Operational Guidelines

Everyone, Everyday

• FIX ISSUES

  No detail is too small or too insignificant to be left unresolved.

• COMMUNICATE BY WRITING ENGLISH

  Our team is diverse culturally and linguistically, distributed geographically. It is mandatory to communicate in English. Prefer written form (email, Instant Messaging, etc.) whenever possible.

• DEFAULT TO GROUP COMMUNICATION

  Mass publication is the default behavior that support our distributed organization. Code, diagrams, marketing documents, leads, everything goes either in a public git repository or on the backstage Website. Let recipients organize their feed and choose information relevant to them.

• DEFAULT TO PUBLIC PUBLICATION

  Keeping information private requires a constant investment in security. Inbound recruiting and marking is better served by transparency. Open source is fundamental to our economic success.

  Most parts of the infrastructure are open sourced as stand-alone projects. Market research and interpretation are published. If someone else is willing to put the parts together they are welcome to do so.

  Of course, customer-owned information, sales leads and business dealings are private. We also keep credentials, API keys, and deployment infrastructure private for obvious reasons.

Cybersecurity

• PASSWORD MANAGEMENT

  Use a different password for each third-party Website or App. Do not use Social Login to register to a Website or App.

  Each password must be at minimum 10 characters long, contain a lower case letter, an upper case letter, and a digit. Add a special character (ex: '_', '#', ';', '/') whenever possible.

  For highly sensitive accounts, we recommend you commit the password to memory. If your memory is not as good as it used to, use a random string printed on a train ticket, a cereal box, etc. - i.e. any object that you keep amongst inconspicuous objects in your house.

  For other accounts, use a local (i.e. on your machine, not backed up in the Cloud) password manager. Each password must be at least 23 characters long, contain a lower case letter, an upper case letter, and a digit. Add a special character (ex: '_', '#', ';', '/') whenever possible. On MacOSX, we recommend you use the Keychain.app as a password manager.

• MULTI-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION

  Whenever available always enable Multi-factor authentication (MFA) on third-party Websites and Apps. When given the choice, prefer OTP codes. You can store the OTP secret code in Keychain, Google Authenticator, or on encrypted storage (ex: `oathtool --totp -b {secret}` on the command-line).

• SSH AND API KEYS

  As an application developer or an operations engineer, you will have multiple automation tools running on your local machine, using longed-lived SSH and/or API Keys. First, make sure you really need the convenience of not typing a password or one-time code (ex: if you are pushing a new release to Pypi once every two months, do you really need a long-lived API key?). Second, ensure that the disk those keys are stored on is encrypted (ex: make sure FileVault is turned on in OSX). Third, check file permissions are as restrictive as possible.

• STOLEN OR LOST DEVICE

  If a device you store credentials related to working with DjaoDjin is stolen or lost, please immediately contact us.

We encourage you to browse through Cybersecurity resources and training in the context of a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Cloud business.

Managing Goals

Keep your eyes on the target. You cannot manage time. You can solely manage actions.

• ONE STEP EVERY DAY

  Make a list of everything you want to get done the next day. Pick one (and only one) thing you must absolutely complete and you are not going to bed before it is done. Worse comes to worse that is the only thing you will do Today but it will be completed by day's end.

• YOUR HEALTH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ASSET

  Never forget to include lunch and dinner into your schedule.

• SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF

  Keep a list of actions you should get done by a specified date, especially for the little tasks that must be done but easily forgotten (reply to a specific e-mail, send a check to a provider, etc.).

• SHARE WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

  Keep a list of actions towards the goals you would like to get done. When re-evaluating the goals, it is good to organize that list in meaningful buckets then order those buckets into a priority list. Communicate priorities to everyone involved. Use the actions in the associate bucket as a framework of what success looks like.

• RE-EVALUATE PERIODICALLY

  Schedule time regularly (once a day, once a week, once a month) to look at the goals. Are the conditions and time-frame under which each goal is meaningful still valid?

• IT IS OK TO BE OFFLINE

  Schedule time for online social activities (e-mails, twitter, etc.) and close off all connectivity applications outside those time periods.

Presentations

• REMEMBER WHY YOU ARE PRESENTING

  There are usually two contexts: Either you are you delivering information or you are requesting a specific action. Either way you should have a framework in place to measure the results of a presentation.

• KEEP IT SHORT

  We are not in show business. Even if you deliver an entertaining performance, most people will feel robbed of their time when there is only superficial content. Longer presentations give you more chances to mess up. Keep it short.

• BE SPECIFIC

  For example, use Thursday instead of tomorrow and include the time-zone with every date and time. When you request an action, ask for it explicitly. Corollary: when you ask for two actions, results will be random.

• PROVIDE CONTACT INFORMATION

  Always include a pointer to your Website, your direct e-mail address and an offer to engage in further dialogue with anyone interested.

• REMEMBER THE MEDIUM

  Either it is emails, videos, recorded or live, each medium has its own constraints and best practices. Make an habit to have two presentation decks, one for live presentations and one for sending by e-mail (20 slides max).

• KNOW THE MATERIALS

  Nothing beats training day-in day-out. Be prepared and know the key part of your speech.

For in-person presentations, use Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule:

• 10 slides

• 20 minutes

• No font smaller than 30 points

Specific guidelines

The organization and operational guidelines for the customer success team are outlined in the Customer success workflows.

The organization and operational guidelines for the technical team are outlined in the Software Development Process.