Unconference or (Remote) Team Building with a Twist

How do you bring a team together, even in times of remote work?

English edition — originally published in German as Unconference oder (remote) Team Building mal anders.

Learning Together

We were looking for a format that would allow us to spend time together and foster exchange during a year heavily impacted by home office. We wanted to benefit from the knowledge of our colleagues and also give them the opportunity to contribute. An Unconference was the perfect fit!

Agenda

A classic Unconference (also called "Open Space Conference") is completely unplanned and defined by the participants. Sessions are spontaneously offered and set up. We adapted the concept slightly for ourselves and pre-planned these so-called Lightning Sessions: Anyone who wanted to could offer their 30-minute session. The team could choose from 11 sessions: from tutorials for our tools (Figma, Notion), to programming microcontrollers or Computer Science Magic, to an introduction to breathing techniques!

The Unconference kicked off with an outlook on the Deep Impact year. And after the sessions, an external speaker provided excitement with his keynote. The Unconference concluded with personal conversations via chat roulette and feedback on a Mural board.

Organizing an Unconference

The organization was not extremely time-consuming for us, as the content was largely prepared by the team 🙂

Speaking of Tools

We organized our Unconference on Google Meet. We had thought quite a bit about the tools beforehand. Google Meet had only just added the recording function during our planning phase – so we also considered using a tool like Zoom or Meet Butter. Especially with Meet Butter, you could create an even stronger conference feeling thanks to various functions such as music or polls. In the end, however, we opted for Google Meet for simplicity. Our internal communication takes place in our weekly calls or on Slack, and we managed the agenda overview and registration via Notion.

Feedback

Employee feedback was very positive! The Unconference format seems to fit the Deep Impact spirit very well – and it works remotely: direct exchange, being inspired by colleagues, sharing and celebrating common experiences, simply learning from the best! We will definitely hold another Unconference and are already looking forward to it!

Do you also want to hold an Unconference and have questions? Let's talk!