Guild work at Exove

At Exove, developing our ways of working is based heavily on guilds. Guilds make it possible for every employee to have an effect on our practices and procedures.

What is a guild?

A guild is a self-guiding group facilitated by at least one person. The main goal of each guild is to improve Exove. Each guild has goals that are updated and checked at least once a year.

Each guild has at least one facilitator, who, for example, makes sure the guild meetings happen. Facilitator role varies a bit within each guild

Each guild also has a sponsor. The sponsor is there to help and support the guild facilitator in ensuring that the guild goals are realistic and that the guild is actively working towards the defined goals.

At Exove, each guild can define their own practices. A lot of the guilds meet monthly, some even more frequently. In addition, each guild has a discussion channel that allows for ongoing discussion of guild issues outside of the meetings.

Who can participate in guild activities?

Any employee of Exove can take part in guilds regardless of their role or job description. Exove sees value in guilds, and employees are encouraged to participate in guild activities.

Guild activity isn’t restricted to a single guild either. Each person can decide for themselves how many guilds they can or want to be active in. But of course, client work always comes first.

What guilds are there at Exove?

Usually guilds focus on a specific technology or area of Exove services. The guild focus is also usually present at the guild name. A dozen guilds are currently active, covering a wide range of Exove services and practices.

• The accessibility guild focuses on spreading knowledge and expertise around the various topics of accessibility.

• The architecture guild focuses on the architecture of our projects. In order for an implementation to live a long life, the architecture plans need to be solid.

• The Drupal guild concentrates on the Drupal content management system and its features.

• The knowledge sharing guild actively improves communication within Exove. The guild also helps organize internal training events.

• The sales support guild has a mission to improve both the quality and efficiency of our sales.

• The security guild focuses on security matters from Exove and customer point of view.

• The support guild focuses solely on Exove care – the support and maintenance service we provide.

• The technical consulting guild focuses on developing our competences from the consulting point of view.

• The tech lead guild improves our tech lead role and processes surrounding our project work.

• The UX guild focuses on implementing beautiful and functional interfaces and websites.

In addition to each guild focusing on their own area, the guilds also collaborate constantly with each other. This way we can make sure that Exove practices are developed from all perspectives.

No guild is ever left alone. If needed, guilds can get support from each other, the guild sponsors or from the production steering group.

How does one start a guild at Exove?

Since guild activities are so central to Exove, it is important that new guilds can be founded if necessary. At Exove anyone can at any point found a guild regardless of their role or job title.

There are some requirements for a guild. There must be interest inside the company to participate in such a guild, a guild must have more than one member. The guild must have a facilitator. The guild founder doesn’t have to be the facilitator but they should know who it will be. And last but not definitely least, the guild must bring value to Exove.

So there can’t be a guild for playing with legos, but for things unrelated to our work and company, we have clubs.

Thoughts by