StarterSquad is a worker cooperation of free software developers. Each worker member has equal rights in the decision making process. The decision process is based on consensus in a sociocratic manner. Decisions are not made by democratic vote, but based on arguments and by leadership recognised with in a group of worker members. Thus the formation of focused teams is fundamental to the health of the organisation.
The central organisational unit of StarterSquad is the team. Teams consist of 3 to 10 worker members, which self organise around a prioritised backlog of work. The prioritisation of work is decided on by the team based on the interests of the team members, its clients and other stakeholders identified by the team.
Clients are external entities with demand for work that can be done by StarterSquad team(s). The client relationship is established in three steps:
- define and estimate the work
- set the capacity needed
- negotiate and execute a transaction that ensures a compensation for the delivered work
After the client relationship is established, the work can begin, until the capacity acquired in step 3 is depleted. Under no circumstances is it allowed to work for a client for free or under fixed price conditions.
Team capacity can be delivered by different types of team members. Worker Members, hired guns and employees. Roles are determined by the worker members of the team based on the individual roles, merits, availabilities and preferences of the workers. All workers relationships are between a single worker and exactly one team.
###Worker Members
A worker member is a person, fully dedicated to the StarterSquad organisation. This means that StarterSquad work takes priority over other work at all times. Worker members share in the successes and failures of StarterSquad through dividend.
###Hired guns
A hired gun is an independent contractor that performs work to ensure capacity for a StarterSquad team, but is not necessarily linked to the StarterSquad organisation in another way. Hired guns do not share in the successes and failures of StarterSquad, unless they become investors. The budget for hired guns is determined by working members on individual agreement.
###Employees
Employees have the same rights as hired guns, and an employment contract in addition to that.
###Guidelines
The following rules of thumb apply in relationships between workers and StarterSquad:
- StarterSquad prefers worker member relationships over hired guns over employee relationships.
- Capacity is a tradeable resource, workers are not.
- Teams establish relationships with workers, StarterSquad establishes contracts
Before joining the team you will work with StarterSquad for a couple of weeks. During this on-boarding time you and the team can figure out if you are a good fit. After this period a voting will take place and you can be accepted by unanimous and anonymous vote by the existing members (working members & hired guns). Everyone who can vote will get a link via email. A new member starts as a hired gun.
In order to become a working member the same voting process takes place while only working members can vote. The vote must be unanimously as well.
If the relationship doesn't work out with a hired gun the working members can set the personal budget to zero.
Any worker member can split the team. The split can mean the worker member is done with StarterSquad and wants to leave, or that he wants to start a new team.
Worker members can be kicked out of StarterSquad entirely, but only with open unanimous decision in their team.
###Creating a new Team Creating a new team goes like this:
- a splitting member starts a new team.
- all team members that decide to do so can join the new team according to the join procedure.
After the split, both teams can still operate under the StarterSquad brand. Teams can also choose to brand themselves differently. In order to operate under the StarterSquad brand, all invoices need to be sent through StarterSquad Management BV. Partial re-branding is not allowed.
In StarterSquad team are not formed around projects, but work is moved towards teams. Depending on team size and project size this is an interesting challenge. Three scenario's are possible:
- one project, one team;
- multiple projects, one team
- one project, multiple teams;
From a project perspective it's either delivered by one team, or by multiple teams. From a team perspective it either has multiple clients or just one.
This is the easiest, but also the riskiest setup. It is however a good idea to start a team with one solid project. As teams mature they should grow into multi-project teams. The revenue is used to pay the hired guns, if any, and then split evenly over the worker members.
The team handles multiple projects at the same time. The output capacity of the team is applied to multiple projects at the same time. If the team gets in trouble because of the lack of focus, it's time to think about a split.
For several reasons multiple teams might need to be involved in a project. For one the project might be just too big. Another reason might be that the project requires a diversity of skills that is not found in a single team. In this case, one team takes on the project, and becomes a client of another team for some parts of it. The client always talks to a single team. It's up to the delivering team to buy capacity from other teams in a smart way.
This section describes other stakeholders than clients and workers. In the course of StarterSquad business other input than work might be needed to serve the purposes of all stakeholders best. For example advisers, mentors and investors can smoothen execution and delivery.
Sales are done mostly by the teams themselves. Under the StarterSquad brand name, invoicing will be done through StarterSquad BV. Liability insurances, marketing and other costs need to be covered by taking a percentage of the deal.
If any party is handling the client relationship and sales cycle, it will be compensated.
The selling party negotiates a price with the client, and negotiates a price with the implementing team. The difference is their fee. This can allow teams to make money by selling for other teams, or it can allow specialized sales people to make money.
###Advisors, mentors
Like hired guns, advisors, mentors and coaches have no special role. StarterSquad's values are greatly supported by interaction with external experts.
###Investors