First Steps to Doctrine: the Example of Moore's Cloud Business Principles
For an example of a fluid progression from values to high-level beginnings of doctrine, consider this published set of business principles from Moore's Cloud, a "smart light" startup based in Australia. Their founder, Mark Pesce, explained that the intent of these principles was both internal and external, being used both to inform internal daily decision-making and to filter (attract or repel) investors by explicitly stating the company's commitment to open ecosystems and transparent business practice. By 'downloading' individuals decision-making guides from key leaders in the organization and then 'uploading' them to the business's guiding source code, Moore's Cloud has reduced huge amounts of unnecessary ambiguity and given their entire ecosystem information necessary to align on everything from strategy to daily work without requiring regular stops in action to discuss or course-correct.
After some recent discussion about how we want to run this business in the future we came up with the following principles.
Because the Moore’s Cloud business team intends to continue creating new products and applications to power the Internet of Things we need to be clear as to our approach.
We think that this is important for team members, investors, customers, and other stakeholders.
Moore’s Cloud Business Principles
1) We will always answer any question we are asked openly and honestly while respecting the privacy of others.
2) We will conduct the operations of the business in a transparent way.
3) We believe we have an obligation to teach what we know and to learn from what others share.
4) We believe a healthy mix of collaboration and competition results in the best outcomes.
5) We believe sharing our intellectual property creates the greatest value.
6) We believe that the best profits generate social benefits.