In my experience as an organization leader one of the most important tools in my toolbox has always been my personal values. It's been my experience that even when data points in one direction, and best practices say you should approach the problem in this way, it's always been my values that help me make the best decisions as an individual. And the truth is, there are very rarely any decisions that are 100% clear cut. In almost every decision, some amount of judegment is required. 

That's why I believe so strongly in defining values for the organizations I work for. When everyone is working from a shared sense of values, we're making decisions - even big giant judgement calls - from the same perspective. To that end, we spent some time this year working with the board and staff to develop a values statement for the Drupal Association.

We started in a board retreat, brainstorming the implicit (though not documented) values of the Association and the larger Drupal Community. The board ranked their favorites, and then we created a committee of board and staff to draft some language. Those initial values statements were vetted by both the entire Association staff and the full board, and then additional edits were made. Here's the result of that process:

The Drupal Association shares the values of our community, our staff, and open source projects:

• TEAMWORK: We add value to the Drupal community by helping each other solve problems to create quality human and digital experiences.
• COMMUNICATION: We value communication. We seek community participation. We are open and transparent.
• ACTION: We act decisively and proactively, embracing what we learn from both our successes and our mistakes.
• RESPECT: We respect and value inclusivity in our global community and strive to recognize, understand, and respond to its needs.
• FUN: We create environments that embrace humor resulting in fun, positive, supportive and safe interactions.

To be clear, these are the values we're defining for our staff. We're not trying to impose these values on the larger community. However, we do hope they reflect the values you feel are important in the larger Drupal community as well. We also want to recognize that writing down the words is one thing, and living up to them is something else. We intend to live these values in all our work. 

Now it's your turn. The values are set by the board and staff, but we want to make sure we know what you think.

Flickr photo: Howard Lake