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We recently held our second Internal Projects Day at Kambu. The idea: work as a team on a project you believe in. It was fun and inspiring!
In this post, I’ll share some of the results and interesting numbers. And yes, I’m calling it #1 because the first one was a long time ago, so that will be #0.
What’s an Internal Project Day?
Hackathons always inspired us. We were not surprised to find out that 80% of Fortune 100 companies use hackathons to foster innovation or that internal hackathons can help companies achieve strategic innovation goals.
So why not in Kambu?
The first Kambu Internal Projects Day happened many months ago, as a kind of isolated trial. It was a great bonding moment and some of the projects are still fondly remembered (spoiler: one of them was revisited now).
This time around, we invested a lot in the organization in the hopes of holding the event regularly – probably once every two months.
Kambu’s Internal Project Day
First the basics: it should be one full workday or a whole weekend where everyone could join as a team and work on their project of choice.
The goal: learn, have fun, bond. Bonus points if you go out of your comfort zone and try a new technology or even a different role!
It’s not free time, though. At the end of the period, all teams must present the results of their collaboration.
Preparing The Internal Project Day
But who, when, how?
During the span of one month, we consulted with everyone to settle on the best day, learn about their expectations, and ideas for projects.
One month may seem like a long time for producing just one day, but it gave everyone time to reserve a workday without meetings or pressing tasks.
Asking 30-odd people individually about their willingness to participate and preferences is impractical, so we collected this input via Google Form surveys.
And The Result Is…
The most important finding: 93% of the company was eager to participate. That gave us a confidence boost! We also settled on a single Friday instead of a hackathon – maybe we’ll get there in the future!
Teams presented around 9 themes for projects, which we then presented for voting.
In the end, three projects had enough people to form a cohesive group: two mobile apps and one web application. All three groups had at least a PO, a PM, a backend, and a frontend developer.
A couple of days before the event, the ideators of each project were named POs and started briefing their teams. Calls, wireframes, Miro boards, library installation galore… Productive stuff!
The Actual Day
The day had a strict schedule, no matter if you were at the office or at home:
- Coffee (we started early!)
- Morning call with everyone. POs present their project and state what they expected to achieve that day
- Lunch break
- Conclusion call with everyone. Teams share result
This skeleton helped setting expectations so everyone knew how to organize their time better.
Overall, the office and kitchen were noisier than usual – which is great! The day was extremely busy all-around.
The conclusion call was definitely rushed, though, so as not to extend the time too much. Something we should definitely work on improving.
Essential Statistics
- Three projects
- 20 people participated, 12 being at the office
- Four pizzas, around 80 pieces of sushi eaten
Main Feedback and Findings
We asked for feedback from the participants and had great input from nine of them.
1. On average people rated it 4.4/5
Some of the positive aspects reported:
- “Learning something new, using technologies with which I’m not familiar yet.”
- “Working with people in a big TEAM”
- “teamwork :)”
- “Ending the day with working product, visible progress”
And negative aspects:
- “The result of our work :(“
- “It took some time to join the team and start working around tasks. (A lot tools and libraries were needed to be installed before I could run the project)”
- “Learning a new technology from scratch and being stressed about achieving the results asap”
- “node.js”
2. Most people tried a different tech, software or approach
For example:
- Frontend developers experimented with Next.js
- A long-time Java developer had fun with Javascript on backend
- One Project Manager dabbled with design
- I spent some time figuring out the basics of creating icons with Adobe Xd, with little success
3. Most people had fun and learned something! There was some stress involved
Next Steps
The experience is still fresh, but it’s inspiring to see team members still engaged in the projects after the day ended.
We learned a lot while organizing too. One workday is not a long time at all, so it’s essential to have everything as settled as possible before starting. At the same time, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to hold a multiday hackathon with so many people so soon, so probably the Internal Project Day will still be a day in the next editions.
Finally, it worked well to have projects, team members, and tech stack all figured out beforehand. We will definitely replicate that!
Learn more about Kambu, our team, and how we can use our expertise to solve your needs. Get in touch right away.
