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Modus Operandi

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Modus Operandi reviews

3.2

50% would recommend to a friend

(5 total reviews)
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Peter Dyson

50% approve of CEO

43% positive business outlook

Ratings by category

3.6

Work/Life balance

3.3

Compensation and benefits

2.8

Culture & values

2.8

Career opportunities

2.6

Diversity & inclusion

2.6

Senior management

Reviews by job title

5 reviews

Reviews about "Management"

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1.0
Feb 12, 2017

Fearful and childish management

Software engineer
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

When I started working a Modus Operandi several years ago it was a good job. The company was growing, and the projects were interesting and used some modern technology. Unfortunately, a series of catastrophic business and personnel decisions over that last few years resulted in the loss of most of their top performers and left the company with no clear direction. The remaining leadership team grasps at seemingly random government contracts without any clear long term plans. One contract may be for cyber-security and the next for business process management. These panicky context switches often leaves people working on projects without a good understanding of the purpose, customer, nor domain. Each member of the leadership team has their own personal agenda and seems to be mostly focused on not losing their jobs. As long as you’re hacking away on one of their crudely conceived ideas, they’ll support you. But, as soon as something goes wrong, be prepared to shoulder all the blame. I have never worked at a company that went through so many employees. I one point my manager told me not to help a teammate, because my manager wanted this teammate to fail so that he could be fired. It was extremely upsetting to have my teammate pull me into a conference room and break down in tears because they know they’re going to be fired soon. If you don’t care about the value of what you’re building, and you don’t mind suddenly looking for a new job; then Modus Operandi will give you a paycheck.

Cons

They have the most office politics that I have ever experienced. All the leaders seems to be scheming. Some confided their schemes to me. Others could be easily overheard planning who they wanted to fire next. They have the most apathy towards their customers that I have ever experienced. There are few things more demoralizing than sitting in a sprint planning meeting and having the product owner keep blurting out, “I am so bored of this project.” Other teams have had their product owners tell them that they wish their contract would just be cancelled. The leadership team displays poor ethics. Although there were many instances of disturbingly poor ethics while I was at Modus Operandi, one that always bothered me was their misappropriation of open source software. Open source projects donate the hard work of many good engineers. Often in return they only require that you give credit to those who did the work. There were several times when leaders who seemed to have no ideas of their own, would take open source software, remove the branding, and imply to the customers that it was developed at Modus Operandi while prohibiting the engineers from mentioning the open source platforms they were using. The leadership team displays no business understanding. Although they are in the process of re-inventing the company based on a $12 book, there seems to be no understanding of developing and marketing a product. They seem to be spending their reputation and have failed to deliver on many contracts. Many of their current contracts were won years ago. It is unclear to me how the company will continue to stay solvent for the next few years. The company maintains a strong cargo-cult culture. There seems to be little understanding to the technologies that are used. There is rarely a roadmap when software is developed. Although 5 to 10 years ago the technology that was being used at Modus Operandi was modern, few new technologies have been incorporated since then. Many of the employees who were with me when I started at Modus Operandi participated in the technology community, but most of them have left the company. The remaining leadership has little understanding of current technology in the areas in which they are self-proclaimed experts. Recently my manager gave me a paper from 20 years ago describing how the advent of 17 inch monitors was revolutionizing user interfaces.

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Modus Operandi Response
9y
Thank you for taking the time to post a review and it is disappointing that you did not have a good work experience in the five years you were with Modus. Our current CEO was a co-founder of Modus and the company has been in business for over 30 years. Management does have to make tough decisions and take risks and there are peaks and valleys for all businesses. Additionally, it is smart for business to take the risk of trying a new business process model. The book you mention, is Traction and numerous companies have adopted this approach and have found success. Regarding your comment about misappropriation of open source software, I have found not instances where this type of behavior occurred. I wish you the very best in your next opportunity and wish you success in running your own business.
5.0
Dec 22, 2016

Great Opportunities For Those Who Put Forth Effort

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

MO gives fantastic opportunities to individuals who not only have the drive to succeed on the projects they are working on, but also to the people who genuinely put forward the effort and work towards the company as a whole succeeding. When you succeed and produce results, you are given praise and acknowledged in front of upper management. Also, middle managerial staff and upper management communicate about individual successes and deficiencies. The middle managers bridge the gap between developers and engineers and the upper managerial staff. This provides a solid, well defined chain of command for tasking and communication. As a result of some team members & managers working remotely, the new hire is tested on their communication skills. With so many employees that work remotely, different backgrounds tend to lend to skillsets that can be useful in certain situations. There also individuals who see the bigger picture for some of our products. They can explain in such high detail the magnitude of the impacts the work we do for our contractual project obligations, has on actual customers. You can easily gain a sense of accomplishment by hearing the direct feedback of middle & upper management as they describe customer astonishment and praise at the capabilities of our products.

Cons

Employees may push back against the documented processes and veer away from the set methods for how tasks are meant to be completed. By having such diverse employee backgrounds, some ideas previously accepted at other organizations may be pushed on certain decisions that could have direct conflict with set procedures and historically relevant decisions made at MO.

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Modus Operandi Response
9y
Thank you for your very insightful write up and it makes perfect sense. I will see what we can do to push forward on a more formal mentoring system.
2.0
May 7, 2015

Good job if you like government contracting and SBIR projects

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good salaries for the area. Nice office space in a great location. Relaxed work environment most of the time, but also very up and down due to the nature of the government contracting business.

Cons

Lack of direction and focus in the company. Lots of competing ideas and poor management of them to keep people focused and on-track. The MO at MO is to chase any government program with a check attached to it. If you are a forward-thinking go getter who wants to do really cutting edge work - this is not the place for you. This is for people who want to coast through their career and work on DoD-centric problems, that are often comprised of really bad ideas and outdated technology approaches. You also need a security clearance and must be a US citizen to work here - so that always limits the available talent pool.

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Modus Operandi Response
9y
Thank you for taking the time to provide a review. I believe that we have had the opportunity to improve our performance over the last 18 months and management has adopted a new business model that should help them to better realize who represents our top talent. We are still completing SBIRs and recently won a big Metis contract at AFTAC.
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Glassdoor has 28 Modus Operandi reviews submitted anonymously by Modus Operandi employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Modus Operandi is right for you.