Our timelines vary a lot between projects – they can be as short as two weeks or span over months up to a year. In longer projects we often use phases with different focus – either different parts of the process, such as research, conceptualisation and production, or different parts of the product. However we keep certain milestones the same, to manage team collaboration and develop our processes.

Beginning of Project

Internal Kick Off

The internal kick off is a workshop session for our team, in which we align on project objectives and milestones. We share individual needs and goals and assign roles and responsibilities. The timeline, the brief and expectations of the project are clarified.

External Kick Off

We try to make it possible to always have a kick off workshop with the client team as well, to get everyone involved, acquainted and aligned from the beginning.

During the Project

Standups

A standup is a usually a daily activity, sometimes we do it every other day.
The reason it is called a standup is because, yes, we stand, so to keep the meeting short in time.
In a standup we answer three questions:

• What did you do since last?
• What are you doing next?
• Do you have any blocks or needs?

Internal Checkin

We do checkins once or twice per week depending on the projects nature.
This is usually a half hour meeting up to an hour. This meeting function as a status update and allow the team and project manager to look back at the week, or forward to plan the next, discuss, give feedback and air anything pertaining to the team and project.

External Checkin

This is planned ahead in the project and is most often used as part deliveries or milestones for the project.
We show something to our client, get feedback and sign-off, and in general keep the client up to speed. We often prepare a pretty slide deck for this occasion, we really like a beautiful deck!

Internal demo

In many projects we make use of this tool to share with each other what we work on and to get feedback and praise from the rest of the team.

Retrospect

We use retrospects in an iterative fashion, these are planned after a demo or a client checkin. Here we look back at the past iteration or sprint and reflect over how and what we have done. The style and structure of the retrospect can differ, but to give you an idea, these are examples of questions we use to reflect:

• What is working well?
• What can be improved?
• What is not working?

Team Development Session (TDS)

For longer projects, we have team development sessions internally in the team, to cater to the team needs. If need be to let off steam, work on a better process for the project, build stronger teams or give each other feedback, this space is held for that.

End of Project

Wrap Up

At the end of each project, the project team conducts a wrap up to reflect on the course of the project, the results and individual development.

Lessons learned

This session is used for the project team to humblebrag and share with the rest of the studio their insights and learnings.
We do this to facilitate a continued learning process as well as to show and celebrate with each other all the cool things we make!