octopusdeploy / people

| Public | Describes our culture and our people

Octopus People

This repository describes the culture we strive for at Octopus, recognising our culture is the sum product of our people, the way we behave towards each other, and the behaviours we tolerate.

It defines what we appreciate about the people we work with on a daily basis. It helps us champion each person's individual growth. It helps us hold each other accountable for upholding our cultural values. It helps us have fruitful one-on-one conversations.

It's a living document, maintained by the very people it affects.

It's the anchor point used through hiring, feedback, performance reviews, promotions, and salary benchmarking. Learn more about how we approach Career & Compensation in the Octopus Handbook.

How to use this tool

This document should act like a tuning fork and provide encouragement for personal growth. It is broken down into a few sections:

1. Everyone defines the overall culture of Octopus and ways each person can strengthen that culture.
2. Leadership defines the Octopus leadership principles.
3. Other sections build on top of these cultural norms for specific roles.

When seeking feedback, it is typical to focus on your current role and any role you are aspiring to. This helps identify your strengths and areas to improve.

Defining characteristics and examples

We have identified several defining characteristics about each role at Octopus, and provided some concrete behavioural examples to explain what we mean. For example:

---

DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC I play my part in building effective teams

• Example I am confident to take risks, ask questions, and offer new ideas.
• Example The people around me feel confident to take risks, ask questions, or offer new ideas.

---

How to rate yourself

Rate yourself at the defining characteristics level so it's not too hard to maintain over time; the examples act as a frame of reference for the rating.

If you're aiming for a promotion or a different role, rate yourself on both your current role and your desired role. Looking at the desired role will provide clarity about gaps you might need to fill or grow into. You should discuss your appetite with your manager so they can provide feedback on your goals.

Let's use simple terms for the ratings:

• Performing: "You're great at this! You're doing exactly what we expect of someone in this role and level. Keep up the great work!"
• Exceeding: "In this area, you are exceeding what we expect of someone in this role and level."
• Maturing: "You've got some growth required in this area, but the trajectory is good. Here's some supporting suggestions, take them or leave them - it's your call." [Alternatively, if a coaching opportunity has been identified] "Let's develop a coaching plan to help ensure you are setup to succeed on your maturing journey."
• Improvement needed: "You've got some growth required in this area and the trajectory isn't good. Let's work out a improvement plan and turn this around together."

Things the feedback recipient might think

When it comes to personal growth:

• I want to get insight from someone’s real-life experiences, and from them mentoring me as I grow.
• I want ideas and opinions from someone I’ve worked with and can trust to be both candid and fair.
• I want feedback based on real-life examples rather than third hand conversations from afar.
• I want suggestions for a coaching plan that helps me grow as an individual.
• I want to talk to someone about my goals in Octopus and get help achieving those goals.

When it comes to salary review and promotion:

• I’d like to think that my growth/salary/promotion in Octopus is decided by people connected to my work.
• I want my salary review to be based over time, like an ongoing conversation, that way I feel like there’s been opportunity to grow and to show and measure my growth and I don't get judged only using their recent memory.
• I want to know the salary review process is fair, unbiased, and open.
• I want the salary review process to work fairly regardless which teams I belong to.

Things the feedback provider might think

When it comes to personal growth:

• As a mentor I want to provide insights to someone I’ve been working with closely, where I’ve experienced what it’s like to face the challenges they have, helping them as they develop and mature.
• I want the process to be centred around their growth as an individual person.
• I want to understand their personal goals in Octopus and help them achieve those goals.

When it comes to salary review and promotion:

• I don't want to try and recall everything I know about someone when salary reviews come around, but I'd rather have it collected as a natural by-product of mentoring a person.
• I want decisions for a person’s growth/salary/promotion in Octopus to be based on their proven growth over time, not just a because they did the right things for one month a year.

Background, Purpose, and Attribution

The concept is drawn from work Michael Noonan did at Readify in 2015, but written specifically for Octopus.

In 2014 at Readify (a software consultancy) we had a very "human resources" approach to resources people. Processes were written in language nobody really understood and couldn't apply to their daily life or personal growth. We were expected to recommend or exclude people for promotion based on our best memory of their performance during the entire year, often based on third-hand information. Personal interaction and mentoring was inconsistent.

After one of these experiences in 2015 I set out to reimagine the whole situation from my own point of view:

• I want to provide a simple breakdown of what I value most about the people I work with in the hope that most of us agree.
• I want this to read as a either a narrative or as a reference.
• I want to use language that promotes personal ownership.
• I want to use language people can identify with: more human than human resources.
• I want people to be inspired to grow personally just by reading through this.
• I want people to feel like this is achievable.
• I want this to be helpful for personal and team retrospectives.
• I want this to help when recommending people for hire, promotion, and recognition.
• I want people to collaborate on this as a living statement: it's maintained by the very people it affects.

We adopted the approach in Queensland first, followed quickly by all of the state branches in Readify, and has become a routine part of the fabric of the company.

Contributions

This is a living document, maintained by the very people it affects. You should raise issues and pull requests. Pull requests will be accepted by a peer, once it has reached reasonable consensus among the people affected by the change.