TeamOps
TeamOps is a new people practice that brings precision and operations to how people work together. It’s rooted in reality and objectivity, and focuses on the behaviors that make for better teams. It’s supported by actionable tenets and concrete, real world examples.
At its heart is a belief that creating the environment for better decisions and improved execution of them makes for better teams — and ultimately, progress.
TeamOps is how GitLab scaled from a startup to a global public company in a decade. Now we’re opening it up to every organization.
The four guiding principles of TeamOps are below.
Teams must be informed by an objective, shared reality. To make informed decisions, teams must have access to shared knowledge. While other management philosophies prioritize the speed of knowledge transfer, TeamOps optimizes for the speed of knowledge retrieval.
Everyone must be able to equally contribute. Organizations must create a system where everyone can consume information and contribute equally, regardless of level, function, or location. When people don’t have the opportunity to contribute because of their background, or where they live, or their life stage, we miss out on valuable perspectives.
Decisions are the fuel for high-performance teams. Conventional management philosophies often strive for consensus and avoid risk instead of developing a
bias for action. This can result in slow decision-making. In TeamOps, success is correlated with
decision velocity: the quantity of decisions made in a particular stretch of time (e.g. month, quarter) and the results that stem from faster progress.
Teams exist to deliver results. This is about achieving objectives. TeamOps’ decision-making principles are only useful if you execute and deliver results. A result is not a one-time event; rather, delivering a result establishes a new baseline. This allows future iterations to begin. In this way, focusing on execution empowers everyone to contribute to meaningful business outcomes.
