In 2008, Futurice was at a crossroads – the company was growing and it was apparent that the structure of the organization needed to adapt to greater size. The culture within the company had been very open and empowering, so adopting traditional manager-led hierarchies didn’t feel the right choice. The management decided to go path less traveled – to build the organization on trust and transparency. In 2012, Futurice was ranked #1 in European Great Places to Work in small to medium sized companies. Inspiration to this path came from small companies which naturally have the same characteristics: trust is naturally high, everybody knows the situation (transparency), and thus know what to do and performance is high. Together, trust and transparency build motivation and bring performance. To build trust, the management must trust the employees first. It means dismantling practices that are founded on mistrust and suspicion. It also means establishing practices that exhibit trust explicitly, so that employees feel it. Transparency in operation and decision-making is an important part of that. Transparency also enables autonomy as everybody has the needed information at hand. And it builds trust and positive accountability since everything is visible. And this is just the start! The talk includes many examples from real life at Futurice. They also look at current challenges as the company is rapidly growing beyond 150 and to multiple sites.

1. Trust & Transparency
Foundations of Europe’s Best Workplace
Tuomas Syrjänen, CEO
Petri Heiramo, Organisational ScrumMaster
11/17/2012
1

2. Futurice in Brief
TAMPERE
HELSINKI
BERLIN
LONDON DÜSSELDORF
1
Established
2000
150

3. Digital delivery book

4. The Story Behind
11/17/20
4
12

5. Fact: Change is mandatory
Start-up Professionally managed
Baltic Development Forum @ Flickr

6. 60 employees -
Control, rules, restrictions and processes
(Because everybody says that’s what you got to do )

7. “Have people really
changed in 6 months
from really smart to
really stupid?”

8. Enlightment
11/17/20
8
12

9. We Believe in…
Trust Transparency

11. With more trust…
… transaction costs go down
… more trust is given back
… speed of decisions can go up
… more vulnerable to abuse

12. “Rules” of thinking

13. Credit Cards and
Expenses
Liewcf @flickr
Patrick h lauke @flickr

14. Agile Teams » We drive responsibility of customer
solution to team members
› Engage with customers, deliver collaboratively
» Autonomy, responsibility
» Everybody gets to see the customer,
customers sees everybody
» Direct communication

15. Free Agents » These people have no traditional line
manager
» Fully self-responsible for finding valuable
work within the company
» Peer-to-peer responsibilities, instead of
hierarchical
» Currently in pilot, agents like it
Kantrinket @ flickr

16. Trusting » Trust the customer
Customers » Build trust via small steps
» ~50% of maintenance work done without
contracts
» Discuss also our own challenges in
projects
› E.g. customers participating in retros

17. Open windows
keeps your
apartment clean
Flickr @basheem

18. Transparency » Enables empowerment
» Responsible decisions
› Accuracy, buy-in, …
» Promotes trust
› Nothing to hide
› Reveals misuse
Empirical » Feedback & reinforcement
Control
» Focus & Results
» Credits, identity
Inspection » …
Transparency Adaption

19. » Anyone can participate in management
meetings
» FutuFriday
» Yammer
» Frequent updates of financial figures, sales
pipeline and projects, management decisions,
job opportunities, etc
» Speed dates & Ask-the-CEO
Open Meetings
Listening
Lateral comms
David paul ohmer @ flickr

20. Weekly :)
1 minute / person
How was last week? (honest smile)
What will I do this week.
How does my workload look.

21. Numbers everywhere:
Financial info, …

22. Jobfair
» Current availabilities
» Currently staffed cases
» Sales pipeline
» Transparency
» Autonomy
(work in progress)

23. Outcomes: 3x2!
1. #1 in Great Place to Work 2012
2. High customer satisfaction numbers
3
3. Profitable company growth for 8 years
1 2 Turnover M€, 2004-2012
15
10
5
0
04 06 08 10 12

24. We are all leaders!

25. We’re on a journey!
causalien@flickr

26. If You Are » Leave your business card, and we’ll send
you
Interested › This presentation
› Information on upcoming “Organisation 3.0”
seminar day in Helsinki in Spring 2013
» Come talk with us 

27. Thanks!
Tuomas Syrjänen,
tuomas.syrjanen@futurice.com
+358 50 5470386
Petri Heiramo,
petri.heiramo@futurice.com
+358 40 7092526
www.futurice.com
@futurice