Transparency

FAQ
"Why is it important to go public with most of what happens on a day to day basis in the company? For example, if we want to recruit a marketing guy to promote our games, why should the negociation on his salary be public ? If we have a management issue with an employee, why should we go public ? If the three partners have discussions about a possible strategic move, why go public before submitting it to the board ?"

There is no such thing as an absolute rule, but some of the reasons to be transparent with those scenarios are :


 * If we want everyone to understand budget constraints (why we can or can't do something), it's important to be able to know where the money is spent. Furthermore, people within the community may have very good insights about the adequacy of a given salary (we are less likely to have overlooked something), some may provide arguments to help with the negotiation, and if people have been involved in the decision process, they are more likely to support the outcome. (also see Recruitment Process)
 * It depends on the management issue, but if we take an inability to meet deadlines as an example, having the discussion in the open allows people to give their opinion about the eventual external factors that may be influencing the deadlines (that the manager may have overlooked), and in general it helps to generate general discussions about what is expected of employees and reinforces the shared knowledge of what is acceptable and what isn't. (see Handling Work-related Issues)
 * Those three partners, if they delay presenting the idea to the community, don't benefit from the different angles and viewpoints that some members could have contributed from the start, which results in a loss of time. In addition to that, because the community is not involved from the start, it introduces the concept that its opinion is secondary, that the discussions take place externally - it makes it less interesting for the contributors to give an opinion ("they only tell me now, so it means that my opinion is not that important") and more difficult ("I'm probably missing a lot of information from the earlier discussions, necessary to give an appropriate opinion or advice").