others is also
    not always a good idea!
  • Examples of this in our case include: Capturing full time dwylers' time allocation in the short term #363, Invoicing for our work | Pain points #382
• The key thing for this role is documenting and automating as much of this as
  is possible, either to machines or utilising other resources such as virtual
  assistants or other team members

Official role description from February 2017:

• Operational Process Implementation: Create processes and operational plans for delivering the Company’s services
  • [Note from @iteles] To me, this is the most fluid of the bullet points
    and is essentially a catch-all for 'doing the jobs that need to be done' as 'operational plan' doesn't actually mean anything. A rephrasing could be: 'Operational tasks will be planned, documented and carried out as and when the
    need arises for them in the organisation', where 'operational tasks' refer to
    non-technical, non-strategic/visionary tasks that keep the wheels turning and
    are the backbone of the organisation. This includes a number of
    things described in bullet points below (such as metrics, financials, legals and marketing) but good examples of this also include solving human resources
    issues like what/how/when to provide feedback to dwylers Providing feedback to developers - what and how? #182, the dwyler handbook Create Dwyler Handbook #242, improving processes Xero capabilities and limitations implementation plan - 1 day spike #383 and
    processes for onboarding new joiners Hiring Process: New Joiner Offer Checklist #313
  • It's probably not a great one to start on as it's quite vague, but is a requisite part of the
    role
• Operational Efficiency: Develop and implement strategies for tracking metrics and improving key business
  activities, whilst increasing opportunity for the business to scale
  • [Note from @iteles] Examples of this: financial metrics Epic: Accounts, P&L, Utilisation, Estimates vs Actual #321,
    marketing metrics Implement detailed analytics dwyl-site#222 (we have none for social media yet, but should),
    progress towards goals Summary of Focus Hub Progress focus-hub#101
• Finances: Work with the Company’s accountants and administrative professionals to manage the Company’s general accounting, payments, invoices, payroll, PAYE, NI, VAT,
  cashflow forecasts, budgeting, bookkeeping, grants, tax and tax credits
• Legals: Work with the Company’s lawyers to manage and maintain the Company’s legal agreements and dealings including suitable legal documentation for client contracts, project agreements, employment agreements, contractor agreements, shareholder agreements, trademark applications, filings for Companies House including Confirmation Statements and notifications of appointment and termination of directors and issuance of shares and general corporate legal structure
• HR: Manage the human resources of the company and update and manage the
  Employee Handbook and company policies, record and maintain a database of employee details and management of the HR system, ensure the Company has suitable insurance, job description creation, management of the hiring process, onboarding, feedback system and reviews, company culture, team development, team bonding and management of OKRs and KPI targets
• Events: Organise and manage the Company’s internal and external events including invites,
  venues, food and drink, event merchandise, audiovisual recording (where
  appropriate), logistics and event post mortem reports
• Office management: Manage the office environment and inventory, asset management, office supplies and services such as internet access, printing and stationery, management of first aid and fire safety
• Clients and stakeholders: Manage and maintain relationships with the Company’s key clients and stakeholders
  • [Note from @iteles] This obviously could not happen on day one as we need
    our messaging to be congruent and there was a period of 'learning the ropes'.
    With one client relationship fully owned by this role and others interacting
    extensively in my absence, this transition is slowly being completed and needs
    to increase as time goes on
• Branding and marketing: Creation and management of branding guidelines, Company logos, fonts, colours and merchandise designs + Management of the Company’s frontend site
  • [Note from @iteles] Whereas the establishment of what the site should
    contain required more input from the group of directors as a whole given it is
    our window to the world, the management of the website project was undertaken
    as stated
• PR: Management of PR, press and media
• Product: Management of internal products
  • [Note from @iteles] dwylbot and the website fell into this category, with
    'library' being the only one that was carried out by myself because this was
    part of the apprenticeship program

CTO

• Translate the Company’s vision/mission (defined by CEO+team) into a Technical Roadmap.
• Set technical vision/direction for the team: https://github.com/dwyl/technology-stack
• Build the Product(s) that achieve the vision/mission: https://github.com/dwyl/start-here#what
• Ensure that our technology and product is fit-for-purpose (a joy to use, maintain & scale)
• Ensure technology choices are captured and clearly communicated. technology-stack/issues
• Acquire & share technical knowledge https://github.com/search?q=org%3Adwyl+learn
• Mentor existing and future team members: Enlightenment on Higher-Order Functions (components) learn-redux#40
• Define the workflow for the technical team: https://github.com/dwyl/contributing
• Foster an online/distributed/remote learning culture/community and fuel innovation!
• Assist/advise other members/partners with technology decisions when requested.

[iteles]

Early stage. [...] It's probably less than 20 people on the team. There's not necessarily a product/market fit.
Here it's really great if you're a generalist. If you're enthusiastic about the product and the company and you're comfortable with extremem ambiguity.
[...] The super-skill here is being the jack of all trades because you actually can be the operations person and the customer service person and the marketing person because there are only five people on your team.

~ Eurie Kim, Forerunner Ventures

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