Built In LA
Ace Metrix provides data-based insights for marketers and creative departments, helping their customers test new campaigns in real time. Ace Metrix CTO and CPO, William Parducci described the company’s transition from traditional review based measurements to a more community based solution.
How would you describe your company culture? What do you think makes it unique?
We live by the mantra “make it, make it better” as our guiding principle. We are not afraid to release product that we know has the potential to be great someday, but can add value today. This translates to a “sell what you make, make what you sell” cycle with our sales and CS teams. We also take the concept of a meritocracy of ideas seriously.
How does the company reinforce or nurture this type of culture, and what impact has this had on the business as a whole?
Our company culture is very informal and decentralized. The engineering, product and R&D departments are divided into small groups, each with a team lead. We subscribe to agile ideals but are not bound to the hard and fast rules of any given variant. Our team-based approach provides the opportunity for each group to work at a release pace it is comfortable with. Also, because these teams revolve around tiers in our application stack or specific roles within the organization, each is able to evaluate and adopt the tools and technologies that best suit its subculture.
What initiatives, formal or informal, help keep your culture intact?
We have moved away from traditional review-based measurements to a more “community based” solution that we call a “MURCS” (SCRUM backwards). Instead of having team members get up and tell others what they are going to do that day, they get in front of the teams and tell everyone what they did. We generally do this monthly so people have time to talk about non-trivial accomplishments that are open to review and discussion by their peers. A side benefit of this approach is that it gives everyone a heads up on what the “other guys” are working on, as well as time to discuss common issues.
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