All Cantilever production work is organized by project. Projects are collections of work-to-be-done that are centralized based on a common topic, theme, or discrete initiative.
There are two leadership roles on each project: Strategist and Project Manager.
The Strategist is the “Directly Responsible Individual” who is accountable for achieving the target outcome of the project, while the PM is responsible for making sure the project is running according to our methodology. The two must work hand in hand to ensure success.
Everyone in production needs to know this system, not just people who play those roles. This framework is meant to provide structure and consistency to our work, not to stifle it or make it robotic. Within the boundaries of this system, creativity should be allowed to flourish.
Our approach is clear and standardized in order to foster autonomy and creativity in the execution of the work.
Workflow Principles
- We value taking ownership over waiting for instructions. The most important thing is that our work gets done, not who does it.
- We have a consistent process for running any project (internal or client-facing). The process is not overly prescriptive and should allow for flexibility and improvisation, but there are certain core principles that all tasks and projects should share.
- While we all focus on specific areas of the company and client relationships, the Core Team is collectively responsible for the outcomes of the whole company.
- We don’t restrict access or visibility to projects and information within the team. The full Core Team has access to most company information, and Contributors have significant visibility as well.
Golden Rules
- Each client has a “Strategist” and a “Project Manager” who collaborate to gather and organize the work
- Team members are accountable for the work they have agreed to deliver – even if parts of that work must be done by someone else.
- We use Asana to track our tasks and projects.
- Tasks should represent the problem Cantilever is solving or the outcome Cantilever is seeking to achieve, not each individual action we need to take to get there.
- Team members are responsible to deliver work by the agreed due date, or negotiate a pushback with the PM.
- Most design and development tasks should have some kind of approval process, such as approval from QA to verify that work is bug-free.
- Cantilever communication is asynchronous by default. We use various software tools to communicate as appropriate to the use-case and the project.