The Agility Collective

The inner workings of a rather different consulting company

Crisplets

In homage to Crisp, we have maintained the use of the word “crisplet” to describe this activity. Perhaps as our own model grows and takes a life of it’s own, a litle bit of crisps light will remain.

How do bottom-up initiatives get funded? How do you get money to do something without a budget process?

Answer: If you want something that needs funding, form a Crisplet. That is, find others that want the same thing and are willing to pay for it with their own money. The Collective can foot the bill initially.

What is a Crisplet?

A Crisplet is a loosely coupled interest group of members who want to co-fund an initiative. Perfect for situations where we don’t really need everyone at the collective involved.

This cuts down on the need for a more traditional budget process and debate about things like how much the Collective should spend on what. Lots of spreadsheets, discussions, compromises, and not very effective. We are trying to move in from the whole idea of a centralized budgeting process and in favor of something more like beyond budgeting. We also want to keep the fees as low as possible, give the office team and board full freedom to manage the bank account continuously without any up-front budgeting process. And as for additional projects and expenses: let people group up and spend their money on whatever they want, no need for consensus from all of the Collective. Saves a lot of time!

In some cases it does make sense for the collective as a whole to fund an initiative, for example a redesign of our website. For smaller initiatives the office team or board can just go ahead and do it. For larger initiatives we may go for a consensus decision at our next unconference.

But when in doubt (or if in a hurry), go for opt-in and just form a Crisplet. Because it’s just so much easier. We may of course decide later this cost should be Collective-global, and in that case simply close the Crisplet.

Benefits of forming a Crisplet

The main benefit to forming a Crisplet is that we reduce the need for centralized decision making, and maximize people’s economic freedom.

But why Crisplets at all? Can’t people just “huddle up and do it”? True, but the Crisplet model offer some advantages:

  • Transparency - all Crisplets are listed (at least the long-lived ones)
  • Engagement - it is easier to get involved if you know what’s going on
  • Established form of collaboration - the initiator and participants of a Crisplet know what it means.
  • Economies of scale - each Crisplet has a Crisplet Account that is administered by the office team.
  • Liquidity - a Crisplet can spend money that it doesn’t have (yet). For example, a donation to Doctors Without Borders, where the Collective pays the donation and then invoiced each participant. This works because we have a cash buffer (although limited), and because we trust that each participant will pay their part when the time comes.
  • Responsibility - Crisplet Accounts only appear when there are actual individuals who are prepared to pay. This reduces the risk that the Collective has as a whole, in spending money on stuff that isn’t important, or that very few people care about.

What is required of a Crisplet

  • A wiki page describing the purpose of the Crisplet, how collaboration is done and who has joined
  • A link from the list of Crisplets to the wiki page describing the Crisplet
  • All Crisplets are open for any member to join.
  • Every new Crisplet is announced via an RAR-email.

Sometimes Crisplets don’t have to pay

Crisplets are expected to run at a loss (they are basically cost centers), so each Crisplet Account can be seen as a short-term loan from the Collective to a group of participants. Each participant should expect to receive an invoice from the Collective at some point, to cover their part of the cost.

However, sometimes that doesn’t happen. Sometimes the Collective will waive the debt. For example because:

  • The Crisplet ended up spending money that clearly was to the benefit of the Collective as a whole, so the Collective foots the bill.
  • The costs were so low that it’s not worth the administrative hassle of invoicing all participants.

The second case is very important, because it basically gives the office team permission to avoid a bunch of micromanagement and administrative overhead. If 6 people get together to form a Crisplet and their costs end up being just $280 to buy a license for a tool, then we probably won’t bother invoicing everyone. Think of it as our “yeah whatever” budget.

By waiving the debt, the Collective can avoid unnecessary administration of costs that are clearly in the common interest, or clearly too small to bother with.

This model makes it easy for people to collaborate on stuff without a bunch of upfront budgeting or permission-seeking.