Once per month we have an event called “Pet Project day” at THE ICONIC.
During this day we can experiment with new and exciting technologies or try out a different approach to solve an issue. In another words, the goal is to create something that potentially can make our lives easier or improve our customer experience. It may or may not be related to our current project.
How it works
Firstly, we come up with an idea. It can be a completely new proposal or just a better design on something that already exists - just use your imagination. One can even decide to tag-along with somebody else, making it a collaborative project.
On the day before Pet Project Day, all the tech folks (and anyone else interested) gets together for a standup. Each person briefly explains what they will be working on and their reasons/motivations to tackle the issue.
It is possible to finish up your project in just one day or you can use several events to complete an idea, it’s up to you. The important thing here is to learn and somehow make things better than they were.
We have an internal website to display all the ideas and mark them as shipped when delivered. It brings more exposure to what was created and makes it easier to share the learnings.
Showcase
Time for you to shine!
At the end of the day, everyone reunites again in front of a big screen and those who shipped their ideas present them. It’s time for you to show how your new creation can make things better.
Conclusion
This kind of event can help your team to think outside the box and maybe come up with more disruptive ideas. Often the showcase helps others to have a “Eureka” moment, inspiring new ideas or an addition to the current one. Pet project days help build the teams because of the sharing of ideas and brainstorming to solve particular problems.
So, what are you waiting for?
Just let your imagination flow and choose your new pet (project)!
This post was originally published on THE ICONIC Tech blog.