Introduction
We recently had an encounter with Roberto Freato from Witailer, who kindly shared their Tech Manifesto. We realized it’s not the typical internal corporate manifesto, but a real inspiration for tech teams everywhere, with concrete insights, approaches, and best practices for successful software development.
It encapsulates how the commitment to people, shared learning, and collaboration, can help software developers to achieve better results, grow, and achieve great things.
A Living Document
The Witailer Tech Manifesto is not a static set of rules; it’s a dynamic entity designed to adapt and grow. The idea is to obtain feedback from all, fostering harmony and mitigating conflicts in the challenging world of tech.
Written in clear and simple language, it ensures understanding across all stakeholders, even those without a technical background.
Team and Community Orientation
“At the core of our operations lies the principle of Team and Community Orientation,” states the Witailer Tech Manifesto. Success hinges on upholding promises and creating a culture of trust and reliability. Every tech team should foster a collaborative culture, emphasizing continuous learning, strong work ethics, and a harmonious work environment. Every voice should be heard and respected, creating a workplace where innovation flourishes.
The manifesto outlines key principles to be successful:
- Upholding promises to create trust and reliability.
- Fostering a shared sense of curiosity and open exchange of ideas.
- Embracing failure as a stepping stone to success.
- Centering focus on entire projects, not isolated tasks.
- Supporting each other openly and taking full ownership of our work.
- User-Oriented Innovation
“As passionate advocates of User-Oriented Innovation, we perform initial feasibility verification, prioritize speed as a key feature, and encourage individual development,” declares the manifesto. According to Witailer, tech teams should always be updated with the latest tools and trends, awarding prime importance to customer feedback, and striving for sustainable solutions with the potential for future growth.
The key tenets of User-Oriented Innovation include:
- Initial feasibility verification for viable ideas.
- Treating speed as an essential feature.
- Encouraging individual development and collaborative sharing.
- Staying updated with the latest tools and trends.
- Prioritizing user experience (UX) excellence.
- Quality and Sustainability
Quality and sustainability are non-negotiable, as outlined in the manifesto. Performance should always be considered a key consideration, and devs should always leave code better than they found it.
The manifesto also advocates for recognizing the effectiveness of copy-pasting when needed (avoid overengineering, do not reinvent the wheel) and generalizing at the right moments. It stresses the importance of elegant failure, careful planning and testing of releases, monitoring as a standard practice, and instituting quality checkpoints during the release process.
Key principles for Quality and Sustainability include:
- Designing with performance in mind.
- Continuous improvement in code quality.
- Knowing when to generalize and when simplicity is key.
- Planning and testing releases thoroughly.
- Instituting quality checkpoints and monitoring as standard practices.
Conclusion
The Witailer Tech Manifesto’s value lies in its capability of being more than a mere internal document. Grounded in principles of collaboration, user-oriented innovation, and quality, it is a living document that can help any team thrive in software development.
