Retrospective of EMnify Squad Summit 2020

It’s almost New Year, and for some people it’s time to do a retrospective of the year, to reflect “What went well? What didn’t go well? How can we make it better in the new year?”. Allow me to share something that went well this year (we all know what did not go well, can you imagine that we have been living with it for more than a year already). So, 2020 may not be the origin of the remote-first workplace – numerous businesses chose this way of working long before COVID-19 demanded it – but this year has certainly seen many office-first businesses migrate to a work-from-home setup by necessity and embrace remote team collaboration for the first time.

Every team will have its own unique collaboration methods which need to be adapted to and optimised for operating remotely. For developers working in agile environment, productive remote collaboration relies on communication even more (remember the first value statement of Agile manifesto?).

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Beyond the dailies and weeklies, at EMnify we felt it crucial not to forget the larger-scale collaboration opportunities. This year it was EMnify’s Squad Summit. It’s easy to dismiss such occasional multi-team/squad or multi-department events as not necessary or not feasible in 2020. But the truth is, it’s more important than ever to transform these events into productive, collaborative remote-optimised initiatives that successfully bring people together while working apart.

It’s this thinking that inspired EMnify’s Remote Squad Summit 2020. It took place over three days with more than 50 EMnifiers in dozens of remote rooms and breakout sessions.

The summit’s objectives were:

• Foster cross-team collaboration
• Onboard new colleagues
• Tackle cross-team challenges
• Motivate employees by proving that - even when remote - we're one company.

Opening with a keynote by EMnify CTO @Martin Giess, over the three-day remote event participants pitched ideas, voted, and split into the smaller groups for cross-team collaboration. Most importantly, participants played games (mostly Among Us and smash karts :) ) and spent quality time with colleagues from across teams – people who they ordinarily might not work with. This was all done remotely under careful facilitation by @Daniel, @Dirk, @Ludmila and me.

The feedback was awesome (you can see it on the picture): people liked the idea, liked the opportunity to work with new colleagues and with those they worked previously worked with, the engagement and number of pitched ideas that made to the “Let’s-do-it” stage (12) was great.

Based on the success of this summit, we’re now discussing moving EMnify Squad Summits from once-a-year to once-a-quarter. We plan to apply the learnings we took from this year’s event to all future similar initiatives at EMnify.

If you’re planning a remote squad summit, or a similar collaborative cross-team event at your company then you may find the below tips on organising team events helpful (based solely on my experience):

• Over-prepare. Things that will make the difference between a mediocre event and a successful event include engaging, complementary presentations, meticulously planned collaborative work sessions, multiple technical run-throughs, experienced facilitators, familiarity with the collaboration tools, video conferencing technology and other tech.
• Expect the unexpected. Accept that no amount of over-preparation will prepare you for everything. With so many participants, there will be some hiccups. It’s how you adapt and respond to them on the fly that matters. Be ready to improvise and act quickly.
• Over-communicate. Never assume everyone is on the same page – be sure to regularly set context, help participants to achieve result, remove boundaries, explain how the remote collaboration tools works and what to expect from them, create multiple possible templates that can be used for brainstorming, work-progress-tracking, etc.
• Prioritise fun. A lot of the organic, unplanned socialising and enjoyment in an in-person summit won’t occur naturally in a remote summit. So, it’s important to deliberately make room for fun and games and plan it into the event’s agenda.

These four above tips are probably the most crucial ones. If you have any additional questions or suggestions of your own, feel free to contact me, I’ll be happy to chat!

Cheers and Stay Healthy ;)