My first time at the agile42 Innovation Sprint
What can I say more than just WOW! What a week! But first, let me tell you how I got to the Innovation Sprint in the first place.
My name is Sofia, and I started working for agile42 Finland & Sweden in May 2018. My role in the company is Business Relationship Manager. My days are filled with customer related things, like conversations, finding appointments, offers and training / coaching bookings and of course many e-mails just to mention a few.
In the beginning of my journey with agile42 learned many new names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers and colleagues from various countries. This is always what it is like the first days of a new job, right? What can I say, I was amazed. Everyone was sending nice welcoming e-mails and that made me feel very good.
Days went by and at some point I heard about the Innovation Sprint. We needed to book tickets and organise the journey to Thailand. Little did I know of what was going to happen during the week, but I felt exited!
While visiting the Headquarters in Berlin, I got to be a part of the planning towards the Innovation Sprint in Thailand. The office team had already done a great job with the planning, so I mostly got to understand a bit of the program, what the days were going to look like, what would happen during the week and so on. At that point I realised that there is much to think about to make an Innovation Sprint come together.
All came together very well, and we arrived in Thailand. The first morning in the meeting room I was just standing with my mouth open, watching people come into the room, like WOW!
The week went on in full speed, we got to know each other, we got introduced, and most importantly, got to work with each other. All faces got names and the big picture became clear to me. Everyone was helping, explaining, answering questions, caring, sharing, supporting and questioning. This is the mix I like and appreciate. As a “newbie” I never felt outside, I never felt that I could not ask questions (even silly ones), I never felt like the “newbie” even tho I was one. I feel that the week made us all unite, both the colleagues who have already worked a long time together and for all the new ones. The new guys where taken in with open arms, we got a lot of useful information. We got support from each other and that gave me great value, and great support to my work.
I remember looking around the meeting room where we were working all days and being amazed by all the knowledge, all the information, all the experience there was in the room. Everyone had their stories to share, and ways of doing things. A perfect match of people doing what they love. I am happy I got to take part of the Innovation Sprint so soon in my new career at agile42, it made sense to meet everyone at once, in the beginning. The step to ask for help and support is much smaller now, and I know that people know I am still new and learning, so the environment to learn and fail is comfortable to be in.
I know that I am not the only one happy about this week, and many of my comments above also occurred during the week in Thailand. The work and fun balance of the week was very good, a big thanks goes to the office team for that! In the evenings there were dinners and other programs that made us connect on personal levels, not only work wise. What also gave my Innovation Sprint experience a good bonus was that I had the chance to meet all my colleagues families, whom were also welcome to this event.
At the moment I am just waiting for the next time to meet everyone again, to see my colleagues I do not see every day or week or month. We keep in touch via other channels, but it is of course not the same as seeing face-to-face.