Back when I was a consultant – feels like a hundred years ago now – there was a movement towards what Jack Stark called Open Book Management. This was popularized in a book of the same name by John Case back in the mid 90’s. Below is a picture from today’s all-hands meeting in which our CEO Matt Steinfort is demonstrating our weekly version of open book management. The purpose of this weekly all-hands meeting is to keep everyone informed about the goings on at Envysion. Specifically we all learn where the company is at from a sales funnel, installation, development and operations perspective.

Matt Steinfort addresses Envysion

I think this type of exchange is critical in any company but especially a start-up. I admit to a bit of bias here since I do daily scrums with my development group but I can tell you from much past experience that frequent, open and consistent messaging to employees goes a long way towards building a cohesive organization. Additionally, when everyone has all the information it’s much more likely that they’ll make the right decision.

You can’t see it in this picture but there’s a video camera on the table there by Matt. We use it along with a conference bridge to make remote folks feel like they are in the room with us as well. In this way we’re eating our own dog food so to speak.

I’m curious to know if there are other opinions about open book or the use of MVaaS for meetings like this.