1) Dotmesh is an 8 person startup focused on cloud native data management. They are using a system called "Banners" to support self-managing teams. 2) Banners are self-managing work areas with defined purposes, inputs, outputs, leads, and members. They regularly review their work and communicate progress. 3) Benefits of Banners include supporting self-management, shared work understanding, responsibility clarity, organizational agility, and people swarming to helpful tasks. Banners then choose their own structures and processes.

1. 23rd May 2018.
Banners.
Supporting self-managing teams.
Alice Sowerby - COO, Dotmesh.
@SowerbyAlice

2. @SowerbyAlice @getDotmesh goo.gl/WN49Nx
How to manage a
startup?
Dotmesh
● Cloud Native Data Management
● Founded in Sep 2017
● Team of 8 (as of Feb 2018)
● Looking for product-market fit
Our challenge: How to
● Avoid chaos
● Remain flexible
● Stay focused

3. @SowerbyAlice @getDotmesh goo.gl/WN49Nx
How much structure do
we need right now?
We need
● Direction, Co-ordination & Standards
● To bring our whole selves to work
● To adapt to a changing environment
We don’t need
● Hierarchy
● Fixed job titles/descriptions
● Silos

4. @SowerbyAlice @getDotmesh goo.gl/WN49Nx
What could we try?
We looked at how other people had done it
● Traditional hierarchical models
● Holacracy (as formerly espoused by Medium)
● Scrum
● Valve
● W.L. Gore
Also... some lessons to be learned from jazz and
football!
Banners

5. @SowerbyAlice @getDotmesh goo.gl/WN49Nx
What are Banners?
A Banner
● Is a stated area of work that people collaborate
on
● Has a defined purpose, inputs and outputs
● Has a lead and members but membership is not
mutually exclusive
● Self-manages its internal workings
● Regularly reviews its existence, lead, members,
purpose, inputs and outputs
● Communicates to the org regularly on what it’s
doing
Banners
banner
banner
banner

6. @SowerbyAlice @getDotmesh goo.gl/WN49Nx
Benefits of Banners
● Support self-managing - what rather than how.
● Shared understanding activities in the org
● Make explicit who’s responsible for work done
● Clear boundaries of responsibility via i/o
● Organisational agility through adaptation
● Each banner choose its structure and process.
● People to swarm onto tasks where most helpful
Banners

7. @SowerbyAlice @getDotmesh goo.gl/WN49Nx
Product Strategy Banner

8. @SowerbyAlice @getDotmesh goo.gl/WN49Nx
Engineering Banner

9. @SowerbyAlice @getDotmesh goo.gl/WN49Nx
Marketing Banner
Purpose
To attract people to help us validate
ideas at all stages of the roadmap
including the currently deployed
product so that we can rapidly find
product-market fit.
Inputs
● Requests from the Product banner
for people to help us validate ideas.
● Request from Product banner to
make us appealing to a given
section of potential acquirers.
● Metrics around acquisition funnel
Outputs
● Clear visibility of marketing
strategy
● Canonical current messaging
Coordination of content creation
for website, blog etc
● Management of social media
● Events planning and execution
● Updating current users on new
features
● Press releases

10. Banners. Supporting self-managing teams
Thank you!
Alice Sowerby - COO, Dotmesh.
@SowerbyAlice
alice@dotmesh.com