As the Spring drizzle fell on the cobbles outside, making a change from the recent snow, the Appointedd team met up for team day in the office. Powered by coffee and croissants, the day kicked off with the company update from our Founder & CEO, Leah Hutcheon.
Reminding us of Appointedd’s fourfold growth since the start of 2020, Leah announced a new cycle to work scheme, and a holiday increase to 30 days per year, plus an extra day per each year of service. It’s no surprise that we were all very happy to learn about these changes aimed to reward our team for hard work and loyalty.
The day continued with thought-provoking group discussions, where we shared perspectives from different teams, and discussed our BHAG for the year (BHAG is a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal”, a term originating in Silicon Valley).
Thought-provoking conversations
We had a number of group discussions, covering our headwinds and tailwinds, breakthroughs and frustrations, as well as talking about Appointedd on its best day. Asking ourselves what working at Appointedd looks like at its best and worst uncovered new perspectives, shared challenges and opportunities for us to grow and change.
Throughout the day there was a lot of positive feedback from different groups about the Appointedd take on the Shape-up framework and evolved product team structure. With smaller, nimble teams, we’ve ramped up productivity and are deploying new features and enhancements rapidly, always with the customer at the heart of our decisions.
Our group discussions around headwinds and tailwinds were particularly fruitful. We identified headwinds, winds that blow against the direction of travel making it harder to make progress, and tailwinds, which are those winds that blow in the direction of travel, increasing speed and reducing the time required to reach a destination. This discussion enabled us to identify the greatest opportunities for Appointedd moving forward, as well as allowing some team members to showcase some excellent boat drawings on our office whiteboards!
Celebrations
Our Team Day is an important moment for us to celebrate recent successes. Our Senior Software Engineer Mikey was awarded our Quarterly Crown for his outstanding contribution to the team! And we obviously celebrated the International Business of the Year award that we won just a week ago at the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce Awards!
Later on, the rain eased and the sun came out in time for the pizza van to serve up a well-earned delicious dinner. Working in a hybrid manner is great, but we also really enjoy and value this time together to collaborate in-person.
Published on 21 March 2023
