Inside MOIA: How Collaboration and Flexibility Drive our Agile Culture
by: Cindy Morais, Agilist at MOIA
At MOIA, we are all about teamwork, continuous learning, and staying flexible. In this post, you’ll get a peek into how we work, our team culture, and the cool ways we collaborate both inside and outside the company where we make sure everyone’s voice counts, and every idea matters.
Culture and Collaboration
We truly value collaboration, which has been integral in shaping our environment thanks to our agile mindset. Collaboration is everywhere — among teams, individuals, technology, and processes. You’ll notice it immediately when you see our team members constantly emphasizing its importance.
And we’re not only talking about collaboration internally; we engage with our clients too. We conduct research and seek direct feedback from our clients to continually adapt and improve our roadmap based on their needs. This approach aligns with two key values from the Agile Manifesto:
“Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools” and “Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation.”
Since we have a dynamic environment, we enhance collaboration and transparency through frequent internal demos. Everyone in the company is encouraged to participate, providing a great opportunity to ask for feedback from other teams and share ongoing projects. This practice supports another Agile Manifesto value:
“Responding to Change over Following a Plan,” fostering a culture of adaptability and continuous improvement.
Such practices come along with another tons of tech practices as pair programming and peer reviews, this way we guarantee one more value from the Agile Manifesto: Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation.
Our Agile Way of Working
At MOIA, we know that each team and individual has unique needs and challenges. We don’t impose a single method or framework. Instead, we adapt our ways of working based on the context, identifying the best approach for each situation always following the agile principles.
When we talk about agile, we’re referring to a way of working that keeps teams connected with their clients and focused on what those clients need. Whether it’s a product team or a platform team, staying in touch with client feedback is essential. This means regularly reviewing your product, checking your task list (or backlog) to ensure you’re heading in the right direction, and collaborating with the right people to deliver features that are useful and valuable. The goal is to keep improving the product with each interaction, giving clients more reasons to use it.
At MOIA, we use several common practices to help with this, such as dailys, reviews, and retrospectives. These routines allow everyone to feel involved and valued, while also ensuring we stay on track. No matter which method or framework a team chooses to follow, we ensure that it helps avoid overplanning, adapts to new changes, and focuses on meeting client needs and priorities.
We constantly challenge, coach, and mentor individuals and teams to reach their highest potential, ensuring everyone is aligned and focused on our main goals. We use common terminology and tools to facilitate collaboration, making it easy to stay updated and on the same page, no matter which team you are on.
Team Structure
Our teams are structured to cover the entire value chain, from the customer experience to the vehicle operations. This setup allows us to design and develop solutions with minimal dependencies, fostering seamless collaboration. We also encourage knowledge-sharing across teams through our communities of practice, keeping everyone aligned and informed.
Our approach to team topology is designed to optimize communication, collaboration, and efficiency. Teams are organized around specific journeys — both from the customer and vehicle perspectives.
For instance, when a passenger orders a MOIA, there are team focus on the entire ordering experience, ensuring the information is clear and relevant to complete the order smoothly. More teams are dedicated to improving the pickup process, optimizing routes and planning for upcoming rides. As the trip progresses, more teams work on creating the best routes and delivering key information to enhance the passenger experience. Finally, when it’s time for the passenger to be dropped off, another teams ensure that the entire experience has been positive, encouraging the passenger to recommend MOIA to others.
On the vehicle side, teams are responsible for ensuring that the vehicle is ready for its shift, with checks in place before the ride starts. During the journey, teams focus on vehicle safety, driver experience, and comfort for all passengers in the “Pluto,” that is how we called our beloved golden car. After each ride, teams continue working to refine and improve the overall experience.
Challenges and Learnings
The best parts of working at MOIA are the support and transparency, the welcoming of mistakes, and our blameless culture. You are encouraged to try new ideas and ways of working, which means the learning never stops. You are always collaborating with others to make MOIA a better place to be and work.
In 2024, our current challenge is making better data-driven decisions, better coordinating and prioritizing our initiatives to deliver at a better pace for our customers
How We Engage And Align On Strategic Topics
Our main focus is driving value across the organization through our product teams. To achieve this, we have designed a personalized process that ensures alignment, focus, and collaboration. By systematically connecting strategic topics and business needs, we provide more guidance to teams on how they can actively contribute.
We proudly call this process “Targets & Bets.” It has been an exciting journey, where everyone in the company is invited to participate, learn about strategic topics in detail, find creative ways to collaborate and tackle challenges, and provide feedback to improve the process
Stay tuned and connect with us!
We’d love to extend an open invitation to exchange ideas, share experiences, and collaborate with our Agile community here at MOIA. We believe that the best solutions come from open dialogue and diverse perspectives, and we’re eager to hear from you!
Whether you’re curious about our methods or have insights to share, let’s keep the conversation going. Stay tuned for the next Agile Meet and Mingle and reach out to our Agilists team and let’s learn from each other as we continue to innovate and grow together.
