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0.2.0 About Mattermost (90%)

Mattermost, Inc. is a company based on the Mattermost open source project. Mattermost software is used by thousands of organizations around the world in 16 languages.

Mission

Our mission is to make the world more safe and productive by developing and delivering secure, open source collaboration software that is trusted, flexible and offers fast time-to-value.

Leadership Principles

Leadership principles are deliberate choices defining our behavior. When facing complexity, uncertainty, or ambiguity (CUA) we determine our point of view and our actions through the lens of our values:

Customer Obsession: We exist to make customers successful. In everything we do, start with customer perspective and work backwards. Earn and keep their trust.
Ownership: Own the outcomes of your activity. Don’t drop the ball. When we see a vacuum on something important, we jump in – we never say “it’s not my job.”
High Impact: Align work to our shared vision and focus on those priorities. When deciding to work on low impact or high impact projects, choose high impact.
Self-Awareness: We understand and seek to understand our strengths and growth opportunities, as individuals and organizations. We are open to critique and share critique constructively and respectfully.
Earn Trust: Make decisions based on maximizing the trust of others in your judgement. Be open, self-critical, and factual. Earn and keep people’s trust.

Products and Business Model

Mattermost, Inc is a commercial open source company with a subscription-based, buyer-based open core licensing model.

Mattermost Team Edition

Audience:

Development team that wants to self-host workplace messaging in private network.

Our core product is Mattermost Team Edition offered under an open source MIT license. It’s built for a team of 10 to 50 developers and IT professionals who need to self-host a workplace messaging platform. Developer-focused features including web, desktop, and mobile apps as well as core integrations with DevOps platforms, archiving, search, and extensibility framework are offered in the open soure core at no cost.

Mattermost Team Edition is packaged as a single Linux binary that’s straightforward to install and maintain, with automated deployment from public cloud marketplaces including AWS, Azure, VMWare, and GCP.

Mattermost Enterprise Edition

Audience:

IT organization needing to self-host workplace messaging in private network for multiple development teams, or other end users in high trust environments.

Mattermost Enterprise Edition is an extended version of Mattermost Team Edition offered under a proprietary license priced with a user-based annual subscription. It offers features designed for IT organizations to manage multiple teams of developers and other end users in high trust environments with Single Sign-on, Active Directory/LDAP integration, eDiscovery support, and High Availability deployment configurations.

Different packages of commercial features are offered based on buyer needs.

Company

Mattermost is an open source, remote-first, communities-centered company based in Palo Alto, California and headquartered on the internet.

Remote-first means that the majority of our staff works from home, cottages, coffee shops, and other personal areas rather than at a shared corporate office location. Mattermost was born in an extraordinary age where remote-first organizations can attract, hire and enable remote teams to produce better technology, business process and business results in less time than office-based teams, while maintaining security and compliance standards.

Remote-first culture flourishes when we share one simple principle: Courtesy. Courtesy means Mattermosters are thoughtful about keeping our communities appropriately informed, following etiquette for discussions, calls and video meetings, and giving and receiving feedback on how to work better together. Courtesy also means we gladly accommodate those who prefer to work out of a dedicated office. We are remote-first, not remote-only.

Mindsets

Mindsets are “tool sets for the mind” that help us find blindspots and increase performance in specific situations. They’re a reflection of our shared learnings and culture in the Mattermost community and at Mattermost Inc.

To make the most out of mindsets, remember:

Mindsets are tools: Use common sense to find the right mindset for your situation. Avoid using ones that don’t fit.
Mindsets are temporary: Try on a mindset the way you’d try a tool. You can always put it down if it doesn’t work.
Mindsets are not laws: Mindsets are situation-specific, not universal. Don’t use them to debate.

When you read about great leaders, they share mindsets relevant to success in their specific situations, which differ from their peers. Remember that “advice is personal experience generalized” so be mindful about what you apply.

In this context, here are mindsets for Mattermost:

Learn, Master, Teach

Learn a new topic quickly, develop mastery (be the smartest person at the team/company/community on the topic), then teach it to someone who will start the cycle over.

If you’re a strong teacher, their mastery should surpass yours. This mindset helps us constantly grow and rotate into new roles, while preventing “single-points of failure” where only one person is qualified for a certain task.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast

When you rush to get something done quickly, it can actually increase the time and cost for the project.

Rushing means a higher chance of missing things that need to be done, and the cost of doing them later is significantly higher because you have to re-create your original setup to add on the work.

Emotion, Assumption, and Priority

Consider when two rational people disagree, the cause often comes from one of three areas:

Emotion: There could be an emotion biasing the discussion. Just asking if this might be the case can clear the issue. It’s okay to have emotions. We are humans, not robots.
Assumption: People may have different underlying assumptions (including definitions). Try to understand each other’s assumptions and get to agreement or facts when you can.
Priorities: Finally, people can have different priorities. When everyone’s priorities are shared and understood it’s easier to find solutions that satisfy everyone’s criteria.

While the emotions, assumptions, priority mindset won’t work for everyone in every case, it’s helped resolve complex decisions in our company’s history.

Likes and Wishes

An easy way to check in with team members about how things are going.

What do you like about how things are going?
What do you wish we might change?

Use these one-on-one or in a group as a way to open conversations about what to keep and what to change in how we do things.

Drafts at 1%, 50%, 99%

Being clear on expectations when asking for someone’s review can help speed and smooth the process. In this mindset, there are three types of review:

1% Draft - Completely open to ideas and changes in direction. Rework is inexpensive.
50% Draft - Half complete work. There is structure, but also a lot of room for change. Some rework is inexpensive, some is expensive.
99% Draft - Nearly completed work. Rework at this point is very expensive.

Shoulder Check

When a new owner takes over a process or a project from a previous owner, there are a finite number of “blindspots” of which the original owner is aware and the new owner will need to understand.

Using the analogy of changing lanes while driving a vehicle and learning to do a “shoulder check” for information that is not visible from standard controls, we have a process for the new owner and previous owner to jointly review processes until the transfer is complete.

Repeatedly investing in mis-prioritized projects due to a misunderstanding of requirements from project stakeholders and insufficient confirmation of intended outcomes.

Brown M&Ms

A “brown M&M” is a mistake that could either signal dangerous oversights in the execution of a project, or be a completely innocuous and unimportant error. When a brown M&M is found, aim to rule out a dangerous error as quickly as possible. Do fast drilldowns and systematic checks to see if more brown M&Ms are found, and if so, an entire project may need to be reviewed.

Examples of brown M&Ms may include:

Significant mistakes in process, consistency, or documentation suggesting lack of review or lack of understanding of the pre-existing system.
Ambiguous definitions that would make completion of a procedure difficult or unpredictable.

Correct Minimums: Medic, Field Surgeon, Plastic Surgeon

When making project investment decisions, we optimize for high impact in the context of customer obsession, empowered by ownership, while being constrained by “be proud of what you build”.

The failure case is over-investing in processes and infrastructure, stealing mana from higher priority work, reducing speed and agility for the company and unnecessarily increasing cost and bureacracy.

The objective of optimization is to invest at minimal levels for efficiency and safety while maximizing impact.

In making these trade-offs, consider the following mindsets:

Correct Minimum 1: Medic
Safely fix something that is important, broken and dangerous as fast as possible. Speed is critical - do not worry about “leaving a scar” in our architecture or business process, just own it and get it done. Solve the problem, do not overbuild.
Example: Something incorrect on our public website with more than 100 page views a month should be fixed immediately and not delayed to be done with a longer term project, such as a website re-design. If the staging server cannot be pushed, this means manually fixing production and duplicating that change on staging, rather than trying to fix staging.
Correct Minimum 2: Field Surgeon
Triage tasks that are important and broken but not dangerous, and fix the most important things with a minimum time and cost. Scarring should be a low-priority consideration–it is fine to leave scars and it is fine to spend a little energy to avoid big ones. Solve the problem for the next stage of growth, but don’t solve it in two to three stages ahead.
Example: In Mattermost, spend 2 mana to enable automated messages over 4000 characters to be broken into multiple posts instead of being rejected, which is a problem every developer hits when they attempt to output log information via curl commands.
Correct Minimum 3: Plastic Surgeon
Fix and optimize critical, high volume flows in our customer experience and product with heavy investment if needed to make high impact changes. Scars can be avoided and removed to produce a high impact result.
Example: Click-tracking traffic on about.mattermost.com and optimizing flows to direct visitors to learn about the product and downloading it is a flow that should be continually optimized.

Mini-boss, End-boss

After completing the initial draft of a project, there may often be more than one reviewer to approve changes. This may be for different disciplines to review the work (for example, both development and design teams reviewing code changes to the user experience) and it may also be for reviewers with different levels of experience to share feedback.

When reviewing significant user interface changes, code changes, responses to community or customers, or changes to systems or marketing material changes, it is ideal to have at least two reviewers:

Mini-boss: Reviewer less experienced in domain or Mattermost standards for the first review.
End-boss: Reviewer more experienced in domain or Mattermost standards for the final review for the discipline (e.g. development, design, documentation, etc.).

This system has several benefits:

The Mini-boss provides feedback on the most obvious issues, allowing the End-boss to focus on nuanced issues the Mini-boss didn’t find.
The Mini-boss learns from the End-boss feedback, understanding what was missed, and becoming a better reviewer.
Eventually the Mini-boss will be as skilled at reviewing as the End-boss, who will have nothing futher to add after the Mini-boss review. At this point, the Mini-boss becomes an End-boss, ready to train a new Mini-boss.

The naming of this term comes from video games, where a person submitting material for review must pass a “mini-boss” challenge before a “end-boss” challenge for different disciplines.

How to VPMOM (90%)

VPMOM is an exercise in awareness. When correctly implemented it results in total alignment across organizations while executing at high speed. VPMOM (pronounced “Vee Pea Mom”) is an acronym for vision, priorities, methods, obstacles, and measures and is expressed as a one-page document communicating these five areas of a strategy.

VPMOMs are the API resourcing and ROI measures at our company.

Structure

Writing good VPMOMs is a critical skill for leadership in thinking through what they are asking of their organizations and concisely laying out how the organization should operate, make choices and measure progress.

When you write a VPMOM, imagine that you’re posting it to both your organization and the company as a whole, and can have no further communication for the quarter. Your organization and its service providers within the company and outside the company, need to use your VPMOM to plan, prioritize, execute and make trade-offs during the quarter, and present to you at the end of the quarter what they have achieved based on what you have asked.

Assume your team is high performance and will aspire to 150% of what’s been required, but due to circumstances beyond their control they have achieved only 70% of what their own aspirations. Your VPMOM should ensure the right priorities were delivered, which feed into the VPMOMs across the company that depend on your success.

Vision

One sentence definition of what we want to do

This is a summary sentence to concisely communicate priorities.

Priorities

List of the most important parts of the vision in priority order

When an organization needs to make trade-offs, the VPMOM tells it to cut the lower priorities in order to achieve the higher priorities.

Methods

List of what’s needed from everyone to get the job done

Obstacles

List of key challenges to be overcome to achieve our vision

Measures

List of desired results, often numerical

VPMOM Example

Vision

Operate efficiently with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that are aligned, documented, easy-to-use and deliver value quickly

Priorities

Alignment - SOPs should clearly align to vetted VPMOMs
Documentation - All SOPs found online through web search
Ease-of-use - Experience of using SOPs is fast, obvious and forgiving
Agreement - RAPID feedback and agreement achieved
Fast time-to-value - We move faster with SOPs, not slower

Methods

Education on how to draft, RAPID review and publish SOPs
Table of Contents - Public list and link all SOPs at Operations section of handbook.mattermost.com
RAPID review - Update SOPs with RAPID stakeholder review
Onboard and train - Include onboarding, training for new and updated SOPs
SOP iteration - Measure, monitor and manage SOPs

Obstacles

Too many procedures stored in email, channels and tribal knowledge
Too many undocumented, unclear procedures
Duplicate, conflicted procedure documented
People not knowing about and/or following SOPs

Measures

All SOPs are clearly tied to a VPMOM
90% of non-confidential SOPs can be found via a web search
<5% error rate by SOP
80% of SOPs document RAPID sign-off within last 12 months
NPS of 20+ on SOPs from users due to ease-of-use and speed

Commentary

In this VPMOM “Alignment” is the top priority. We note in the obstacles that the organization suffers from duplicate and conflicting SOPs today. If there was only one thing achieved in this VPMOM during the quarter it would be aligning SOPs with VPMOMs. This is measured by “All SOPs are clearly tied to a VPMOM”

The next priority is “Documentation” with a measure of “90% of non-confidential SOPs can be found via a web search” to surface SOPs to further ensure alignment and removing conflict.

We note here that Documentation and Alignment are interlinked, and that there are multiple ways we could have priorized the two. For example, if we have gaps in VPMOMs then Alignment this period might not be feasible and we could prioritize Documentation, and we may end up documenting duplicate and conflicting SOPs, but in doing so resolve them.

When you write a VPMOM you need to decide how to prioritize the elements of your vision so that our organizations know how to make decisions. It’s okay to get things wrong once in a while so long as we are right most of the time, and we can course correct when we make a mistake.

VPMOM Template

The following template is used to lock annual VPMOMs in one page. Anything that doesn’t fit on one page should be added to the “Commentary” section at the end of the one page VPMOM.

History

One key difference is we use the term “Priorities” to describe the stack ranked priorities of the “Vision”, instead of the word “Values” which gets too often confused with a company’s “Core Values”. Also, people would get confused thinking a specific method or measure was the priority for the vision, and it became necessary to be explicit on the priority for the vision.

For example, a VPMOM for R&D may have the bulk of methods and measures on product delivery, and the Vision statement may have many elements, but when “High Quality” is clearly listed as the top priority it is unambiguous what our focus needs to be.

Also, VPMOMs are defined by Mattermost and therefore can be optimized for our business and cadence. Whereas, VP2MOMs have been used for over 20 years at different organizations, in different ways, in different eras, in different departments and when we tried using V2MOMs in the past they created too much inconsistency and confusion, despite good intentions.

Operations

Company Operations (10%)

How Mattermost, Inc. operates as a company

Company

Company Key Info

About Mattermost: Mission, vision, company overview, history
How to VPMOM: How we use VPMOMs to create organizational alignment at high speed
MLT Cadence: Cadence of Mattermost Leadership Team to develop company strategy, plan, review and adapt.

FY20 MLT VPMOM

The following section lists out the public portions of VPMOMs for Fiscal Year 2020 (“FY20”), which ends January 31, 2020:

Vision

Be #1 high trust open core DevOps-first collaboration platform

Priorities

Best people for function and culture - High performance, remote first
Openly document DevOps, product, and workplace
Time to value - Deliver value to customers and colleagues quickly
User experience - Easy-to-use, easy-to-work with
High output process - Scalable, reliable, vacation-ready processes that are efficient

Methods

Hire & onboard open source, remote-first, communities-centered team
Deliver high quality, DevOp-first collaboration and app platform
Design and scale effective customer onboarding
Deliver pipe by scaling online discovery, education, and trial experience
Build the machine to scale open core sales, direct and indirect
Operate efficiently ~~and fund growth~~

Obstacles

Under-resourced on support, on-boarding and best practices
Lack of infrastructure
Missing tools, automated metrics and reporting
Lack of recommended solutions for core DevOps integrations
Lack of core DevOps thought leadership across the company
Lack of clearly and publicly defined metrics
Lack of unified theory of the business

Measures

Top Tier sales ARR growth, net expansion and retention metrics
Choice destination for open source, remote-first, communities-centered candidates
Co-marketing with 2+ leading DevOps platforms, 2+ customer references each
Consistently achieve product NPS target
Growth in free downloads and reported trial activations
Growth in contributor community

MLT Cadence (80%)

Mattermost Leadership Team (MLT) consists of Mattermost department heads plus the CEO

This section outlines:

The VPMOM for MLT cadence summarizing purpose and measures
The operations of administrative, tactical and strategic meetings
Process for alignment and cascading communications
Process for quarterly business reviews, planning and board meetings

MLT Daily Admin

The purpose of MLT Daily Admin is to clear day-to-day administrative items from our other MLT meetings and from disruptive interruptions during the day.

MLT Daily Admin consists of:

Standup Post: A concise summary of Asks, Heads-ups, and FYIs for MLT peers from your department posted on working days
MLT Sync: A Zoom meeting for entire MLT up to 10 minutes starting at 8:31am Palo Alto time on working days.
MLT After Sync: Spontaneous cross-departmental follow-ups not relevant to entire MLT after end of MLT Sync until 8:55am Palo Alto time via Zoom or phone among MLT leaders

Topics for MLT Daily Admin

Stand-Up Post

Any time up to 12 hours before 8:31am Palo Alto time on weekdays

Before meeting use /standup command to post updates to peers in the channel of what’s important:

If you post incorrectly, use the “Edit” option to update.

Most updates will look something like this:

If there’s a lot to talk about, use this format:

MLT Sync

8:31am to 8:41am Palo Alto time

Meeting starts promptly at 8:31am SF time
Each MLT member has ~60s for updates
Meeting ends at 8:41am SF time

MLT After Sync

8:42am SF time to 8:55am Palo Alto time

8:42am to 8:55am offers 14 minutes to talk through cross-team communication and administrative items outside of meeting
Use Zoom in DM channel or phone

MLT Weekly Tactical

Process

(0:00) MLT Sync - Complete MLT Sync and queue any last items for Weekly Tactical
(0:11) Scoreboard Review - Review Thematic Goal
- Discuss red/yellows on Defining Objectives and Standard Operating Objectives
- Check that all objectives have measures and due dates
(0:45) Tactical Agenda - Discuss queued items, 5m max per topic. Choose:
- Discuss now
- Discuss later (another Monthly Strategic or at another Weekly Tactical)
- Discuss 1-1/outside of MLT
(1:10) Decisions/Actions - Summarize decisions/actions in writing
(1:20) Cascading Communications - Decide what to communicate broadly
- This includes Customer Obsession Meeting announcements

MLT Monthly Strategic

The purpose of MLT monthly strategic meeting is to achieve clarity and closure on strategic issues through review, discussion and decision on queued topics.

Meeting is monthly for 2-4 hours with Mattermost Leadership Team.
Ad hoc meetings may also be called for strategic discussions using same format.

Pre-work

(MLT) People who queue topics post relevant materials in Agenda 24 hours before meeting

Meeting Cadence

MLT reviews, discusses, adjusts as needed, and agrees on Agenda for time allotted
MLT discusses each topic and reaches decisions for clarity and closure
(20m before end of meeting) Decisions/Actions are summarized
(10m before end of meeting) Cascading Communications are agreed

MLT Planning

The purpose of target setting is to confirm targets, plan and budget for MLT departments for the period.

The MLT plan consists of:

Company and department fiscal year 1-page VPMOMs
Quarterly plan, in the context of fiscal year VPMOM
Financial plan, including revenue
Headcount plan

We’re currently focused on quarterly plans and will move to halves

Plan Expectations

Quarterly plans are locked for the quarter–Changeable only in MLT team meeting
Progress on quarter plans reviewed at the start of next quarter
Okay to reduce targets prior to 20 days before quarter end (except revenue & pipeline)
Quarterly plans are in context of annual VPMOM

Plan Process

Drafting MLT Plan

T-Minus 4 Weeks to announcement.

The following should happen within a 2 week period, with 1-2 iterations in each step:

CEO discusses company and department VPMOMs 1-1 with department heads to ensure alignment
- If applicable during the period, sales, CEO and finance set or adjust the revenue targets
People meets with department heads to discuss current and future org structure
- Include discussion on performance, potential and any FYIs
Finance works with department heads to discuss headcount and program spend budget
- Include budget variance
Department heads social plans with their teams

Review WIP Plan

T-Minus 2 Weeks to announcement.

At Monthly Strategic Meeting:
- WIP VPMOMs, quarterly plan and proposed orgs reviewed by MLT
- MLT shares feedback on each VPMOM and quarterly plan
- Cross-department dependencies documented
- Draft agenda
  - Review of MLT Plan Process
  - Company VPMOM & Q2 plan
  - Sales VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
  - R&D VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
  - Marketing VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
  - Customer Success VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
  - Finance VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
  - People VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
MLT socializes updates to high-level plan with their departments

Finalize Plan

T-Minus 1 Week to announcement

Company and VPMOMs updated given feedback
Financial plan adjusted
Headcount approvals published

Plan Shared

Week of announcement

Company VPMOM shared at all-hands
Department VPMOMs are posted
MLT presents company plan to their departments

Quarterly Leadership Review (QLR)

Each quarter we review process towards our VPMOMs and discuss achievements and opportunities.

QLR VPMOM

TBD

Quarterly Leadership Checkin

QLR is an exercise to increase output through concise, efficient review of quarterly goals for company and department in the context of VPMOMs.

Time and People

Scheduled monthly for 3.5 hours with Mattermost Leadership Team.

Prior to Meeting

Materials for QLR agenda are shared by Friday prior to the QLR meeting.

Agenda

(Each department head) Reviews quarterly goals in the context of VPMOMs, including the following (15 minutes per person):
- Goals for previous quarter
- Previous quarter achievements and opportunities
- Goals for current quarter
- Cross-department dependencies
- Hiring plan and org chart
(MLT) Break (10 minutes)
(MLT) Deep dive into GTM (90 minutes)
(CEO) Wrap-up, including follow-ups (10 minutes)

Quarterly GTM Review

QGR is a quarterly drilldown on sales, marketing and customer success in the context of VPMOMs. Agenda to be determined.

Quarterly Product Review

QRR is a review of product vision, near term roadmap and long term roadmap in the context of VPMOMs. Agenda to be determined.

Quarterly Operations Review

Review of non-GTM, non-R&D departments in context of VPMOMs. Agenda to be determined.

QBR follow-ups

As reviews happen, follow-up items are noted in RAPID format and meetings scheduled based on RAPID assignments.

Board Meetings

Between 21st and end of the month
Scheduled 18 months in advance
Board deck is sent to Board 3 calendar days before Board meeting

Meeting Structure

General session: Includes leads from Mattermost team, usually sales, occasionally CS, product
Closed session: VP Finance and CEO update Board
CEO and Board: Board gives feedback to CEO
Board without CEO: Board discusses feedback among themselves, then one board member delivers feedback to CEO

Debrief Calls

25 minute debrief scheduled with each board member same day or the day after board meeting via their admins.
1 hour debrief with MLT scheduled same day after board meeting.

Fiscal Year Planning (1%)

Preparation for the annual plan and budget for the next fiscal year begins in the second half of the current fiscal year.

Q3 Planning for next fiscal year

In Q3 we have three goals:

50% VPMOM for company and departments based on our latest thinking
Prioritized issues to solve before we lock 99% plan at end of Q4–largely coming from Obstacles in 50% VPMOM
After aligning with MLT, begin to discuss 50% VPMOMs with departments to develop into 99% in Q4

Typically there is not pressure for budget or headcount discussions in Q3, focus is strategy.

Q3 Punchlist for Next Fiscal Year Planning

The company 3-year aspirations are reviewed
A 1% MLT VPMOM for next fiscal year is drafted by CEO and reviewed with MLT department heads
Department heads draft 1% Department VPMOMs for next fiscal year and review with peer stakeholders and CEO
At Q3 Planning Offsite, MLT reviews 50% MLT VPMOM for next fiscal year developed from 1% draft
At Q3 Planning Offsite, department heads present 50% Department VPMOMs, reviewed by peer stakeholders and CEO
Action items are documented and developed around Obstacles to success of next fiscal year
50% MLT and Department VPMOMs, plus Obstacles, are presented to department leaders

Q4 Planning for next fiscal year

The focus of Q4 is arriving at a 99% draft of the plan for next fiscal with alignment across MLT and departments, with key Obstacles mitigated, and headcount and budgets reviewed.

MLT and middle managers work through key Obstacles for next fiscal year
Finance works with MLT to draft financials plan for next fiscal year
CEO works with MLT to develop MLT VPMOM from 50% to 99%
Department heads work with their teams, peer stakeholders and CEO to develop Department VPMOM from 50% to 99%
99% MLT VPMOM is reviewed by MLT and agreed
99% Department VPMOMs are reviewed by MLT peers and CEO and agreed
Plan for next fiscal year is locked based on VPMOMs

MLT VPMOM Review Process

VPMOMs, quarterly plans and proposed orgs are reviewed by MLT. Use the following order to review VPMOMs:

Measures
Priorities
Vision
Obstacles
Methods

MLT shares feedback on each VPMOM and quarterly plan. Cross-department dependencies documented.

MLT Cadence VPMOM (1%)

One-page summary on how MLT works together as a first team to meet and exceed company objectives

Vision

MLT delivers outstanding results with first-team mindset and cadence driving alignment, effectiveness and predictability

Values

MLT is our first team - Prioritize company over departments. No one fails alone
Alignment - MLT in sync on plan, priorities, process and progress
Effectiveness - We run the company well
Predictability - We make progress on plan with few preventable surprises

Methods

Strategic, tactical and administrative MLT cadence - Stay in sync, solve problems as a team
Quarterly planning process (moving to halves) - Develop, adapt and finalize plans for next quarter
Quarterly business review - As a first team, review previous quarter and align plans for current quarter
Annual planning offsite - Discuss and finalize plans for the year
Board and adviser reviews - Check-in with board and advisers to align on annual plans
Team leadership workshops - Increase organizational health by investing in team cohension
Opportunity for leadership coaching / advisers (no obligation) - Invest in our leaders

Obstacles

Need to realign natural tendency to prioritize department over company
Need to make time for MLT cadence

Measures

MLT meets and exceeds objectives
Company is excited about direction and understands their contribution
Measures, budget and program spend agreed and stable for the period

MLT Metrics (10%)

This section outlines metric definitions maintained by finance for reporting to investors.

These are metrics for MLT discussions
1. Any metrics shared by a department with the MLT will be asked to work with business operations to define the metric to be listed on this page under standardized naming and MLT definition checklist
Definitions center around ARR, GMA Magic Number and NPS

MLT definitions checklist

Qualifiers precede metrics names
1. i.e. use ""Gross Margin Adjusted Magic Number" instead of "Magic Number, Gross Margin Adjusted" to avoid ambiguity when label names are truncated
Metric names should only have one possible interpretation
All MLT Metrics should have a unique acronym shorter than 8 characters
1. Metrics will inevitably be shortened, pre-emptive definition avoids collision

ARR

Revenue Metrics

IARR: Incremental Annual Recurring Revenue (50%): (New logo ARR + Expansion ARR) - (Contraction ARR + Churn ARR)
New Logo ARR (1%): ARR from new logos signed, with start dates in the respective period.
Expansion ARR (1%): ARR from existing customers with a cross-sell/upsell deal, with start dates in the respective period (e.g. increased licensed seat count, upgrading from E10 to E20).
Contraction ARR (1%): Reduction in ARR from existing customers whose ARR does not become zero.
Churn ARR (1%): Reduction in ARR from an existing customer whose ARR becomes zero.
Net New ARR (1%): (New logo ARR + Expansion ARR) - (Contraction ARR + Churn ARR)
Count of New Logos (1%): Count of new logos signed, with start dates in the respective period.
Count of Churned Logos (1%): Count of logos lost where an existing customer is no longer paying Mattermost.

Active Users

Total Active Users: The total number of user accounts created on a single Mattermost server. Excludes deactivated accounts, deleted accounts and bot accounts. This is also the “Total Active Users” measure shown in System Console > Site Statistics.
Registered Authorized Users: Same as Total Active Users.
Total Registered Users: The total number of user accounts created on a single Mattermost server, including deactivated and deleted accounts.
Daily Active Users (DAU): The total number of users who viewed the Mattermost site in the last 24 hours. Excludes bot accounts. This is also the “Daily Active Users” measure shown in System Console > Site Statistics.
Monthly Active Users (MAU): The total number of users who viewed the Mattermost site in the last 30 days. Excludes bot accounts. This is also the “Monthly Active Users” measure shown in System Console > Site Statistics.
Active User Count: A measure of the number of active users last 24 hours. Legacy measure, do not use this for analysis or decision-making.

GMA Magic Number

GMA Magic Number: Gross Margin Adjusted Magic Number (1%): Net New ARR in a period multiplied by Gross Margin in the period, divided by total Sales & Marketing expense in prior period.
NGMA Magic Number: Non-Gross Margin Adjusted Magic Number (1%)
Gross Margin: Net sales revenue minus cost of goods sold
Cost of Goods Sold:

NPS

End User Product NPS: The Product NPS calculated among end users only (ie. not among Team or System Admins).
System Admin Product NPS: The Product NPS calculated among System Admins only.

Support

Support Metrics (E10 and E20): Metrics calculated based on Zendesk tickets opened by E10 and E20 customers. Tickets opened by non-subscribed organizations are not counted towards these metrics.
Tickets Created: Number of net new Zendesk tickets created.
First Response Time [Median, hours]: The median number of hours from when a ticket was opened in Zendesk to when the first response was sent to the customer.
% First Response >8 Business Hours: % of newly opened Zendesk tickets whose first response time is greater than 8 business hours as defined in https://mattermost.com/support/.
Resolution Time [Median, hours]: The median number of hours from when a ticket was opened in Zendesk to when the ticket is resolved.
% Resolution Time >7 days: % of newly opened Zendesk tickets whose first resolution time is greater than 7 days.
% Resolution Time >14 days: % of newly opened Zendesk tickets whose first response time is greater than 14 days.
Number of CSAT Responses: # of new CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) survey responses from customers whose Zendesk ticket was resolved.
Customer Satisfaction Score: % of newly submitted CSAT survey responses who responded “Yes” to the question .

Best Practices

To be added.

Contributors (0%)

Contributors

Contributors Key Info

Taxonomy of Mattermost Contributors

FY20 Contributors VPMOM (TBA)

New VPMOM to be added.

Staff

Staff Key Info

HR Admin: Onboarding Playbook, Offboarding Playbook, Human Resources Privacy Policy, Listings
Development: Manager Expectations, Performance Review Process, Annual Performance Review Template
Hiring: Auditions, U.S. Employees (TBD), Canadian Employees (TBD), Non-U.S./Canadian Fulltime Staff (TBD)

FY20 Staff VPMOM (TBA)

New VPMOM to be added. VPMOM in need of update: Scaling Team Mattermost

Open Source Contributors

Open Source Contributors Key Info

(Needs updating) Contributors VPMOM: Massive Community Momentum

FY20 Open Source Contributors VPMOM (TBA)

Partners

Partners Key Info

FY20 Partners VPMOM (TBA)

Research & Development (10%)

R&D includes engineering, QA, product management, and design (UX, UI)

R&D Key Info

Development & Release Process: How open source software is developed
Platform Contribution Process: How contributors can get involved
Analytics: Analytics playbook and data wallows
WIP: Feature Idea Flow Chart: Work-in-progress

Product Strategy

Analyst Research: Analyst meeting tracker, briefing procedures, research. We are currently Gartner clients.
Compete: Key articles on competitors. Also see automated feeds from competitor marketing.

FY20 R&D VPMOM (TBA)

New VPMOM to be added. VPMOM in need of update: Irresistable Solution and Platform for High Trust Teams:

Customer Success (0%)

Customer Success

Customer Success Key Info

: Customer feedback archive and Feature Idea Flowchart
: Discussion, wscalation Process, feedback form, office hour notes
: How to handle support forums.

FY20 Customer Success (TBA)

New VPMOM to be added. VPMOM in need of update:

Finance (10%)

Finance Key Info

Professional Services Procurement: How to procure at Mattermost
E-sign Procedure (Internal, TBA)
Accounting: Invoicing and Collections Playbook
Legal and Compliance: Archives
Reporting: Operating Metrics
Planning, Budgeting, Forecasting: VPMOM Process

FY20 Finance VPMOM (TBA)

New VPMOM to be added. VPMOM in need of update: High Output Operations

Business Operations (10%)

FY20 Business Operations VPMOM (TBA)

Vision Priorities - Methods - Automated deals under $5K Obstacles Measures - NPS for all purchase experiences, including renewals

Vision

Fulfill operational needs for the core business functions efficiently

Priorities

1. Customer Obsession - Know our customers and align our GTM to their journeys through data, automation and process 2. Aligned Communities - One version of data across company and community 3. Conscious Competence - Understand what's working and not working 4. Earn Trust and Iterate - Systems work and continually improve 5. High Impact then Efficient - Priorities addressed and efficiency gains follow

Methods (just starting)

GTM operations and reporting aligned to customer journey - Online & Enterprise | Community vs Commercial
Instrumented Journey - Web, products, GTM processes consistently defined & measured
Decision Support Platform - Reporting, analytics, data warehousing, automated ETL established

4. Something about data wallows/drill downs

5. Subscription Management - Purchase, renewal expansion with taxes, rev share back ends work

6. Diligence Ready - Ready for diligence on custom agreements, taxes, export regs, etc.

7. Mattermost as data platform - We are our best demo 8. Process and Documentation

FY20 Standard Operating Procedures (TBA)

Vision

Operate efficiently with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that are aligned, documented, easy-to-use and deliver value quickly

Priorities

Alignment - SOPs should clearly align to vetted VPMOMs
Documented - All SOPs found online through web search
Easy-to-use - Experience of using SOPs is fast, obvious and forgiving
Agreed - RAPID feedback and agreement achieved
Delivery Value Quickly - We move faster with SOPs, not slower

Methods

Table of Contents - Public list and link all SOPs at Operations section of handbook.mattermost.com
RAPID review - Update SOPs with RAPID stakeholder review
Onboard and train - Include on-boarding, training for new and updated SOPs
SOP iteration - Measure, monitor and manage SOPs

Obstacles

Too many procedures stored in email, channels and tribal knowledge
Too many undocumented, unclear procedures
Duplicate, conflicted procedure documented
People not knowing about and/or following SOPs

Measures

Number of unlisted procedures (no TOC listing)
Number of undocumented procedures
Error rate by SOP

Messaging and Math (0%)

Messaging and Math (“M&M”) are the components of marketing where we focus.

Messaging includes company, audience and product messaging and positioning as well as content and brand.
Math includes revenue marketing, demand generation and campaigns, marketing operations, website, events and developer outreach.

We use the “Messaging and Math” framing to focus investments on the messaging and quantitative outcomes vital to the growth of our business.

M&M Key Info

Customer References: Tracking sheet, discussion, ask templates
Editorial Guide: Guidelines for copy and content

FY20 M&M VPMOM (TBA)

New VPMOM to be added. VPMOM in need of update: Monster Pipeline

Sales (50%)

Sales Key Info

FY20 Sales VPMOM

Vision

Build the machine to scale open core sales, direct and indirect

Values

Work within the structure and process - Use Salesforce, follow guides, be consistent
Understand the customer and address their needs - Ask, listen, add value
Be super responsive - Quick on leads, inquiries, asks–time kills all deals

Methods

(Sales Ops) Upgrade sales ops infrastructure and automate low dollar customers
(SA) Deliver core demos as foundation of GTM
(SA) Support GTM with webinars, events, blogs and technical content
(Field) Repeatedly grow G2000 accounts in key regions and prepare to hire reps
(Sales Ops) Uniformly structure partner agreements on fulfillment and lead gen
(SA) De-risk onboarding with pre-sales deployment checklists in Salesforce
(CS) 100% renewals, uncover expansion, and close co-marketing
(Inside) Repeatedly grow midmarket new logo count

Obstacles

Creating awareness in the G2000 to engage
Prospects won’t talk to AEs for lack of compelling content
Need actionable info from telemetry on open source users
Onboarding (process, best practices, docs and training)
Keeping the product competitive and differentiated
Need top 5 most important integrations from Mattermost (e.g. WebEx)
Meet product the demands of new G2000 customers
Need to optimize pricing and packaging (repackage E10)
Need for greater bottoms-up interest in EE within the product

Measures

Contributors

Join Us (30%)

Join Us

Thank you for your interest in joining the Mattermost community. Note: This section is being migrated from: https://docs.mattermost.com/guides/core.html#joining-the-team

Ways to Join

There’s many ways to join the Mattermost community through our open source programs, our company and our partner ecosystem:

Open source contributor community for the Mattermost projects (from authorized contributor to core committer)
Employee and staff contributor community for for Mattermost, Inc. (employee or staff contributor)
Commercial partner community with Mattermost Enterprise Edition (reseller, systems integrator or technical alliance partner).

Open source contributors

Join our community of open source contributors:

Contribute to Mattermost-related open source projects: See Contribution Opportunities
Let us know about a Mattermost integration you’ve created: Submit your integration to the Mattermost Integration Directory
See examples of open source integrations: View Mattermost Integrations Directory

Staff contributors

Become a paid member of the staff at Mattermost, Inc. as an employee or staff contributor:

See open staff positions: See Careers at Mattermost.com
Read about what it’s like to work here: Previous Join Us content (to be migrated here)

Enterprise Edition Partners

Help deliver professional services and commercial software for large, enterprise-scale Mattermost deployments by joining a partner program for Mattermost Enterprise Edition:

Sell Mattermost Enterprise Edition to your customers: Become a Mattermost Authorized Partner or a Mattermost Value-Added Reseller
Certify your inclusion of Mattermost software in your open source or commercial offering to be listed in our partner directory: Mattermost Deployment Solutions Partner Program
Learn more about becoming a Mattermost partner: Mattermost Partner Programs

Learning about Mattermost

Note: This section is work-in-progress, being migrated from: https://docs.mattermost.com/guides/core.html#joining-the-team

Exploring Mattermost as a workplace

At Mattermost, most of the company works from home. Our headquarters is on the internet–Specifically, we work on an open test server called https://pre-release.mattermost.com which runs a pre-released version of Mattermost software with all the newest features and improvements (which is occassionally unstable). The server is integrated with Zoom and employees and staff members can launch voice, video and screensharing meetings with a button click.

Joining the test server

If you’re thinking of joining Mattermost as an open source contributor, as an employee or staff contributor, or as an ecosystem partner, we welcome you to start an account on our server and see what it’s like to work here–and even try installing the mobile apps if you would like.

When you join, please use the username firstname.lastname so it’s easier to get to know you. You can create a new account from here: https://pre-release.mattermost.com/signup_user_complete (select Email and Password).

A bot will suggest different channels for you to view, and you’re welcome to join any channel on the server. All the information you’ll have access to is public (employees and staff have confidential channels and workspaces on the server).

Say “Hello”

If you’re in contact with someone with an @mattermost.com email address, such as a recruiter or hiring manager, you can message them or your hiring manager on the server by contacting them at firstname.lastname to let them know if you have joined.

Try some formatting

To practice sending messages in Mattermost, particularly around formatting, you can send messages to yourself to test out how messages will look before sending to another person.

FAQ

Do you offer internships?

We don’t currently offer internships. If you’re interested in expanding your experiences and resume, please consider joining our open source community: https://mattermost.com/contribute/

I’m interested in a staff position, how do I get noticed?

If you haven’t yet experienced the product, you should do that as a first step. Join our testing server at https://pre-release.mattermost.com

When you apply there’s a question about your experience with Mattermost and at a minimum you should have spent some time using the product and have some opinions on what we might improve.

We hire about 70% of our R&D staff from our open source community. If you want to increase your odds further, please consider trying a beginner or intermediate open source contribution via https://mattermost.com/contribute/

I’m an agency or contingent recruiter and I have a candidate for you

Thank you for thinking of us. In general, we don’t work with agency or contingent recruiters unless they are referred from people we know who can vouch for success in working with you.

Unless you fit this criteria, we would ask you remove us from your mailing list.

Onboarding (1%)

Onboarding information and checklists for general staff and departments

Staff On-boarding (10%)

We’re on a mission to make the world safer and more productive through open source. To make that happen we first have to create a great place to work–an inclusive, courteous online community where incredibly talented individuals are empowered to do their best work for our customers, with very little in their way. This guide is a summary of our guiding principles. As Mattermost grows, we hope these principles serve each new staff person that joins us. If you are new to Mattermost, welcome! While the goals here are important, it’s your ideas, talent, and energy that will keep Mattermost shining in the years ahead. Thanks for being here. Let’s change the world.

Our handbook defines what it’s like to work at Mattermost, from the high level to specific operating procedures. If you’re new, you’ll start with our onboarding guides.

Our mission is to make the world safer and more productive by developing and delivering secure, open source collaboration software that is trusted, flexible and offers fast time-to-value.

Customer Obsession - Mattermost exists to make customers successful. Every project starts with the customer perspective.
Ownership — Own the outcome of your actions. Act on behalf of the company, not just the team. Never say “that’s not my job.”
High-Impact — Choose high-impact projects over low-impact projects. Figure out what matters most and focus on those priorities.
Insist on High Standards — Have relentless high standards. Continually raise the bar for high-quality products and processes.
Self-Awareness — Seek to understand strengths and growth opportunities while being open to criticism. Share critiques constructively and respectfully.
Earn Trust — Make decisions based on maximizing the trust of others in your judgment. Be open, self-critical and factual.

Mattermost Team Edition under MIT license and the Mattermost open source projects under various licenses are maintained by core committers, including both staff from Mattermost, Inc. and volunteer contributors from the Mattermost user and customer communities.

Mattermost Enterprise Editions, which are commercial extensions built on top of the Mattermost open source projects, are developed, supported and sold by Mattermost, Inc.

Mattermost is an open source, remote-first, communities-centered company based in Palo Alto, California and headquartered on the internet.

Remote-first means that by default our staff works anywhere in the world where a) we have support for quality video calling and b) where we can work in a legally appropriate environment. Mattermost was born in an extraordinary age where organizations can attract, hire and enable remote teams–working from homes, coffee shops and co-working spaces across timezones–to produce better technology and business results in less time than purely office-based teams, while maintaining security and compliance standards.

People Team Responsibilities

First Day

First Week Checklist (Markdown)

#### Instructions:

Please copy each item and add an - to the left of the bracket and an x inside of the bracket you complete the item (e.g. - [x]).
Please reply to this message (hover over any message to reveal the reply button) with the items you’ve completed.

##### Day 1

[ ] Share your bio with @managername ` (this will be posted in the [Welcome channel](https://community-daily.mattermost.com/private-core/channels/welcome) in the private `Staff team - @managername `, please include the hashtag `#newcolleague).

[ ] Explore your Mattermost account settings, making note of your notification settings. Tip: Set your messages to send on CTRL + ENTER, while using ENTER will insert a new line, while you’re learning to use Mattermost.

##### Days 2-5

[ ] Share your GitHub username with @camille.harris. You can, and are encouraged, to use your personal GitHub account. You may also create a GitHub account with your @mattermost email instead.

[ ] Connect GitHub and Mattermost via the instructions here: [<jump to convo>](/core/pl/i4k6eke5t38gxxwrjtpeegbhwr).

[ ] Join GitLab with your @mattermost email and contact @hanna.park to be added to the Mattermost group.

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Manager Responsibilities

First Day

[Placeholder for links to Departmental checklists]

R&D Onboarding (1%)

R&D Channels

See: https://docs.mattermost.com/process/training.html#channels

Development Process

See: https://docs.mattermost.com/guides/core.html#development-process

Release Process

See: https://docs.mattermost.com/guides/core.html#release-process

Education

"How to" guides for staff (0%)

How to procure (0%)

How to Interview (0%)

How to open a job requisition (0%)

How to update the handbook (0%)

MLT Cadence (80%)

Mattermost Leadership Team (MLT) consists of Mattermost department heads plus the CEO

This section outlines:

The VPMOM for MLT cadence summarizing purpose and measures
The operations of administrative, tactical and strategic meetings
Process for alignment and cascading communications
Process for quarterly business reviews, planning and board meetings

MLT Daily Admin

The purpose of MLT Daily Admin is to clear day-to-day administrative items from our other MLT meetings and from disruptive interruptions during the day.

MLT Daily Admin consists of:

Standup Post: A concise summary of Asks, Heads-ups, and FYIs for MLT peers from your department posted on working days
MLT Sync: A Zoom meeting for entire MLT up to 10 minutes starting at 8:31am Palo Alto time on working days.
MLT After Sync: Spontaneous cross-departmental follow-ups not relevant to entire MLT after end of MLT Sync until 8:55am Palo Alto time via Zoom or phone among MLT leaders

Topics for MLT Daily Admin

Stand-Up Post

Any time up to 12 hours before 8:31am Palo Alto time on weekdays

Before meeting use /standup command to post updates to peers in the channel of what’s important:

/standup

- Met with Alice Evans from Gartner - [Notes posted](XXX)
- Carter Lee starts today as Director of BizOps

If you post incorrectly, use the “Edit” option to update.

Most updates will look something like this:

##### Status Update for Tuesday 16 April 2019

- Met with Alice Evans from Gartner - [Notes posted](XXX)
- Carter Lee starts today as Director of BizOps 

#standup-20190416 #standup

If there’s a lot to talk about, use this format:

##### Status Update for Tuesday 16 April 2019

Heads-up 

- CTO of ABC Co escalating ask for custom SAML provider, blocking purchase. Need R&D's help 

FYI 

- Met with Alice Evans from Gartner - [Notes posted](XXX)
- Carter Lee starts today as Director of BizOps 

Asks

- @john.smith can you share where things are with the Twitter issue brought up yesterday?  

#standup-20190416 #standup

MLT Sync

8:31am to 8:41am Palo Alto time

Meeting starts promptly at 8:31am SF time
Each MLT member has ~60s for updates
Meeting ends at 8:41am SF time

MLT After Sync

8:42am SF time to 8:55am Palo Alto time

8:42am to 8:55am offers 14 minutes to talk through cross-team communication and administrative items outside of meeting
Use Zoom in DM channel or phone

MLT Weekly Tactical

Tuesdays 10:00am to 11:30am Palo Alto time with MLT The purpose of MLT Weekly Tactical is to keep MLT team on track to quarterly and annual targets. Discussions held in .

Process

(0:00) MLT Sync - Complete MLT Sync and queue any last items for Weekly Tactical
(0:11) Scoreboard Review - Review Thematic Goal
- Discuss red/yellows on Defining Objectives and Standard Operating Objectives
- Check that all objectives have measures and due dates
(0:45) Tactical Agenda - Discuss queued items, 5m max per topic. Choose:
- Discuss now
- Discuss later (another Monthly Strategic or at another Weekly Tactical)
- Discuss 1-1/outside of MLT
(1:10) Decisions/Actions - Summarize decisions/actions in writing
(1:20) Cascading Communications - Decide what to communicate broadly
- This includes Customer Obsession Meeting announcements
- If meeting ends without agreement, Vice-Chair notes this in with an @all mention

MLT Monthly Strategic

The purpose of MLT monthly strategic meeting is to achieve clarity and closure on strategic issues through review, discussion and decision on queued topics.

Meeting is monthly for 2-4 hours with Mattermost Leadership Team.
Ad hoc meetings may also be called for strategic discussions using same format.

Pre-work

(Vice-Chair) Agenda drafted based on queued topics in
(Vice-Chair) Agenda posted in MLT Monthly Strategic
(MLT) People who queue topics post relevant materials in Agenda 24 hours before meeting

Meeting Cadence

MLT reviews, discusses, adjusts as needed, and agrees on Agenda for time allotted
MLT discusses each topic and reaches decisions for clarity and closure
(20m before end of meeting) Decisions/Actions are summarized
(10m before end of meeting) Cascading Communications are agreed

MLT Planning

The purpose of target setting is to confirm targets, plan and budget for MLT departments for the period.

The MLT plan consists of:

Company and department fiscal year 1-page VPMOMs
Quarterly plan, in the context of fiscal year VPMOM
Financial plan, including revenue
Headcount plan

We’re currently focused on quarterly plans and will move to halves

Plan Expectations

Quarterly plans are locked for the quarter–Changeable only in MLT team meeting
Progress on quarter plans reviewed at the start of next quarter
Okay to reduce targets prior to 20 days before quarter end (except revenue & pipeline)
Quarterly plans are in context of annual VPMOM

Plan Process

Drafting MLT Plan

T-Minus 4 Weeks to announcement.

The following should happen within a 2 week period, with 1-2 iterations in each step:

CEO discusses company and department VPMOMs 1-1 with department heads to ensure alignment
- If applicable during the period, sales, CEO and finance set or adjust the revenue targets
People meets with department heads to discuss current and future org structure
- Include discussion on performance, potential and any FYIs
Finance works with department heads to discuss headcount and program spend budget
- Include budget variance
Department heads social plans with their teams

Review WIP Plan

T-Minus 2 Weeks to announcement.

At Monthly Strategic Meeting:
- WIP VPMOMs, quarterly plan and proposed orgs reviewed by MLT
- MLT shares feedback on each VPMOM and quarterly plan
- Cross-department dependencies documented
- Draft agenda
  - Review of MLT Plan Process
  - Company VPMOM & Q2 plan
  - Sales VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
  - R&D VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
  - Marketing VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
  - Customer Success VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
  - Finance VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
  - People VPMOM, Q2 plan and proposed org
MLT socializes updates to high-level plan with their departments

Finalize Plan

T-Minus 1 Week to announcement

Company and VPMOMs updated given feedback
Financial plan adjusted
Headcount approvals published

Plan Shared

Week of announcement

Company VPMOM shared at all-hands
Department VPMOMs are posted
MLT presents company plan to their departments

Quarterly Leadership Review (QLR)

Each quarter we review process towards our VPMOMs and discuss achievements and opportunities.

QLR VPMOM

TBD

Quarterly Leadership Checkin

QLR is an exercise to increase output through concise, efficient review of quarterly goals for company and department in the context of VPMOMs.

Time and People

Scheduled monthly for 3.5 hours with Mattermost Leadership Team.

Prior to Meeting

Materials for QLR agenda are shared by Friday prior to the QLR meeting.

Agenda

(CEO) Reviews (10 minutes)
(Each department head) Reviews quarterly goals in the context of VPMOMs, including the following (15 minutes per person):
- Goals for previous quarter
- Previous quarter achievements and opportunities
- Goals for current quarter
- Cross-department dependencies
- Hiring plan and org chart
(MLT) Break (10 minutes)
(MLT) Deep dive into GTM (90 minutes)
(CEO) Wrap-up, including follow-ups (10 minutes)

Quarterly GTM Review

QGR is a quarterly drilldown on sales, marketing and customer success in the context of VPMOMs. Agenda to be determined.

Quarterly Product Review

QRR is a review of product vision, near term roadmap and long term roadmap in the context of VPMOMs. Agenda to be determined.

Quarterly Operations Review

Review of non-GTM, non-R&D departments in context of VPMOMs. Agenda to be determined.

QBR follow-ups

As reviews happen, follow-up items are noted in RAPID format and meetings scheduled based on RAPID assignments.

Board Meetings

Between 21st and end of the month
Scheduled 18 months in advance
Board deck is sent to Board 3 calendar days before Board meeting

Meeting Structure

General session: Includes leads from Mattermost team, usually sales, occasionally CS, product
Closed session: VP Finance and CEO update Board
CEO and Board: Board gives feedback to CEO
Board without CEO: Board discusses feedback among themselves, then one board member delivers feedback to CEO

Debrief Calls

25 minute debrief scheduled with each board member same day or the day after board meeting via their admins.
1 hour debrief with MLT scheduled same day after board meeting.

Fiscal Year Planning (1%)

Preparation for the annual plan and budget for the next fiscal year begins in the second half of the current fiscal year.

Q3 Planning for next fiscal year

In Q3 we have three goals:

50% VPMOM for company and departments based on our latest thinking
Prioritized issues to solve before we lock 99% plan at end of Q4–largely coming from Obstacles in 50% VPMOM
After aligning with MLT, begin to discuss 50% VPMOMs with departments to develop into 99% in Q4

Typically there is not pressure for budget or headcount discussions in Q3, focus is strategy.

Q3 Punchlist for Next Fiscal Year Planning

The company 3-year aspirations are reviewed
A 1% MLT VPMOM for next fiscal year is drafted by CEO and reviewed with MLT department heads
Department heads draft 1% Department VPMOMs for next fiscal year and review with peer stakeholders and CEO
At Q3 Planning Offsite, MLT reviews 50% MLT VPMOM for next fiscal year developed from 1% draft
At Q3 Planning Offsite, department heads present 50% Department VPMOMs, reviewed by peer stakeholders and CEO
Action items are documented and developed around Obstacles to success of next fiscal year
50% MLT and Department VPMOMs, plus Obstacles, are presented to department leaders

Q4 Planning for next fiscal year

The focus of Q4 is arriving at a 99% draft of the plan for next fiscal with alignment across MLT and departments, with key Obstacles mitigated, and headcount and budgets reviewed.

MLT and middle managers work through key Obstacles for next fiscal year
Finance works with MLT to draft financials plan for next fiscal year
CEO works with MLT to develop MLT VPMOM from 50% to 99%
Department heads work with their teams, peer stakeholders and CEO to develop Department VPMOM from 50% to 99%
99% MLT VPMOM is reviewed by MLT and agreed
99% Department VPMOMs are reviewed by MLT peers and CEO and agreed
Plan for next fiscal year is locked based on VPMOMs

MLT VPMOM Review Process

VPMOMs, quarterly plans and proposed orgs are reviewed by MLT. Use the following order to review VPMOMs:

Measures
Priorities
Vision
Obstacles
Methods

MLT shares feedback on each VPMOM and quarterly plan. Cross-department dependencies documented.

About Mattermost (90%)

Mattermost, Inc. is a company based on the Mattermost open source project. Mattermost software is used by thousands of organizations around the world in 16 languages.

Mission

Our mission is to make the world more safe and productive by developing and delivering secure, open source collaboration software that is trusted, flexible and offers fast time-to-value.

Leadership Principles

Customer Obsession: We exist to make customers successful. In everything we do, start with customer perspective and work backwards. Earn and keep their trust.
Ownership: Own the outcomes of your activity. Don’t drop the ball. When we see a vacuum on something important, we jump in – we never say “it’s not my job.”
High Impact: Align work to our shared vision and focus on those priorities. When deciding to work on low impact or high impact projects, choose high impact.
Self-Awareness: We understand and seek to understand our strengths and growth opportunities, as individuals and organizations. We are open to critique and share critique constructively and respectfully.
Earn Trust: Make decisions based on maximizing the trust of others in your judgement. Be open, self-critical, and factual. Earn and keep people’s trust.

Products and Business Model

Mattermost, Inc is a commercial open source company with a subscription-based, buyer-based open core licensing model.

Mattermost Team Edition

Audience:

Development team that wants to self-host workplace messaging in private network.

Mattermost Enterprise Edition

Audience:

IT organization needing to self-host workplace messaging in private network for multiple development teams, or other end users in high trust environments.

Different packages of commercial features are offered based on buyer needs.

For more information, see our and open source repository at .

Company

Mattermost is an open source, remote-first, communities-centered company based in Palo Alto, California and headquartered on the internet.

Open source means that by default we make our technology, business process and source code available to the public. We develop a small portion as proprietary technology, built upon our open source work, to license for subscription fees that enable more high quality open source work to be produced. Since the start of the Mattermost open source project in 2015, we have used this model to develop effective open source solutions for the world to use. This model is sometimes called .

Communities-centered means we define our success in the context of the success of our : users, customers, implementers, resellers, technology partners, contributors, and colleagues. The success of each community is owned by a member of the Mattermost leadership team. The plural definition of “communities” is intended to avoid unconsciously marginalizing downstream stakeholders.

Based in Palo Alto, California and headquartered on the internet means the mailing address for Mattermost, Inc. is in Palo Alto, California, and our headquarters is on the internet, specifically the production-quality Mattermost instance at . Our online headquarters is where Mattermost staff work with our communities of colleagues, users, partners, customers, candidates, contributors, and other to envision, develop, and refine new open source technologies to make the world safer and more productive.

Mindsets

NOTE: This section is currently being imported from:

To make the most out of mindsets, remember:

Mindsets are tools: Use common sense to find the right mindset for your situation. Avoid using ones that don’t fit.
Mindsets are temporary: Try on a mindset the way you’d try a tool. You can always put it down if it doesn’t work.
Mindsets are not laws: Mindsets are situation-specific, not universal. Don’t use them to debate.

In this context, here are mindsets for Mattermost:

Learn, Master, Teach

Learn a new topic quickly, develop mastery (be the smartest person at the team/company/community on the topic), then teach it to someone who will start the cycle over.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast

When you rush to get something done quickly, it can actually increase the time and cost for the project.

Rushing means a higher chance of missing things that need to be done, and the cost of doing them later is significantly higher because you have to re-create your original setup to add on the work.

Emotion, Assumption, and Priority

Consider when two rational people disagree, the cause often comes from one of three areas:

Emotion: There could be an emotion biasing the discussion. Just asking if this might be the case can clear the issue. It’s okay to have emotions. We are humans, not robots.
Assumption: People may have different underlying assumptions (including definitions). Try to understand each other’s assumptions and get to agreement or facts when you can.
Priorities: Finally, people can have different priorities. When everyone’s priorities are shared and understood it’s easier to find solutions that satisfy everyone’s criteria.

While the emotions, assumptions, priority mindset won’t work for everyone in every case, it’s helped resolve complex decisions in our company’s history.

Likes and Wishes

An easy way to check in with team members about how things are going.

What do you like about how things are going?
What do you wish we might change?

Use these one-on-one or in a group as a way to open conversations about what to keep and what to change in how we do things.

Drafts at 1%, 50%, 99%

Being clear on expectations when asking for someone’s review can help speed and smooth the process. In this mindset, there are three types of review:

1% Draft - Completely open to ideas and changes in direction. Rework is inexpensive.
50% Draft - Half complete work. There is structure, but also a lot of room for change. Some rework is inexpensive, some is expensive.
99% Draft - Nearly completed work. Rework at this point is very expensive.

Shoulder Check

When a new owner takes over a process or a project from a previous owner, there are a finite number of “blindspots” of which the original owner is aware and the new owner will need to understand.

This process is similar to , except that the mini-boss is also the new owner of a process, and not only a reviewer. Shoulder checks should be requested by new owners to avoid “crashing”:

Making changes to systems that break existing processes and may lose data and hurt the productivity of others downstream without notice and without a replacement system in place (behavior known as ).
Repeatedly investing in mis-prioritized projects due to a misunderstanding of requirements from project stakeholders and insufficient confirmation of intended outcomes.

Even when not crashing, as part of our , top team members will constantly be seeking feedback and review from people around the company.

Brown M&Ms

Examples of brown M&Ms may include:

Significant mistakes in process, consistency, or documentation suggesting lack of review or lack of understanding of the pre-existing system.
Ambiguous definitions that would make completion of a procedure difficult or unpredictable.

The name brown M&M comes from a safety technique used by the American music band Van Halen, who had to set up large, complex concert stages in third tier cities, where few local workers had experience with the safety standards vital to construction. In the with each venue, Van Halen required a bowl of M&M candies with all brown M&Ms removed. Failure to provide the bowl was grounds for Van Halen’s stage crew to inspect all of the local vendor’s work for safety issues, because it meant the vendor had not paid attention to detail, and safety could be at risk.

Correct Minimums: Medic, Field Surgeon, Plastic Surgeon

When making project investment decisions, we optimize for high impact in the context of customer obsession, empowered by ownership, while being constrained by “be proud of what you build”.

The objective of optimization is to invest at minimal levels for efficiency and safety while maximizing impact.

In making these trade-offs, consider the following mindsets:

Correct Minimum 1: Medic
Safely fix something that is important, broken and dangerous as fast as possible. Speed is critical - do not worry about “leaving a scar” in our architecture or business process, just own it and get it done. Solve the problem, do not overbuild.
Example: Something incorrect on our public website with more than 100 page views a month should be fixed immediately and not delayed to be done with a longer term project, such as a website re-design. If the staging server cannot be pushed, this means manually fixing production and duplicating that change on staging, rather than trying to fix staging.
Correct Minimum 2: Field Surgeon
Triage tasks that are important and broken but not dangerous, and fix the most important things with a minimum time and cost. Scarring should be a low-priority consideration–it is fine to leave scars and it is fine to spend a little energy to avoid big ones. Solve the problem for the next stage of growth, but don’t solve it in two to three stages ahead.
Example: In Mattermost, spend 2 mana to enable automated messages over 4000 characters to be broken into multiple posts instead of being rejected, which is a problem every developer hits when they attempt to output log information via curl commands.
Correct Minimum 3: Plastic Surgeon
Fix and optimize critical, high volume flows in our customer experience and product with heavy investment if needed to make high impact changes. Scars can be avoided and removed to produce a high impact result.
Example: Click-tracking traffic on about.mattermost.com and optimizing flows to direct visitors to learn about the product and downloading it is a flow that should be continually optimized.

Mini-boss, End-boss

When reviewing significant user interface changes, code changes, responses to community or customers, or changes to systems or marketing material changes, it is ideal to have at least two reviewers:

Mini-boss: Reviewer less experienced in domain or Mattermost standards for the first review.
End-boss: Reviewer more experienced in domain or Mattermost standards for the final review for the discipline (e.g. development, design, documentation, etc.).

This system has several benefits:

The Mini-boss provides feedback on the most obvious issues, allowing the End-boss to focus on nuanced issues the Mini-boss didn’t find.
The Mini-boss learns from the End-boss feedback, understanding what was missed, and becoming a better reviewer.
Eventually the Mini-boss will be as skilled at reviewing as the End-boss, who will have nothing futher to add after the Mini-boss review. At this point, the Mini-boss becomes an End-boss, ready to train a new Mini-boss.

The naming of this term comes from video games, where a person submitting material for review must pass a “mini-boss” challenge before a “end-boss” challenge for different disciplines.

Staff On-boarding (10%)

Our handbook defines what it’s like to work at Mattermost, from the high level to specific operating procedures. If you’re new, you’ll start with our onboarding guides.

Our mission is to make the world safer and more productive by developing and delivering secure, open source collaboration software that is trusted, flexible and offers fast time-to-value.

Customer Obsession - Mattermost exists to make customers successful. Every project starts with the customer perspective.
Ownership — Own the outcome of your actions. Act on behalf of the company, not just the team. Never say “that’s not my job.”
High-Impact — Choose high-impact projects over low-impact projects. Figure out what matters most and focus on those priorities.
Insist on High Standards — Have relentless high standards. Continually raise the bar for high-quality products and processes.
Self-Awareness — Seek to understand strengths and growth opportunities while being open to criticism. Share critiques constructively and respectfully.
Earn Trust — Make decisions based on maximizing the trust of others in your judgment. Be open, self-critical and factual.

To view video of these Leadership Principles, please click .

Mattermost Enterprise Editions, which are commercial extensions built on top of the Mattermost open source projects, are developed, supported and sold by Mattermost, Inc.

For more information, see our .

Mattermost is an open source, remote-first, communities-centered company based in Palo Alto, California and headquartered on the internet.

Based in Palo Alto, California and headquartered on the internet means the mailing address for Mattermost, Inc. is in Palo Alto, California, and our headquarters is on the internet, specifically the Mattermost instance at . Our online headquarters is where Mattermost staff work with our communities of colleagues, users, partners, customers and contributors, to envision, develop and refine new open source technologies to make the world safer and more productive.

People Team Responsibilities

[ ] When notified by HR Lead, send an to find out new staff’s preference for laptop and equipment, either to be purchased or taken from stock and shipped by People Ops or purchased locally by new staff and expensed.
[ ] Send new staff the via DocuSign before issuing an @mattermost.com email address. New staff should use this email address on community.mattermost.com (replace personal email with company email if already registered there). is the standard naming convention.
[ ] Send new staff an about payroll and benefits.
[ ] Send new staff (and manager) a requesting new staff’s biography, inviting new staff to the Mattermost and sharing more about , including our .

First Day

[ ] Invite new staff to and the .
[ ] Send new staff a sharing a first day checklist (below) and information about laptop setup, and gives an overview of New Hire’s first week.
[ ] Meet with new staff to review required documentation (e.g. ).

First Week Checklist (Markdown)

#### Instructions:

Please copy each item and add an - to the left of the bracket and an x inside of the bracket you complete the item (e.g. - [x]).
Please reply to this message (hover over any message to reveal the reply button) with the items you’ve completed.

##### Day 1

[ ] Accept the invitation to your OneLogin account and switch your Mattermost account to use OneLogin from Account Settings -> Security -> Sign-in Method -> Switch to SAML. Instructions are found [here](). Note: You’ll find other apps, like LastPass and Zoom, there.

[ ] Download the Mattermost Desktop Client [here]() and login to .

[ ] Download the [Mattermost app]() on your smartphone and login to community.mattermost.com using your OneLogin account.

[ ] Join the channels listed [here]() to get a feel for the company and to see how we communicate.

[ ] Learn how to format your messages using Markdown by reviewing this [guide]().

[ ] Take Mattermost’s end user training [here]() and note any feedback.

[ ] Register your laptop and any other Mattermost-issued equipment [here]().

[ ] Set up your email signature. [Here’s how]().

[ ] Activate your Office365 account and download to your computer. Instructions [here]().

##### Days 2-5

[ ] Share your GitHub username with @camille.harris. You can, and are encouraged, to use your personal GitHub account. You may also create a GitHub account with your @mattermost email instead.

[ ] Connect GitHub and Mattermost via the instructions here: [<jump to convo>](/core/pl/i4k6eke5t38gxxwrjtpeegbhwr).

[ ] Join GitLab with your @mattermost email and contact @hanna.park to be added to the Mattermost group.

[ ] Read about the [Customer Obsession All Hands Meeting]() [here]().

[ ] Read about the [R&D Meeting]() and let us know if you’d be OK doing an [icebreaker]() in a future meeting.

[ ] Review our data privacy policy [here]().

[ ] Review our [Code Contribution Guidelines]() to learn how to contribute to Mattermost to receive a personalized Mattermug.

[ ] Add your mailing address, profile photo, and emergency contact information to Bamboo. You can also view the company [org chart]() there. Note: If you do not have access to Bamboo, please message @natalie.jew.

Week 2

[ ] Ask new staff to review the last three recordings of the and confirm whether they will present their own intro in that week’s meeting, or if they’d like their manager to introduce them. Share decision with .
[ ] Schedule CEO welcome meeting (Tuesdays at 8:30am or Fridays at 8am Palo Alto time) and invite new staff. Double-check new staff has completed the .
[ ] Send new staff (and manager) a answering frequently asked questions and sharing Mattermost’s .

Week 3

[ ] Send new staff (and manager) a sharing the and and describing how to view other staff members’ calendars to book meetings.

Week 4

[ ] Send new staff (and manager) an inviting new staff to create their .

Manager Responsibilities

First Day

[ ] Post new staff member’s bio to the using the hashtag #newcolleague.
[ ] Add new staff to relevant aliases (e.g. ). Note: If you do not have manager access to the alias(es), please contact the People team ().

[Placeholder for links to Departmental checklists]

Exec onboarding:
R&D onboarding:

Product team onboarding:
QA onboarding:
Support onboarding:

G&A onboarding:
Marketing onboarding:
People team onboarding:
Sales onboarding:
Customer success onboarding: