About
Role-up

Role-up is created by Bart van Lieshout, Norbert Terhorst and Meike Mak. We are designers and engineers from the Netherlands and have been working in multidisciplinary teams for many years.

Why we created Role-up for you

We found that remote working magnifies some of the typical issues that arise in agile, self-organizing teams. Things that seem clear to one person, are not so clear for others. And not working in the same physical space makes it harder to spot these misalignments. Assumptions lead to misunderstandings and irritations get in the way of great teamwork. 😥
Unfortunately this is something that can happen to any team, no matter how motivated, professional or senior you are.

The good news is that there are ways to tackle this lack of clarity. Some smart principles used in organizational models such as Holacracy and sociocracy can help. We understand that not every team or company is ready to completely decentralize management and distribute authority to self-organizing teams, but… there is one aspect that we feel you should do anyway: Start working with roles.

So we created a digital product that will help you to do just that: create roles, list responsibilities per role and make people accountable by assigning them to roles.

You will find that the process of defining roles and making responsibilities per role explicit with your team will spark discussion. Creating a shared overview of what you expect from each other will help you see where expectations misalign, so you can start resolving.
Roles reflect people, so they are not static! In Holacracy and sociocracy the meetings where you discuss roles and responsibilities are a regular thing, starting weekly for teams that are new to it and slowing down to a frequency that allows a team to keep their governance structure of roles up-to-date.

Not only your team will benefit. In Role-up you can see roles and responsibilities in other teams in your organization as well. This makes it easier to find the right person anywhere in your organization. Imagine an interactive dynamic overview of all teams, all team members and all their roles and responsibilities in your company. A map of your organization that makes responsibilities transparent. That is what we made for you!

We hope Role-up will empower your team to reach its full potential and do great things!

Cheesy greetings from Gouda and Amsterdam!