Oh I do like to be beside the engineering offsite

Oh I do like to be beside the engineering offsite

We recently had our Engineering “Offsite” where we all get away from the office for a few days to try and discuss and therefore improve upon some of the critical areas of the way we work. This year we wanted to try and focus on DevOps, or increasing collaboration in general amongst all of our teams within engineering. There were a few points I thought worth sharing (or ideally discussing) externally.

Formats and the benefits they gave

We tried to replicate what is done at many conferences (or ‘un-conferences’) where ‘open spaces’ allow participants to decide upon the topics being discussed and then attend any sessions they wish to (with multiple running concurrently). We found again this works really well as it leads to everyone being engaged and also ensures we are talking about the things most important to us. We will definitely continue to use this structure in future

We also did lightning talks, brief 5 minutes sessions allowing a presenter (formally or informally) to discuss something of interest to them. This is great for raising a topic and gauging interest within the participants to take it forward outside of the offsite day. This also works well and appears to have been fruitful with follow up discussion taking place in the weeks following our excursion

We also made use of some quick fun games to try and re-engage people after breaks. We also wanted to do a larger activity which would be fun and also geared towards the focus of the department. We achieved this with “Introduction to DevOps with Chocolate, Lego and Scrum”.

Location

We picked to use the Marriott hotel in Bournemouth for this event. The weather was great and so our open spaces gave us chance to get out into the sunshine overlooking Bournemouth’s pier and sandy beaches. The location was definitely a hit and somewhere we would consider using in future

Outcomes

There were many areas discussed and notes for all the open spaces were recorded in an attempt to summarise and ensure we effectively follow up. Personally I think this is the most important bit, ensuring that our findings and learnings are not lost over time. Andy Sweetman discussed an interesting theory taken from the Toyota Improvement Kata which recommends people who attempt to improve something should be able to define, keep focus on and report on the following:

• What is the state of that focus area
  
• What is the ideal end state following the improvement
  
• What the next milestone on the road to the outcome are
  
• What the 3 best next steps to achieve our goals
  

Team building event

We also did a team building event at the Cyantist escape room in Bournemouth. Escape rooms are an experience where you are locked in a themed room and need to solve puzzles and problems in order to progress through a story line, which when completed will allow you to exit the room.

It was again good fun, well reviewed by attendees and an interesting test for people’s problem solving. Personally I would recommend them and will be returning with friends to try to escape from the room which I didn’t get to attempt.

I hope this insight helps. Feel free to comment, share and discuss

Chris Watkins