After months of hard work and some significantly positive strides forward, the TeachPitch team were finally reunited in the beautiful resort of Ohrid for our annual retreat. A lot has happened recently in terms of evolving and expanding so this was our chance to digest all of these changes, to reflect and to look towards the future.
Being in a geographically dispersed team means that sometimes all you see is a thumbnail image of somebody. So day one seen some informal introductions, welcoming of new team members and a chance to develop a physical rapport for the first time. We had coffee and set the agenda for the coming days.
Day two seen us rise early to hold an agile ‘retrospective’ session. This is a practice used by teams to reflect on their way of working, and to continuously become better in what they do. Armed with our sticky pad notes we answered three key questions “What has went well?”, “What hasn’t gone so well?” and “How can we improve?”. This was an open, honest and collaborative forum which allowed every team member to have a voice, it enabled us to group and identify any key themes and diagnose any problem areas. We then followed up with a versioning session where we discussed new usability enhancements and the incoming releases we have planned. This includes multi-upload for resources, embedding content on our platform, recommendation algorithms and a more intuitive search function. Additionally we have ambitious strategies for API integration with storage solutions and virtual learning environments. We then departed for the day to explore the hilly shores of Lake Ohrid and to absorb the captivating views of the landscape.
Day three was a chance for break-out sessions so that individual teams could get together and plan for the next phases of work. As always we focused on continuous improvement to ensure we have the best processes and mechanisms available to make the best product on the marketplace. This was followed by some relaxation and swimming and boat trips and tennis and shopping and good food and drinks and laughter and lovely memories. All in all this was a successful trip. Let’s raise a glass to Team TeachPitch!
