We’ve devoted the week of August twenty second to a model new inside initiative known as Construct Week. We’ll all be placing apart our common work for a single week to come back collectively in small teams and work on concepts that may profit prospects or us as an organization, ideally with one thing of worth shipped or in place by the top.
The inspiration for Construct Week
Earlier than constructing Buffer, I had a number of formative experiences attending “construct a startup in a weekend”-type occasions.
Two I attended have been run by Launch48, and one other was Startup Weekend. Anybody might signal as much as attend it doesn’t matter what talent set or expertise degree they’d convey. So long as you have been keen to roll up your sleeves, construct one thing, and contribute in any means, you’d be very welcome.
The main target was on constructing one thing quickly from finish to finish, throughout the area of a weekend. Groups could be capped to a small quantity, round three to 5 folks per workforce, so the teams might transfer shortly with determination making. As soon as the groups have been fashioned, you’d get to work and begin doing analysis, constructing, and advertising and marketing (typically all in parallel) to maneuver as quick as attainable in constructing a minimal viable product and reaching a degree of validation.
On the finish of the weekend, groups would current what they achieved, what they validated, and what they realized.
By these occasions, I met folks, fashioned sturdy bonds, and stayed involved for years with them afterward. Some groups even turned startups. It felt like extremely accelerated studying, and it was intense however enjoyable, very energizing and galvanizing.
I’ve been fascinated by how this might translate to Buffer and why it will be so highly effective for us in our present season, which is the place Construct Week is available in.
What’s Construct Week?
Construct Week is every week at Buffer the place we’ll type groups, work with folks we don’t sometimes work with, and work collectively on an concept we really feel known as in the direction of.
The best degree objectives of Construct Week are to inject into the corporate and workforce a spirit of transport, creativity, and innovation, making progress and selections quickly, consolation with uncertainty, and in the end going from concept to usable worth out on the earth within the area of every week.
Relating to the kind of initiatives we’ll work on and the talent units required to perform them, the objective is for these to be far-reaching. Whereas it might look like Construct Week could be extra suited to engineers particularly, our objective is to attain the result that everybody realizes they’re and is usually a Builder.
In the end, being a Builder in Buffer Construct Week will imply that you’re a part of a workforce that efficiently makes a change that brings worth, and it occurs within the quick interval of every week. Everybody on the workforce has one thing to convey to this objective, and I am excited by the varied initiatives that can be labored on.
How we’re approaching Construct Week
With our high-level imaginative and prescient and concepts for Construct Week, a number of months in the past we started working to convey this idea to life and make it occur.
The very first thing we did was type a workforce to plan and design Construct Week itself. Staying true to our imaginative and prescient for Construct Week itself, the place we wish to have small groups of people that don’t usually work collectively, that is additionally how we approached forming the Construct Week Planning workforce. With this workforce in place, we began assembly weekly. General, it has been a small time dedication of 45 minutes per week to plan and design Construct Week. As we obtained nearer to the precise week, we began assembly for longer and having actual working classes.
Our last design for Construct Week consisted of three key phases: Thought Gathering, Workforce Formation and Construct Week.
For the Thought Gathering stage, we created a Trello board the place anybody within the workforce might contribute an concept. We used voting and commenting on the playing cards, which helped slim the concepts to people who could be labored on throughout Construct Week. We gave folks a number of days to submit concepts and acquired 78 complete contributions. This was an enormous win and a transparent indication of an enormous urge for food for Construct Week throughout the firm.
The Workforce Formation stage was a trickier drawback to resolve and decide the method for. Initially, we had hoped that this may very well be completely natural, with folks gravitating in the direction of an concept and becoming a member of up with people who find themselves additionally excited to work on that concept. In the end, we realized that if we approached it this fashion, we’d probably battle with our objective of getting folks work with people they don’t usually work with, and we wouldn’t have sufficient management over different features, such because the time zones inside every workforce. All of this might jeopardize the success of Construct Week itself. So we arrived at a hybrid, the place we created a Google Type for folks to submit their high 3 decisions of concepts they’d wish to work on. With that info, we decided the groups and made each effort to place folks in a workforce they’d put down as a selection.
And the ultimate stage is, in fact, Construct Week itself! The groups have now been fashioned, and we created a Slack channel for every workforce to start out organizing themselves. We’re offering some very light-weight steering, and we can have a number of required deliverables, however apart from that, we’re leaving it to every workforce to find out one of the simplest ways to work collectively to create worth throughout the week.
When you’re a Buffer buyer, one small word that as we embrace this company-wide occasion and time collectively, we can be shifting our focus barely away from the assist inbox. We’ll nonetheless be responding to your questions and issues with Buffer; nevertheless, we could also be barely slower than normal. We additionally will not be publishing any new content material on the weblog. We’re assured that this time for the workforce to bond and construct varied initiatives of worth will in the end profit all Buffer prospects.
Why proper now could be the time for Construct Week at Buffer
2022 has been a unique 12 months for Buffer. We’re able of flatter to declining income, and we’ve been working laborious to seek out our path again to wholesome, sustainable development. One key aspect of this effort has been actively embracing being a smaller firm. We’re nonetheless a small firm, and we serve small companies. Except we lean into this, we’ll lose lots of our benefits.
We wish to drive extra connection throughout the workforce in a time the place we’ve felt it missing for the previous couple of years. Whereas we’ve been distant for many of our 11+ years of existence, we’ve at all times discovered a ton of worth from firm retreats the place all of us meet in particular person, and we’ve suffered throughout the pandemic the place we’ve not been capable of have these occasions. Construct Week is a chance for us to try this with an entire new idea and occasion moderately than making an attempt to do it with one thing like a digital retreat which might probably by no means have the ability to reside as much as our earlier retreat experiences.
There’s an enormous alternative for exchanging context and concepts of present Buffer challenges inside groups the place the groups are cross-functional and with individuals who don’t usually work collectively. This might assist us for months afterward.
Construct Week can be a time the place sturdy bonds, each in work and personally, are fashioned. My dream could be that after Construct Week, folks inside their groups hit one another up in Slack and leap on a spontaneous catch-up name now and again as a result of they’ve turn into shut throughout the week.
We’ve had engineering hack weeks for a very long time now. These have been superior of their means, however they’ve been very contained to engineering. And whereas these occasions created quite a lot of worth, they typically lacked views that might have enhanced the work, reminiscent of buyer advocacy, design, tradition, or operational views.
As an organization, we wish to problem among the processes now we have constructed up over the previous few years. Construct Week is sort of a clean canvas – we filter an entire week after which diligently resolve what we’d like by way of construction and course of to make this idea thrive and no extra. This could act as inspiration for us going ahead, the place we will use the week for example of rethinking course of and questioning the methods we do issues.
The chance that comes with Construct Week
If we’re profitable with Construct Week, I’m assured that we are going to shock ourselves with simply how a lot worth is created by the entire firm in that one week alone. In embracing being a small firm, we’re presently striving to problem ourselves by transferring at a sooner tempo with out over-working. I feel that is attainable, and the fully totally different nature of how we work collectively in Construct Week might give us concepts for what we will regulate to work extra successfully and productively collectively in our common circulate of labor.
The chance for worth creation inside Construct Week goes far past product options or enhancements. Construct Week can be a time for us to construct something that serves both prospects or the workforce in pursuit of our imaginative and prescient and mission, or strengthens and upholds our values. We will stretch ourselves within the prospects – there may very well be a advertising and marketing marketing campaign, a knowledge report, enhancing an current course of within the firm, rethinking our instruments, creating a brand new aspect of transparency, bringing our prospects collectively, and so on.
Want us luck!
I imagine Construct Week might be one of the crucial enjoyable, high-energy weeks we’ve had in years. I anticipate we will come out of the week on a excessive that may gas us with motivation and pleasure of our work for months. That could be a worthy objective and one thing I feel we will obtain with somewhat creativity and the precise group of individuals designing and planning the occasion.
After all, a part of the fantastic thing about Construct Week itself is that similar to all of the concepts and the liberty to decide on how you’re employed in a workforce, we don’t know every part we’ll study as an organization by doing this. It may very well be chaotic, there may very well be challenges, and there’ll undoubtedly be many insights, however we can be higher off for having gone by way of the method.
Please want us all luck as we head into subsequent week. There’s quite a lot of pleasure within the firm to create worth. We hope to have new options to share with you within the coming weeks, and we’ll be again quickly with a submit sharing the way it went.
Have you ever tried one thing like Construct Week earlier than? If that’s the case, how did it go? I’d love to listen to from you on Twitter.
