Open Undercurrent
How self-organization helped a small consultancy grow revenue, profitability, and engagement – all at the same time.
Topic
Undercurrent
I worked at Undercurrent from 2009 to 2015, starting as a Strategist and ending as its Managing Partner, when the company was sold to Quirky. This collection contains some insights from transitioning UC to self-management with Holacracy.
Scheduling at Undercurrent
Standardizing timing changes everything. Scheduling and resourcing used to be a complete mess at Undercurrent. Individuals and teams would be double- and triple-booked some weeks, while their colleagues had nothing to do. Building a team required hours of concerted effort: Who works well together? What’s the right team for
Four Holacracy Misses
Four things to reconsider about Holacracy: confusing word choices, a legalistic constitution; heavy dogma; a closed-source codebase.
Four Holacracy Keepers
Four key things to keep from years practicing Holacracy: Rule of Law; Continuous Participatory Reorganization; Structured Decisions; Defined Output Formats.
The Undercurrent Skills Maturity Matrix
This development tool is designed to give strategists clarity into their path forward, help them define and deepen strengths, and give managers a way to guide their directs.