Our non-ESOP approach to employee ownership meant we got to determine how our program worked. The legal advice we got was very helpful, but it
Encouraging Professional Growth with the “Career Development Manager”
Atomic’s most valuable resource is our people (whom we call Atoms). It’s our goal to provide them with meaningful work, pay a fair salary, live
Sacrificing Robustness for Expediency – A Story about Fragility
“A plan that’s too dependent on any one person is too fragile.” Derek Sivers Pairs of people working together make a project or situation more
Atomic Ownership, Part 5: Distributions
Editor’s Note: Since this post’s publication, we’ve further improved our approach to distributions. Find a revision to our Rainy Day Fund here, and continue reading
Inheriting a Team Successfully by Managing for Growth
As leaders within organizations, we rarely get to start our own team from scratch. We receive teams as they were formed. Often, we have limited
Atomic Ownership, Part 4: Financing employee ownership
Having decided to take the bold step of becoming an employee-owned company, written up a prospectus, determined a valuation, and heard “yes” from seven interested
An Infinite Game – How we schedule teams without losing our minds
A few years ago, when I was new to software consulting, I attended my first resource scheduling meeting. Resource scheduling is the act of assigning
Outgrowing our structure – How we navigated 6 phases of growth at Atomic
Things had been going extremely well. You were growing, succeeding. But now… You can’t quite put your finger on what’s wrong. You’re feeling out of
Atomic Ownership, Part 3: Valuation
Editor’s Note: Since this post’s publication, Atomic has further refined its approach to determining a valuation. Keep checking in on Great Not Big as we
Why we don’t “delight” our clients – and what we do instead
Every company knows how important a great customer experience is for success. And yet, there are still plenty of nightmare stories where customers are treated