Meeting organization and workshop facilitation (@ Syde)

2022

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For a fully remote company, in-person meetings provide a unique opportunity for teambuilding, co-creation and the exchange of ideas and experiences.

About this work

At Syde, I was lucky enough to lead various initiatives and meetings to foster participation, cross-team collaboration and knowledge exchange:

I was the first employee-level moderator of the monthly all-hands meeting, kicking off a tradition that is still alive 6 years later
In 2019, I initiated a reboot of the monthly developer meeting, an informal online gathering open to all engineers, providing an opportunity to present solutions or tools, share experiments and do coding challenges together
After the agency grew in numbers, adding new disciplines like QA and Support to the organization, we evolved the monthly dev meetings into agency-wide Improvement Days, opening opportunities for cross-team knowledge exchange and improvement initiatives.
On behalf of our CTO, I facilitated the fortnightly admin team meeting, which provided an opportunity for cross-team alignment on technical standards, processes and tooling
Between 2022, and 2024, I coordinated workshops for five in-person meetings including two agency-wide team events attended by 80+ colleagues, facilitating workshops, leading team building games and acting as MC and host. I successfully introduced a flash talks format, inviting work-related and off-topic presentations.
After the relaunch in 2024, I led the revival of our weekly social meeting. Rebranded as the Sydebar, we used an alternating schedule to make it possible for people across timezones to attend. By introducing games, informal presentations and topical sessions – for example around Women’s Day – we successfully created an environment for low-key, informal discussions and fun.

When working with hybrid meeting setups, it pays off to invest time and care to ensure that remote attendees get the best possible experience and make them feel truly included. Quality equipment for streaming
Most ‘extracurricular’ initiatives and in-person meetings require a clearly formulated intention and support structure from higher management. Without these, it is hard to create a strategy for them and organize events that deliver on the investment. Also, without clear direction, interest in participation will easily fizzle out, due to conflicting obligations and uncertainty about goals and expectations.
Never host alone! A valuable lesson learned from the incredibly talented Isabella Haffner, who co-hosted the workshop days with me during Syde’s company offsite in Madeira (2023).