Writing is thinking is writing

We love writing. We love writing detailed overviews of system issues, we love writing updates on the projects we're working on, we love writing planning docs and we especially love writing code.

Why is this important enough to be a core value of our business? Because it informs the way that we approach solving difficult problems. By having a structure of decision making in place we know that we can consistently reach the right decision on every project. So how does this look in practice?

If we run into a problem or have a new idea, we don't get everyone in the room to hash it out. There's no brain-storming or communal decision making meeting that's booked in. We don't think that high quality work is done in that way.

Instead, an individual will sit down and quietly write out the problem that we're facing and how they believe we should fix it. They'll have a luxury of time to think through the issues carefully rather than being forced into going with their gut-reaction.

That person gets the time and the focus to really figure out what's best for the project, the client and the team. If they need someone to help out then they can collaborate, but the onus is on them to get to the bottom of it.

What comes out the other end of this is an assiduous, living record of our decision making process. Once it's ready to go we can all review it individually and be granted that same luxury of time to think through it. Someone else has done the hard work up-front so everyone is now empowered with the context they need to agree or disagree with the proposed plan.

We've saved everyone's time and reached a better conclusion at a lower cost. And hey, in three months time when we're trying to figure out why we did it, we'll have a rich history of every decision (with feedback!) ready to rock.