A lot has been written about the position of rules in a company. For instance we have the popular book "No Rules Rules", and also "Ask your Developer" which talks about autonomy and rules almost as if they cannot conflict.<p>I do think that some rules are needed: For instance even if you allow everyone in your company to spend money in a way that "they think is in the best interest of the company". They still need to do it in a way that finance kan keep doing their job (file taxes correctly, get a good idea about how much is spend on what, etc.).
Therefore I'd love to get some tips, book/blog recommendations. On where people should start with introducing rules and how people should introduce those rules both effectively and without decreasing the feeling of freedom and autonomy.<p>For context I work at a company with currently 40 employees, but we grow with about 80% every year (mostly young people), and I am finding that our almost complete lack of rules not only prevents us from getting some basic processes in place. Additionally, I am afraid that people will develop less depth if they cannot cannot depend on other parts of the company giving them exactly what they need.
It all comes back to what a company rewards, and how they hold people accountable.<p>A company that consistently rewards people for shipping sloppy code as fast as possible at the expense of other teams will get more sloppy code shipped at the expense of other teams.<p>Most issues like this can be traced back to misplaced accountability, or an imbalance between reward and accountability. If teams can collect rewards for bad behavior while dodging accountability for the downstream effects, the situation will continue.<p>Rules don't mean anything if the company rewards people for breaking them. Focus on the incentives.