Steve McConnell writes about what makes his company, Construx, the best small company to work for in Washington.
One of his points is that his ‘Technical Service Providers’ can define their own job, based on the mission and strategy of Construx.
The three constraints that the TSPs must work within are:
1. Their work needs to support the mission (Advancing the art and science of commercial software engineering)
2. They need to hit their billable revenue target (most exceed it by 50%)
3. Their work needs to meet the service quality targets (any substandard offerings are pulled)
Construx provides consulting and educational services – so their mission and strategies work for them, but not for every small company. If you know your vision (why are you doing what you do), then your mission is just what you are going to do to fulfill your vision and your strategy is how you are going to deliver on your mission.
Working through vision->mission->strategy leads to clear parameters like this to work within. Every entrepreneur defines their own job, but not always constrained to their VMS. Its quite an interesting concept to also allow employees, especially in a small company, to define their own job. With the right kind of people, then productivity, teamwork, quality, culture and ultimately profitability could all benefit.
