We work in our team on secure software development for Insta's own product. Our team was formed five years ago, and many team members have already changed along the way. We've only met physically a few times as a team, and for the last few years we've worked completely remotely.
With the SmoothTeam simulation, we wanted to better understand the needs of team members in relation to hybrid and remote working. When team members understand each other's perspectives and needs, we can work smarter.
Informal communication has declined - and people are used to it
I have noticed that with distance time, informal communication has decreased quite a lot. It is an interesting phenomenon that at the same time we have also learned not to chat. The lack of chatting was annoying in the early days, but later on there have been no more complaints about it. This has led to new people being more difficult to engage, as quick, easy small communication has decreased. The work itself is going well, but the team spirit has deteriorated. We did the simulation at a time when we had just had a discussion and a little pain in returning to the office and for this situation it worked well.
The simulation made things visible that would not have been guessed otherwise
The simulation gave us many things to work on further. It gave us new ideas about the team and team members. In addition to concrete ideas, it was interesting to see a glimpse into the values of others. During the simulation, we found things that the whole team was clueless about and had no idea what their colleagues would be like.
Really nice experience, everyone in the team liked it
It was a very pleasant experience for the team and the participants really liked the way it went. The progression was structured and the story made it unique. The simulation was an easy and clever package!
We learn about team members' needs and preferences
The needs and preferences of different people became visible in the simulation. Several interesting things came up that we will work on in the future and especially the scrummaster was given new things to work on.
Transparency and trust are the keys to the team's work
Transparency and trust are central to the team's work. trust enables transparency, i.e. you need to have trust to be open. Once these are in place, the support of others becomes possible. No one should feel that they can't talk about the right problem - or that, for example, if you ask a question, others will laugh. Then everyone has the courage to work together and a safe atmosphere is created.
I can especially recommend it to teams with new members
I can recommend SmoothTeam especially to teams that have changed team members or where the team is in a new situation. The simulation also works well if there are people in the team who don't naturally talk about everything and you want to open up a discussion about, for example, working practices and the needs of different people.
Miia Niittymäki
Project Manager
Insta Advance Oy
