What's this?
This is our DNA. This is who we are.
But, wait, who are we, actually?
nextmoov is a Belgian Digital Agency.
We are in a quest to re-invent the way we work, as true digital nomads, while producing some nice apps, website and chatbots.
On April 16th 2019, we decided to go one step further with our open-minded DNA: go fully open source with it.
In this repository, you can find the following items:
- DNA (this document): Discover our DNA and suggest any edit to it;
- Docs/Developers: Read some of our internal training documents & conventions for Developers;
- Issues: See all the next big steps for us as a company (and the debates around it), from picking a 3D printer to revolutionize our DX.
Edits are strongly encouraged
Do you wish to make any update to this document?
Go ahead! Just make your edit and open a pull request!
And yes, even from you, that guy we never met, living on the other side of the globe!
Not comfortable with PR & Git? Just reach to any member of the Core Team on Slack!
Edit this document →
Our DNA.
We are in a quest to redefine work
We're trying to reinvent the way a team works together. And we mean it. We leave it to you to read all resulting principles below but SPOILER alert: it involves working whenever and wherever you see fit and you might fall in love with it.
We are rooted in the mobility of tomorrow
You may already know that: our founders don't have their driving license, and nextmoov was built on top of NextRide. We use public transit and alternative transports every day, so the experience is as real as it can get. Our roots are in the mobility sector but our future lies in digital nomadism.
Our projects must be meaningful, groundbreaking & outstanding
We can be quite picky when it comes to selecting the projects we jump in.
Not so much because we are so popular we can afford to be so. But rather because we believe we work best when we are passionate about something and our clients are too.
Our principles.
Efficiency at the ❤️ of our work
A lot of people judge their work by the quantity instead of the quality. We don't. We aim to work as smart as possible and be as efficient as possible. We hate losing time, in commute, in useless meetings, in endless boring 9-to-5 weekdays.
Our goal: creating the most efficient teams in the world.
Rigorous methodology
We believe we can produce our best work, by working smarter (and actually less). But that ambitious goal comes at a cost: we all must follow the rules of a rigorous methodology. And we're rather uncompromising on those.
We don't care how, but your work should be fantastic
We don't care when you work. We don't care where you work. We only care that the work is done perfectly and in time.
That means no shift, no timesheet, no mandatory presence. If you want to work during the night, good for you! We're not all made the same. Your work just better be amazing, no matter what.
Move your ass
Babysitting is not our thing. If you're in doubt, don't sit still wondering what you should do. We won't bite you (as far as I remember, it hasn't happened yet). Anyway, if you have a question, you should fire away. We'll reply as soon as we have a minute.
Work on your own
We believe you make the best of your work when you concentrate (no shit!). That's why we work alone. No shoulder tap interruptions, but convenient collaboration (see Collaboration below).
Plan together
But we also believe constructive criticism helps to shape better products. We must show our work to others on a regular basis. At the very least during a weekly review, but not only.
Report often
We don't work in the same room, and we don't appreciate unplanned interruptions. That's why we must all continuously and automatically report progress on our part of the job.
The 15 percent rule
Developing top-notch products is great but requires to stay ahead of the pack at all times. And that means taking the time to experiment, combine, tweak... all the new cool things available out there. Hence we decided to allocate 15% of our work time to just that: have fun building what may turn out to be our next big thing.
Conventions over configurations
We love stealing concepts from our developers to use them in our daily lives.
One of our favorites: "conventions over configurations". Conventions everywhere calms down our OCD, but also helps us save hours and hours of work.
Naming folders, picking a Slack channel, writing a subject line: conventions help us automate all these hundreds of decisions we take everyday.
Keeping everything nice and tidy - automagically!
Simplicity
Yet another rule we stole from our developers: Keep It Stupid Simple (KISS).
We always aim to simplify things. But hey, take note of that one: quite often, the simplest solution is far from the easiest. The simplest solution might be to stop working with a client we don't have a match with, refuse complicated but well paying project, stop working with a team member who don't fit in.
Hard decisions, but simple one: they allow us to stay who we are.
Use the best tool
As you will see in the Guidelines, we have strong conventions over what tools we use. Slack, GitHub, Drive: all these tools are like the hammer of... well, whatever profession uses a hammer. By using creme de la creme tools, we stop doing repetitive dumbass tasks and concentrate on what distinguishes us from stupid bots: building unique things.
Openness
Freelancers have access to core data about the company. The only reason not to disclose documents are the ones that are of a legal type. Income? Turnover? Plans? We start by sharing everything with the team, instead of the other way round.
Paperless
We are a digital studio. Like... digital. We print almost nothing and keep everything in the cloud.
Let's build a better future. GO TREES!
Feminism
We believe the low representation of women in the IT sector is the product of systemic discriminations, sexist stereotypes and ambient misogyny. We want to be a part of a new culture that aims to empower women and close the gender gap through words and actions.
We want to hire women and we make it clear: ladies, you’re welcome here and your work is valuable to us! No matter your gender, working with us means being on an equal footing. You can always speak up and your ideas are valuable to us.
Mansplaining, harassment, microaggressions and salary gaps have no place at nextmoov.
We want to take steps towards creating a respectful and inclusive culture where women can feel safe and supported at work. You’re welcome to take those steps with us.
Come as you are
Unless we have a meeting with a partner or client, we really (like reaaaally) don't care how you're dressed. Leave mandatory suits to boring companies. And in the case of a meeting, you should still avoid suits but use a casual smart or casual business dress code.
The α and the Ω
We build our products in an agile way, meaning we deliver regularly so as to ensure the perfect fit with our client's needs. That also means every release should build on top the previous and bring added value. Which in turn involves a lot (a lot (a lot (a lot))) of testing. As we're all in the same boat, we expect we all participate to it. So allow some free space to welcome Alpha and Beta apps in your busy phone. And use them.
Collaborating.
Non Remote Fridays & Workshop
We really wanted to have Casual Fridays, but then we realized we are not wearing a suit any day of the week... That's why we created the... (drum roll)... Non Remote Fridays.
It's the day of the week to gather round @ Brussels HQ for anyone willing to.
We run the Sprint Debrief, a quickly WeeklyBrief, share a lunch and then discover a new exciting tech during the workshop.
Sprint Debrief - Every Monday, 10:30
During the weekly (half-)Sprint Debrief, you will be reviewing your assigned Stories with your Project Manager, and according to the project progress, you will be briefed for the upcoming week.
10:30, remember that time: every stories of yours needs to be completed by that time.
Cause, you know: deadlines are one of the rare things we don't laugh about. 🤷🏽♀️
WeeklyBrief - Every Friday, 11:30
Every Friday, the Core Team meet and do a quick checkup of every project being actively developed, as well as update the main milestones for the Company. Everyone is welcome to attend!
Workshop - Every Friday, 14:00
Kubernetes, FramerX, 3D Printing, React Native: We play with a lot of tech.
Want to discover a new one? We all do!
Everyone can attend: (former) team members, (former) interns, friends, friends of friends, and, of course, your mom. The agenda is publicly available:
Constant reporting - 24/7
Everyone should constantly report progress on the appropriate Zube project base and push their code on GitHub. And the automatic integration to Slack will do the trick.
Writing.
General guidelines
First and foremost, nextmoov is written nextmoov. Forget "NextMoov", "Nextmoov", and don't even try "NextMove" or adding a space in the middle: the Creative Director might be slightly upset 🤷🏼♂️
English only, but the customer is king
All internals documents should be written in English. But beware that documents made for clients should be written communication in the language chosen by the client in the Client OnBoarding Process.
For internal communication, such as Slack or emails, feel free to speak French or English.
Documents
Use Google Drive
Unless you reaaaaally need THAT very specific function from Excel, always use Google Drive. Collaboration will be way easier for everyone - don't we all hate playing boomerang with Something-V29-ModifsThomas-ReluParMathieu-CheckFrancois-FINAL.docx by email?
Use styles
Structure your Google Docs documents using styles like Title 1, Title 2,... instead of doing direct formatting (manually picking font size, font weight,...). This will allow you to do things like changing all the titles at once or generate a nice index.
Use templates
It's pretty self-explanatory. We hate losing time, so we simplify tasks. You can find some basic templates in your Drive.
Emails
Follow our subject line convention
Following a simple convention when writing the subject line of an email can help both the client and us save a lot of time when searching for a specific email. It also helps us to build some automated reports.
nextmoov/<CLIENT_ID> - Project - Specific subject of email
Example:
nextmoov/Cambio - Discover&Register - Payment
Answer all emails in less than 24 hours
If you need more than 24 hours to answer an email, you must let the client know by sending a quick email saying so. Being available to our clients is a cornerstone of our reputation.
Follow-up with the client if they doesn't answer email
If you sent an email between Monday and Wednesday, send a friendly reminder on Monday. If you sent an email between Tuesday and Sunday, send a friendly reminder on Wednesday.
You must avoid sending "complex" emails on Friday after 11.00AM. And last but not least, you must use our corporate signature.
Systematically cc the appropriate Slack channel
We've been through this already, Slack is our all-in-one communication hub and you should therefore cc the channel email address so we make sure everyone has access to the freshest information at all time.
Invoicing
Money. Want some? Send any freelancing invoice (or expense invoices from a third-party) to this magical email address :
They should be addressed to :
nextmoov
NextRide SPRL
Rue Oltrémont, 87
4420 Saint-Nicolas
BE0637743524
When possible, we pay them as soon as they are received, not waiting for due date.
Tools.
Our all-rounders' daily companions
You know the best teams out there all have their legendary tools, right? Think of Frodo's ring, Harry's wand or Superman's underwear
Likewise, at nextmoov, we have some wonderful tools to fuel our collaboration. Proudly introducing you to the ZASD1-squad: Zube, Airtable, Slack, Google Drive, 1Password.
Zube is a Project Management layer that comes on top of GitHub and allows for some fancy PM-stuff while staying perfectly synchronized.
Airtable is a shared database where we store everything from contacts details to inventory of assets. We use it as a kind of CRM to say it in other words.
Slack is our all-in-one internal communication tool. This is the place where the teamwork happens, from sharing news to raising questions to your colleagues. Its power comes from its tight integration with all our other tools (Zube, Airtable, Drive, Mail, GitHub...) making it the perfect hub to stay up-to-date. Also, this is where we make jokes most of the time
Next comes Google Drive, our... well you know Drive right?
Lastly, for the accounts we share among the studio, we use 1Password, our cloudy safe.
And that's it.
... Wait, what about the good ol' email then? Well, we use it of course, but for external communication only and with some strict writing conventions (see below).
Before going any further, we should tell you that we're a UNIX-friendly agency. This means all our tools run either on macOS or GNU/Linux. Depending on your profile, it might affect you differently (have you ever tried opening a .key file on your Windows laptop?
For Developers
Lucky you! Our developers have their own dedicated On Boarding Guide!
We are strong believers of the "Conventions over Configuration" paradigm.
Good news: this shitload of conventions is going to make your life as developer a pure heaven. 80% of the architectural decision have been taken for you already - just focus on writing neat code.
For designers
Well there's nothing as fancy as secret keys and stuff for you. But you're part of the best team in nextmoov
Other design tools such as Framer X are still being considered but haven't been thoroughly tested yet.
It seems logical, but we remind you that as a freelance designer, you have to own your own genuine legal versions of the pieces of software you use.