1 - "A Seat At The Table"
=========================

.. note::
   This is the first, and most important point, of this entire document. If you
   take away nothing else, I believe you can still find success if you can
   manage to integrate this into your company.

**"A Seat At The Table"** means just what it says; that Engineering should be
included in *& have a say* when decision-making.

This is a philosophy that should be present at all layers of both the
business & engineering. Naturally, the scope & context should change with the
situation at-hand.

This also the most difficult, because it requires business-wide, top-to-bottom
adoption (ugh, fine, *nee: buy-in*). Your C-staff has to be committed to it,
your product/sales teams have to be including you, your most junior engineer has
to be trying their best at it. Consider yourself warned, but this is *also* why
it works & is so important.

What It Is
----------

**"A Seat At The Table"** means an appropriate member (or members) of
Engineering are present in decision-making. At a C-level, this means that when
budgeting or roadmapping/planning or reviewing is happening, your
CTO/Director/highest member(s) of Engineering are included in those *and*
contributing.

At a mid-level, when sales is prepping the quarter's pitches, a senior member of
Engineering (and/or a sales engineer if you've got them) is offered the chance
to help with ideas, or to sit-in/review pitches for accuracy.

When Product is planning a feature, or doing the early review with Design on the
UI/UX of a feature, it means a senior engineer and/or engineers on that will be
doing the work on that cross-functional team are involved. They are helping to
guide scope, find *pain points* early, and to help find *shortcuts/low-hanging
fruit*!

When engineering is knee-deep on a feature, it means the junior engineer who
was last-minute handed the
*"reporting-work-that-got-overlooked-during-planning"* gets invites to the
remaining project meetings, they're given access to other engineers on the
feature, they're highlighting where possible performance issues from expensive
queries may come up (& are taken seriously). And they get ear-marked to be
included in both the feature review, as well as participate in the next feature
planning meeting.

It is equal parts **privilege** and **responsibility**. It's a commitment by
Engineering that they'll engage with the rest of the company on even-terms.
That appropriate time & care will be committed to answering questions for other
teams. That Engineering will make time for those meetings, as well as commit
to making features a best-effort reality.

It *has* to be a two-way street, it *has* to involve dialogue, it *has* to
be respectful by everyone & to everyone.

It is **enablement** of your employees, your people. Give them the power to
control their fate/destiny.

What It Isn't
-------------

**"A Seat At The Table"** isn't a veto card. It's not an overruling vote. It's
a equal say in what priorities should be.

**"A Seat At The Table"** is **NOT** a God-mode cheat code to get out of doing
the work. It's a chance to point out difficult hurdles/impossibilities, or
future pain points, ahead of time *and* commit to finding
workarounds/stop-gaps/alternative features **with** the other
teams or departments.

It is **NEVER** to be used to disrepect/dismiss anyone else, not even the
janitor. Zero tolerance is to be given to this kind of abuse/behavior.