As a team grows, it's useful to outline its values and the way it works. This is our team's attempt at that.
- We are researchers who aren't academics.
- University research needs more than papers to succeed and help society.
- Superstar team and processes, not superstar people.
- Radical openness.
Explanations:
- We are researchers who aren't academics. Research is far more than publications. We help round out the skillset that high-performing teams need, even if we aren't directly involved in publications.
- University research needs more than papers to succeed and help society. Software, data, and general skills are important university impacts. We recognize this and help to keep it going.
- Superstar team and processes, not superstar people. "Superstar" isn't a good term because it glorifies single things, but our society works because all the parts work together. Even our team only works because it's a part of a broader university, national, and international ecosystem. But still, if we have to say something is our "superstar", it's the way our team works together (people+processes), not any individual people.
- Radical openness. We are open by design, there are few reasons to hide our work. Something doesn't have to be perfect to be findable. We also want to set good examples for the university community.
- Remote first so that everyone can participate.
- Working at the speed and chaos of the research.
- Garage binds all our work together.
- Work is quite independent but we always help each other first.
- Technology is harder than it should be.
- Helping people use technology is hard. We work hard to get good at it.
- No private messages so we can work together.
Explanations:
Remote first so that everyone can participate. We are professionals in the middle of our careers. We have many things going on besides work, which we need to allow people to work around. All of our core activities should be attendable remotely, so that our team members will never have to choose between their personal life, health, etc. and taking part in the team.
On the flip side, we understand the need for team connections and try to have good team-building and customer-interaction events, in-person and otherwise.
Working at the speed and chaos of the research. Research is fast-paced and agile. We acknowledge this and try to work at that speed, getting stuff done at the right speed for research and development, even if it's not the perfect solution long-term. We take these short-term lessons and work to make proper long-term solutions once the patterns emerge. We can work this way because we are close to the research.
Garage binds all our work together. The :doc:`/help/garage` session is a time our team can come together to help others, but also help ourselves. It allows us a time to chat with each other (internally) without having to book a meeting every time. Garage attendance isn't required every day, but people should come when it makes sense.
Work is quite independent but we always help each other first. Even though we work very independently, we are a team. We should take the time to help each other first, since that keeps the whole team running smoothly.
Technology is harder than it should be. These days, computing is in every field (that's why we are here). But computing is harder than it should be: there is so much stuff to learn, user interfaces can be so esoteric, and there are so many different paths to people's final goals. We acknowledge this and support users where and how they are. We should never blame users for not knowing enough, but blame the technology for being so difficult to use.
Helping people use technology is hard. We work hard to get good at it. Continuing from the above, it takes skill to help others with technology. It's easy to fall into traps of user-blaming or getting frustrated. We need intentional effort and practice to be the best supporters we can be.
No private messages so we can work together. It's easy to think "this is just noise, I will send private messages". But that means that only a few people can answer and no one else learns the solutions. Use public channels to ask generic questions instead of choosing a recipient and asking them. Zulip chat is good at organizing lots of information without a person needing to read everything. Of course, purely personal matters like absences, one-on-one meetings, continuing one-on-one work, is quite fine by private message.
(to be added)