src=”https://buffer.com/resources/content/images/2022/08/c-dustin-91AQt9p4Mo8-unsplash–1-.jpg” alt=”Build Week at Buffer: What It Is and How We’re Approaching It”>
The week of August 22nd has been dedicated to Build Week, an internal initiative. All of us will be devoting a week to a new internal initiative called Build Week. We will work together in small groups on ideas that could benefit customers and our company. Ideally, we will have something shipped or installed by the end.
Inspiration for Build Week
Before I started Buffer, I had many formative experiences at “build a Startup in a Weekend” events.
Launch48 ran two of the events I attended, while Startup Weekend was another. No matter your skill level or experience, anyone could sign up for the event. You are welcome to contribute as long as you are willing to put your hands up, work hard, and help in any way you can.
It was important to build something quickly from beginning to end in a matter of days. The teams would have a maximum of three to five members per team to allow for quick decision-making and rapid development. Once teams had been formed, it was time to get to work. You would do research, build, and market (often simultaneously) in order to create a minimum viable product.
Teams would then present their achievements, validated and lessons learned at the end of the weekend.
These events helped me meet people and form strong bonds. I stayed in touch with them for many years. Some teams went on to become startups. It was intense, fast-paced learning that felt fun, energizing, and inspiring.
This is why Build Week came into my life.
What is Build Week?
Buffer’s Build Week is a week where we form teams, work alongside people we don’t usually work with and collaborate on an idea that we feel strongly about.
Build Week’s highest goals are to instill in the company and team the spirit of shipping, creativity and innovation, making rapid progress and decisions quickly, comforting with uncertainty and eventually going from idea to useful value out in this world in the span of a week.
The goal is to have a wide range of projects and skills required to complete them. Although it might seem that Build Week is more for engineers, we want everyone to realize they can and are Builders.
Being a Buffer Build Week Builder will ultimately mean you are part of an organization that makes a difference and brings value in a short time span. Every member of the team can contribute to this goal and I am excited about the many projects that will be completed.
Building Week
We had a high-level vision for Build Week and set out to make it a reality.
We formed a team to design and plan Build Week. This is how we formed the Build Week Planning Team. We stayed true to our vision of Build Week, which is to have small teams made up of people who aren’t usually working together. We began meeting weekly once we had this team. It took only 45 minutes each week to plan and create Build Week. We began to meet longer and have real working sessions as we approached the actual week.
The final design of Build Week consisted in three stages: Idea Gathering and Team Formation.
We created a Trello board for the Idea Gathering stage where everyone could add their ideas to the board. The cards were voted on and commented on by the team. This helped to narrow down the ideas that would be used during Build Week. We allowed people to submit ideas for a few days and received 78 contributions. This was a huge win and an indication that Build Week is a popular topic within the company.
It was more difficult to determine and solve the Team Formation stage. We had initially hoped that it would be organic. People will gravitate towards an idea and join up with others who are excited about the idea. We realized that this approach would not be conducive to our goal of having people collaborate with others, as well as limiting our control over other aspects such time zones and the way they work together. This could make Build Week less successful. We came up with a hybrid. A Google Form was created for people to submit their top three ideas. We used this information to determine the teams and tried our best to place people in the team they chose.
The final stage is Build Week! We have created Slack channels for each team so they can start organizing themselves. We will provide some guidance and a few deliverables. However, it is up to each team to decide how they want to work together to create value throughout the week.
Buffer customers should be aware that we are shifting our attention away from the support email as we celebrate this company-wide event. Buffer will continue to respond to all your queries and problems, but we might be a little slower than usual. The blog will not be updated with any new content. All Buffer customers will benefit from this opportunity for the team and other projects to bond.
It’s the right time to start Build Week at Buffer
Buffer has had a very different year in 2020. We are in a situation of declining revenue and have been hard at work to find a path to sustainable, healthy growth. Actively accepting being a smaller business has been a key part of our efforts. We are still a small business, but we do serve small businesses. We will lose many of the advantages we have if we don’t embrace this.
In a time when we have felt less connected over the last few years, we want to foster more team connection. We’ve lived in remote locations for the majority of our 11+ year existence. However, we have always found great value in company retreats that allow us to all get together in person. This has been especially true during times like the pandemic. Build Week offers us the opportunity to do this with a new concept and event, rather than trying it with a virtual retreat that would likely never live up to our retreat experiences.
It’s possible to exchange context and ideas about current Buffer challenges between teams that are cross-functional and work with people who don’t usually work together. This could be a huge help for us for many months to come.
Build Week can be a great time to build strong bonds at work and personal. My dream is that people in their teams would meet up in Slack after Build Week and have a quick catch-up call every once in a while, because they’ve become so close over the course of the week.
Engineering hack weeks have been a regular feature of our lives for quite some time. These hack weeks have been great in their own way but very limited to engineering. Even though these events were great for creating value, many of them lacked the perspectives that would have benefited the work such as customer advocacy, culture, design, and operational perspectives.
We want to challenge the systems we have created over the years as a company. Build Week is like a blank canvas. We clear out the week and then decide on the structure and processes that will make our concept flourish. This week can serve as inspiration and a way to rethink our processes and question the ways we do business.
Build Week – This is the opportunity you have!
I’m confident that Build Week will be a success and that the entire company will be amazed at how much value they create in one week. We are a small company and we want to be more productive by working faster and not overworking. This is possible. The different ways we work together at Build Week could help us to think about how we can work together more efficiently and productively in our regular work flow.
Build Week offers more than just product improvements and features. Build Week is a time to create anything that helps customers and the team, in pursuit of our visions and mission or reinforces and upholds these values. There are many possibilities. We could create a marketing campaign or a data report. Or we could rethink our tools.
We wish you luck!
Build Week is one of the most exciting, high-energy weeks I’ve ever experienced. I believe we will be able to leave the week with a sense of accomplishment that can last for many months. This is a worthwhile goal that I believe we can achieve with some creativity and the right people planning and organizing the event.
Part of the appeal of Build Week is that, just as all the ideas and freedom you have to work together in a team, we won’t be able to know everything about our company from doing this. Although it could be chaotic and full of challenges, we will all be better for having done this.
We wish you all the best as we move into next week. The company is full of energy to create value. In the coming weeks we will have new features to share. We’ll also be posting a recap of how it went.
Did you ever try Build Week? What was your experience with Build Week? You can reach me on Twitter.
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