Unleashing Innovation and Collaboration with Technology Team-building Events
Integrating new technology into team building activities and team development is a thrilling way to engage employees in a safe and playful environment outside the standard working environment.
Our “Bitrock Front-end Brain Training Game”, a RxJs training session during which our Front-end team tried their hand at generating a data stream in an engaging virtual game, is just an example.
The event - Bitrock's first of its kind - was organized last Spring with two main goals: to experiment new front-end technologies applying them in a practical code project, and to improve teamwork among team members who are often assigned to different projects.
Bitrock Brain Training Game
Let’s now consider at a closer glance the technical aspects of our Brain Training Game.
Our goal was to organize a training session on reactive programming. We thus implemented the Back-end and Front-end (in Javascript) of a small Brain Training game application, in order to have a generator of a fair number of events.
Although this was a small-size project, we made an initial analysis working with the UX team and producing some wireframes, mockups and flow diagrams.
The Front-end part was built with React, and we focused on the adoption of the reactive paradigm using RxJS. For the Back-end, we opted for MarbleJs, a framework with RxJs capability. WebSocket was adopted as an events communication system, and we created some components that subscribed to it.
The Importance of an Innovation-based Workplace Culture
Internal events like these have many side effects in terms of employee empowerment and corporate workplace culture.
To begin with, our Brain Training Game has proven to be a highly collaborative, team-building activity empowering team members. Collaboration and teamwork are forged by such occurrences: people are drawn together and motivated to achieve a common goal when they are presented with a common problem to solve.
The game has also given our company (and specifically the Front-end department) a great opportunity to innovate. This is due to the fact that the very essence of these activities encourages creativity, as each team member is involved and granted complete freedom to develop and express themselves. Having a set amount of time to complete the project produces results. However, this is a different kind of pressure than what employees are used to, and a game may help loosen the constraints of corporate bureaucracy, responsibilities, and strict deadlines.
Last but not least, the relaxed atmosphere of such an event, which is centered on a shared challenge expressed through an interactive online game, offers a temporary departure from the standard. And such a “disruptive” workflow can lead to an improved work ethic among employees.
Not to mention the chance to have fun and share pleasant moments with coworkers throughout the workday – if deadlines, reports, and briefings are part of the team's everyday routine, why not set aside some time and space for something different? A bit of fun is always appreciated.
Conclusions
Thanks to our Brain Training Game, Team members have had the chance to share their imagination, create cool things, and learn while having fun.
All participants have shown great excitement during the event: for them, this hackathon has been a real opportunity to work with new technologies, specifically with the Reactive paradigm.
While one of our Front-end developers said that this was a great opportunity to improve communication and bond with colleagues, another participant said: “I am glad to have joined this project: I have experimented with Marble.js, a useful library to make practical use of RxJs syntax”.
We are now prepared to replicate this type of event in the future, experimenting with new formulas and events, and maybe even extending it to other Teams.
Our efforts to promote creativity and cooperation are still ongoing. Keep an eye out for the next move!
