Spoiler alert: We had an all-around fantastic retreat 😊
Two weeks ago, the Stockholm and Bucharest office spent a couple of great days together in Sintra outside Lisbon, to work together, reconnect, and get some key development tickets kickstarted. It appears from the photos that we mostly ate, drank and laughed, but truth be told, when we get together, mostly we get a lot of stuff done including a bunch of ping pong games 😉.
Since we are a distributed team working form different locations (4 from Sweden, 6 from Bucharest and 1 from Vienna), we usually all only get to work togheter as two-dimensional people over Skype and Slack calls.
Our main goal for when we get together each year is to create shared memories. This means spending quality face time with each other, cooking, eating, doing yoga (Radu & Radu) and getting key discussions and decisions made. Basically, the idea is to recharge our emotional batteries for the months ahead and ahve a clear plan on how to proceed with our projects, when we each go back to our seperate offices.
We also use the retreats to talk strategy as a team and have company-wide conversations if needed, but that’s only a small part of the retreat, as it eats into the having fun time!
This years retreat was our second retreat together. The last one was in New York during the spring of 2016, which included some crazy nights including a visit to one of Håkan Hellströms local gigs.
The Location
We always try to avoid hotel accommodations; nothing against them, but we prefer to spend our retreats in a more comfy and relaxed space where we feel at home.
This year the choice was easy as we could combine a visit to the NYPS pricing conference with our own retreat. Hence the selected to rent a large villa in lovely Sintra just outside Lisbon.
First team checking in…
…and checking out the view
Getting together annually is key
It’s the only time we are all in the same place. It’s one time we are able to learn and dicuss the key stuff on a different level as a mature (ha!) and intimate-but-distributed company. We review our OKRs and create common values & behaviour across our offices.
The company’s paparazzis also did a pretty good job this year…
catching the elusive developer taking the rare pool swim
Radu P barbecuing some kickass seabass
…which disappeared quickly
The 3 retreat days were packed with important tickets to get through…
…while at the same time Rickard and Victor was doing a great job representing PriceEdge at NYPS 2018 in downtown Lisbon
On the last day (Saturday) some of us also did a daytrip to Cabo da Roca (Cape Roca), west of Sintra, which is the westernmost point of continental Europe
You can find even more pictures from the retreat on our Facebook Page
Do you have some ideas to help us in the planning of next years retreat? We are thinking about South of France this time around 😊. Let us know in the comments below!
About The Author: Frank Melander
Co-founder and CMO of PriceEdge. An Engineer by education and a Marketer by choice, he loves consuming new ideas and experimenting with new tools. During the last 9 years he have acquired extensive pricing experience, both from working as a consultant and in industry responsibilities, which he leverage in his writings for Price Edge.
More posts by Frank Melander