This is our guide for how we do our best work together. We update it regularly as we continue to grow and flourish.

Traditions

We take the time to feed our sense of community with a few traditions.

• We keep our lives in perspective. We prioritize work-life balance and understand the expectations of life outside of work.
• We appreciate each other. At the end of our company meetings, we reserve time for shout-outs and recognition.
• We feed our curiosity. We hold a regular Book Club to learn more, discuss, challenge, and enjoy each other’s perspectives.
• We value time. We regularly reassess the need for meetings and create time for intense and planned focus. #workwithpurpose
• We reflect weekly. Friday afternoons we write our weekly reflections, then we enjoy time together. As part of our company meeting, we collectively read and react to each other's reflections.

Our Working Style

We work together with intention and hold a few things sacred.

• We take a remote-first approach to collaboration. While we value the time we have together in person, we believe that remote-friendly practices benefit us all.
  • We give reasonable notice ahead of scheduled meetings, even when they fall within "core hours" (9 - 4 Pacific Time)
  • We're biased towards asynchronous communication.
  • We communicate intentionally. We make sure everyone can reference a conversation's outcomes, whether they were present in the discussion or not.
  • We work in the open. Use open Slack channels to be inclusive. See Bold Transparency value.
• We write down what’s important. We need to move fast, but we understand that writing down decisions and other important details allows us to move faster later when we need to recall why or what. We respect the various workflows for our different roles and ensure information is cross-linked in the right tools so it’s easy to find later.
• We have good meeting habits. #workwithpurpose Can we not have the meeting? Cool, let's do that! Or, at the very least, have the meeting with the smallest number of people possible. Decisions are rarely made in meetings, but they can be a good place to help guide decision-making or to communicate a decision. See: Meetings: Team Agreements

Culture

• We believe that taking regular time off is important. Employees accrue 15 days of vacation per year. To encourage everyone to take vacation, the maximum balance that can be accrued is 15 days. In general, negative PTO hour balances are fine. Please work with your manager if this comes up. Whenever possible, your requested PTO time will be accommodated. Please notify your team and manager as early as is feasible of your vacation plans so that product deadlines and production system coverage plans can be discussed and handled. We use Gusto to manage PTO requests: Request paid time off – Gusto.
• We prioritize an inclusive culture. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are extremely important and an integral part of what we're building at Koan. We understand this is a journey and are always seeking ways to be better and improve.
• We treat 1:1s with care. Whether with each other or a manager, 1:1 conversations are important. When it’s between manager and employee, the agenda is owned by the employee; it's also a place for the manager to provide coaching. About once a month, it's a good idea to mutually check in on the "bigger picture." When we make commitments to one another in 1:1s, we hold one another accountable to them week to week. Asking for direct and honest feedback is critical, as is giving it. If there's something you're holding back, dig into that … don’t let it fester.
• We practice what we preach. This includes:
  • Completing our reflections as scheduled
  • Addressing (or re-assessing) "at risk" goals
  • Using Koan to achieve our goals and keep us close to the product (we eat our own dog food!)

Meetings: Team Agreements