About This Handbook
The Meetball Recipe: How we work
We call our Handbook the "Meetball Recipe", because we document pages as we need them, just as you add a touch of salt and pepper to make a meal even better. As we make decisions relating to how we work and the kind of company we want to be, we document it here, to make sharing information efficient and easy.
The handbook exists for for one single reason: make it possible for us to build great stuff with other people. If it becomes a blocker (to collaboration, motivation or great work), it has to be changed. That is why it's open for anyone to suggest improvements.
Future Meetball contributors and team-members won't see discussions about process changes that happen before they join and most of the people who will eventually join Meetball will likely not have heard of us yet. The handbook was our way of ensuring that all of our company information is accessible to everyone regardless of when they became part of the team.
Why our Handbook is Public
We are sharing out handbook publicly (and Open Source) because:**
- The way we are building this Startup challenges many conventions realted to the Future of Work and how to build a startup, and we have a growing number of founders and organisations interested in adopting our way of working.
- We don't have it all figured out, so we welcome anyone who can contribute to designign the best possible way to run a mission driven company that has a positive impact in the world and where people find fulfillmemnt on their individual personal journey. We interview and work with the leading experts in every page of our handbook. All driven by a shared desire to impact the world. We have to be open.
- As other companie help us shape it they can adapt and use it as it suits them.
Advantages
Because we will document everything, our handbook will become extensive and keeping it relevant is an important part of everyone’s job. That is why each page has a Maintainer (the person responsible for the relevant role defined in the Handbook page).
It is a vital part of who we are and how we communicate. We established these processes because we want to work effectively and well together.
Reading is faster and async, you don’t have to interrupt someone or wait for them to become available. Talent Acquisition is easier if people can see what we stand for and how we operate. On-boarding is easier if you can find all relevant information spelled out. Teamwork is easier if you know how other parts of the company work. Discussing changes is easier if you can read what the current process is. Communicating change is easier if you can just point to the diff. Everyone can contribute to it by proposing a change via a merge request.
Principles Over Bureaucracy
The Handbook must always be an enabler, not a limiter. One concern is that the handbook and strict documentation makes the company rigid and slow. In fact, writing down our process in the handbook has the effect of empowering contributors to propose change.
Each Page of the Handbook starts with a premise, the Principles and what we aim to achieve. If the Handbook limits us, we stick to Principles and we edit the Handbook.
Everything is in draftand open to improvements, this includes our handbook. If you have a better idea, for any page of the Handbook, you can sugges improvements/changes by a Merge Request.
Because it's sometimes easier to edit on a written page than on a blank canvas, we will lean on experience from other companies, take a page from succesful playbooks and learn from companies like Patagonia, Gitlab, 37Signals, Gumroad, Buffeer etc.