GitLab identifies intentional transparency as part of its culture and notes that it can be unintuitive to outsiders and new team members. It encourages people to invest in open dialogue, share problems, ask for help, be forthcoming with information, and speak up.

Transparency in GitLab's Stated Values

GitLab cites the public repository of its handbook website, GitLab CE and EE issue trackers, marketing, and infrastructure as examples of transparency.

Public Handbook and Trackers as GitLab Transparency Examples

GitLab says transparency creates awareness, helps recruit people who care about its values, produces more and faster external feedback, and makes external collaboration easier.

External Feedback and Collaboration Benefits of GitLab Transparency

GitLab says it makes information public by default because transparency is one of its values, while some unsafe or limited-access information can remain nonpublic.

Public by Default at GitLab

GitLab says transparent changes should clearly lay out the reasons for the change alongside the change itself so people understand the decision and institutional memory is preserved.

Explaining Why in GitLab Transparent Decisions

GitLab says it demonstrates transparency by being open with as many things as possible, reducing the threshold to contribution, and making collaboration easier.

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GitLab states that its six core values are Collaboration, Results for Customers, Efficiency, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, Iteration, and Transparency. GitLab groups these values into the CREDIT acronym and links them to the expectation that people assume good intent with one another.

GitLab's Stated CREDIT Values

GitLab public handbook values page describing CREDIT values, public values, reinforcement mechanisms, remote-work culture, transparency, collaboration, iteration, diversity, inclusion, belonging, and results for customers. https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/

GitLab Handbook: Values

GitLab says its values are made actionable. After finding a larger values list difficult to remember, GitLab condensed the list into CREDIT and added operating principles to guide behavior.

Actionable Operating Principles for GitLab's CREDIT Values

GitLab describes its values as a living document. The company says its values are continually adjusted, refined, and revised based on lessons learned while doing business, and that everyone is welcome to suggest improvements.

GitLab Values as a Living Document

GitLab says it makes its values public because teams that share values gain power and efficiency, and because publishing values respects job seekers who are evaluating whether they align with the company.

Public Values for Candidate Self-Selection at GitLab

GitLab describes its values hierarchy as a weighting system for resolving confusion and weighing tradeoffs when values contradict each other.

GitLab Values Hierarchy for Tradeoff Decisions

GitLab presents effective collaboration as necessary for achieving results. It says helping others is a priority even when the help is not immediately tied to one's own goals, and it expects people to rely on others for help and advice.

Collaboration in GitLab's Stated Values

GitLab says it demonstrates results for customers when team members do what they promised to each other, customers, users, and investors.

Results for Customers in GitLab's CREDIT Competencies

GitLab says it demonstrates efficiency by working on the right things, not doing more than needed, and not duplicating work.

Efficiency in GitLab's CREDIT Competencies

GitLab says it demonstrates iteration by doing the smallest viable and valuable thing, getting it out quickly for feedback, and making changes based on that feedback.

Iteration in GitLab's CREDIT Competencies

GitLab says it demonstrates diversity, inclusion, and belonging by fostering an environment where everyone can thrive and by ensuring people from every background and circumstance feel like they belong and can contribute.

Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging in GitLab's CREDIT Competencies

Transparency in GitLab's CREDIT Competencies

GitLab states that whatever behavior an organization rewards becomes its values, and it reinforces values through promotion criteria, hiring selection, onboarding, compensation review, decision-making, leadership example, feedback, bonuses, offer letters, underperformance management, and other practices.

GitLab Values Reinforcement Mechanisms

GitLab says proposals should be weighed on their merits rather than who proposed them, and that people should be promoted based on results rather than being liked or having alliances.

Non-Political Work Environment at GitLab

GitLab states that all-remote is not itself a value, but is something GitLab does because it helps practice transparency, efficiency, results, and diversity, inclusion, and belonging.

All-Remote as a GitLab Values Practice

GitLab states that its mission is to enable everyone to contribute to and co-create the software that powers the world, and that this mission guides its path while it lives its values along that path.

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