They have the most office politics that I have ever experienced. All the leaders seems to be scheming. Some confided their schemes to me. Others could be easily overheard planning who they wanted to fire next.
They have the most apathy towards their customers that I have ever experienced. There are few things more demoralizing than sitting in a sprint planning meeting and having the product owner keep blurting out, “I am so bored of this project.” Other teams have had their product owners tell them that they wish their contract would just be cancelled.
The leadership team displays poor ethics. Although there were many instances of disturbingly poor ethics while I was at Modus Operandi, one that always bothered me was their misappropriation of open source software. Open source projects donate the hard work of many good engineers. Often in return they only require that you give credit to those who did the work. There were several times when leaders who seemed to have no ideas of their own, would take open source software, remove the branding, and imply to the customers that it was developed at Modus Operandi while prohibiting the engineers from mentioning the open source platforms they were using.
The leadership team displays no business understanding. Although they are in the process of re-inventing the company based on a $12 book, there seems to be no understanding of developing and marketing a product. They seem to be spending their reputation and have failed to deliver on many contracts. Many of their current contracts were won years ago. It is unclear to me how the company will continue to stay solvent for the next few years.
The company maintains a strong cargo-cult culture. There seems to be little understanding to the technologies that are used. There is rarely a roadmap when software is developed.
Although 5 to 10 years ago the technology that was being used at Modus Operandi was modern, few new technologies have been incorporated since then. Many of the employees who were with me when I started at Modus Operandi participated in the technology community, but most of them have left the company. The remaining leadership has little understanding of current technology in the areas in which they are self-proclaimed experts. Recently my manager gave me a paper from 20 years ago describing how the advent of 17 inch monitors was revolutionizing user interfaces.
