Pets and CATs of Flagrant

Furfriends and community action teams

Community Action Teams (CATs)

At a small consultancy, sometimes it’s challenging to prioritize internal tasks amid the daily hum of activity for our clients’ projects. We’ve written in the past about experiments, and we also have internal projects, but we realized neither of those are a great fit/format for ongoing work and important tasks critical to the health of our small team.

Enter: Community Action Teams (CATs)! In October of 2022, we defined a CAT as a…

limited term project, like an experiment, but it’s got a strong mandate to make something happen for the company as a whole—like a company culture handbook, clarifying our hiring process, identifying design methods, etc.

Someone would lead, and a few others would help, meeting weekly and taking the time necessary to get whatever it is done. To be clear: joining a community of action is voluntary and compensated (in the sense that you aren’t expected to bill for the time you’re spending working on the business of the group). You can help with one working group at a time. Every working group has a leader who’s expected to call the meetings and drive the work.

We’ve formed several CATs at Flagrant since then: 

  • Hiring CAT - Our most recently formed CAT. This CAT has been working to document our current hiring process and assess where we’d like to improve it. With this CAT’s support, we’ve adopted some new tools and practices for two roles we opened recently.
  • Board CAT - This CAT has been defining a vision for forming a board at Flagrant, investigating how a board does and does not relate to potentially pursuing becoming a co-op, and documenting what we imagine the steps of forming a board to look like at a high level. It’s also been working to set expectations around how Flagrant can make agreements and policies as a company moving forward, using consensus-based decision-making as well as a new tool to support the process, Loom.io
  • Outreach CAT - This CAT created a process for speaking publicly about things Flagrant is participating in or cares about in a way that aligns with our brand positioning. They’ve helped us be better able to communicate who we are, what we do, and why we do it.
  • Design Methods CAT - This CAT defined and documented some of the design methods we use at Flagrant. Designers discussed and shared resources around some of the primary ways we work with clients.

Pets roster

Let’s face it—pets are the real stars of remote “offices” at distributed companies. At Flagrant, we have a #fur-friends Slack channel where we can share the latest and greatest snaps of all our fluffy (and non-fluffy!) animal companions.

Pinkie and Burger (Glynnis) 📷

Pinkie the kitty sitting in a pile of their toys strewn about Burger is a black kitty looking absolutely fashionable in a feather boa

Finn and Cato (Amanda) 📷

Finn the doggo looking wonderfully happy while prancing to you Cato the kitty wanting attention and affection from you

Moo (Cody) 📷

Moo the kitty looking like how you did trying to stay awake for a late night movie

Nietzsche, Island/Sunscreen/The White One, Fearless, Xena, Lady Montgomery (Jack) 📷

Nietzsche the floofy dog basking sleepily in the yard Nietzsche the floofy doggo peeping on you through the door Nietzsche the floofy doggo lazing on the couch with cat eyeing you eating another slice of cake Island the doggo on their own little island crate Fearless the fearless kitty sitting on top of a plaid blanket while Island the kitty perches on her own little island Nietzsche the floof sniffing Lady Montgomery the turtle hiding in her shell. Lady Montgomery smells like sunshine and rainbows after a rainy day

Gizmo, Glitche, and Chewie (JB) 📷

Gizmo and Glitch the black voids cuddling up next to each other Chewie the big floof sprawled out wondering when their next walk is going to be

Indy and Sookie/Cat (Kelly) 📷

Indy the pupper looking at you longingly for yet another treat Indy the pupper is still waiting for you to give another treat Indy the pupper looking sed because you didn't buy more treats to refill his belly Indy the pupper, Sookie the kitty, and Kelly looking off in the far off distance wondering who is going to feed them treat Sookie the kitty and Jim pondering about the next treat that will be handed to them Sookie the kitty screaming because Indy the pupper ate all the treats Sookie the kitty giving you its best silly face because it needs more treats

Timmy, Pai, Daphne, and Tesla (Yossef) 📷

Daphne the doggo with her quirky little head tilt Daphne playing in the snow, waiting for you to throw a snowball

Timmy the doggo looking absolutely dapper and happy to see you Timmy the doggo smiling and looking quite happy in the snow

Pai the doggo prancing around the snow Pai oh so tired from prancing around

Tesla the kitty wondering if its a prop or a kitty Tesla the kitty ready for another nappy nap nap

Mocha and Ralphie (Chris) 📷

Mocha the small doggo splayed under a Christmas tree Ralphie the other smol doggo ready for some spoopy times

Oliver (Joyce) 📷

Oliver the corgi wanting you to throw a frisbee!!

Rue & Raring (doggos), Mittens (cat), 4 bunnies and 6 chickens (Val) 📷

“I just couldn’t think of all their names haha. Bunnies: Carrots (full name Carrotcakes), Pumpkin, Tub-o, and Snickers! Chickens: Floppsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, Lavender, Yoshi and Boo. All the fish (the little ones) are just ‘fish’, my sisters big Goldfish is named Timothy (used to live with a snail named Shelamet, (get it haha))” - Val

Rue the doggo wanting to take a nap, so sleepy Rue looking wide awake now

Korgeigh (Andrew) 📷

Korgeigh the floof kitty ready for belly rubs Korgeigh the floof kitty booping out of your laundry pile

Riesling (Jim & Jen) 📷

Riesling telling you that it's important to stay warm in the cold Riesling unhappy that it's cold outside once again

Billi (Maya) 📷

Billi is ready for you to shower them with treats

Not Lena’s pets, but pets Lena has subjected to hats (Lena) 📷

Ube looking like a cotton ball with eyes Affogato sleepily wearing a wizard hat wishing for you to leave him alone Magpie says to save the bees!!!! Chacha looking rather unamused that you forced him to yet another hat Biscotti wearing a cowboy hat ready to pounce

If you’re looking for a team to help you discover the right thing to build and help you build it, get in touch.

Published on May 13, 2024