288: Making the most of team retreats and offsites

Design Life

In this episode Charli and Femke talk about their experience of having retreats with their teams, how retreats should be structured, what is their purpose and how to make the best out of in-person time with your teammates.

As remote work becomes increasingly prevalent and we usually do not get the chance to see our co-workers’ faces outside of video-calls, team offsites can greatly improve the team dynamic and subsequently enhance communication between team members. Changing scenery and experiencing new things with your team will create space for creativity to approach challenges and open doors to have crucial discussions, paving the way for growth and innovation.

Show Timestamps:

0:57 Intro

01:50 Life update

6:13 Femke’s offsite in Denver

7:56 Charli’s team retreat in France

10:00 Purpose of retreats at Charli’s workplace

10:30 Retreats as a manager vs. an individual contributor (IC)

11:46 Structure of the retreat

17:22 Did the offsite match out to the expectations?

20:50 Femke talks about her upcoming off-sight to San Francisco

23:55 Is there anything that you learnt at an offsite in Denver that you will bring to San Francisco?

24:33 Takeaways from this episode

Show links:

Charli's live workshop in New Zealand

Femke’s course “Product strategy for designers”

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