6 thoughts on gathering your teams post pandemic

At the start of 2020, Software AG literally shut down the streets of New Orleans as over a thousand of us descended from all around the world for sales kick off. Deep inside the conference facilities there, a small breakout session was happening. The blossoming customer success management team was having it's first joint workshop from all departments and all regions.?

We all know the story between then and now regarding the pandemic, but that didn't stop many other stories from continuing - including our customer success management team.

At the end of our CSM breakout in NOLA, I remember taking a selfie with the global team, even bumped up by some leading and supporting cast members we were less than 20 people.

Now, that same number of people wouldn't even account for just the Americas team, and here we are, meeting in our US and Belgium offices for the first time since the photo above.

It was one more step on the way of feeling our transformation in the flesh, and I'm sure many of you are feeling the same stories.

What I'm writing here isn't intended to be official company policies or stances, just my own personal learnings (and more importantly from our team) on bringing together a group of people that mostly formed a new org during lockdown and travel restrictions.

1. Virtual and remote must be first class citizens, and travel should be optional.

This is one aspect I have to admit we didn't 100% nail, but we are now focussed on this for the future. We arrived at the facility in the US and realised they didnt have great camera setups, and the audio in the room was a little patchy. When we broke out into groups, we hadn't fully planned how to keep the flow going for those remote. In the past, we might have brushed this off, but this is exactly what will give people in-person meeting FOMO that we don't want anymore.

There are of course techniques to help make sure this is successful. For starters, many of the tools we have used to aide remote participation are still just as relevant in person - why use a whiteboard if everyone can use a virtual board? In addition, things like portable screens with a camera that you can wheel to "sit" behind the in-person group provide a realistic perspective to people dialled in remotely. If you want to be super advanced, use a movable camera with presets that allows someone to cut to different views such as the board, the presenter or the whole room.

Finally, we must stress that travel is fully and completely optional for gatherings like this, and not just for COVID reasons. One of our team members actually can't travel easily at all and it has nothing to do with COVID, so we should have anyway been always thinking this way.

2. Seek support from above and all around.

I'm very lucky to have a leader in Benno Quade our CCO who immediately supported our idea for gatherings. Our team also had amazing support from our assistants, facilities teams, COVID taskforce and HR business partners. There are many more things to take into consideration - maybe your previous travel budgets aren't the same as they were before, maybe you need to keep your facilities 50% full, what is the mask mandate where you are travelling? All these things are too risky and difficult to organise on your own like you may have in the past.

3. Let people defrost from isolation.

Don't forget, when people first come to an in person workshop or event, they are used to being able to make sure their lighting, camera visibility, clothing are all flexible and suitable to how they feel psychologically that day before a video call. In a room, all that goes out the window and some people might need to get used to this. We had tremendous success thanks to the suggestion of our IoT CS Director Charles Joel by doing Pecha Kucha sessions. It allowed people the time and space to prepare in advance their willingness to share. We also did it at the very beginning even before any formal introductions or opening remarks. We learnt some amazing things about each other and of course there were tears and laughter the whole way through.

This defrosting also flows through to the amount of content you try to squeeze in. In a team gathering for the first time, leave way more gaps than you used to, and include more activities rather than hardcore tasks. Shailen Prasad - Head of CSM Americas invited our US GTM HR Business Partner - Courtney Brown and Learning Development Manager - Anna Tilley who had us defusing bombs in their session. I learnt way more about my new CSM teammate Neeraj Sharma as he tried to explain what he saw on the back of an imaginary bomb than I did while asking him what he thought about low-touch engagement triggers. We were also lucky enough to have our own breathing expert Watson Murthy take us through 20mins of breathing exercises as a break on the second day.

4. Be humble.

Whilst it is fantastic that we were able to gather in Virginia and Belgium, there are many people who still cannot and things can still go wrong. A complex web of COVID official and unofficial policies will make travel and gathering hard for a little while yet. Even if you do travel right now, you are always one fever or positive covid test away from being stuck somewhere for 2 weeks. People who really want to travel won't be able to sometimes, and for some whole countries and regions travel restrictions are still in place (like our fantastic APJ or Brazil CSM teams who are itching to meet!). So for now, be a little cautious how much you brag on how amazing your "party" is with colleagues. In my view, sharing can be a positive way to show others the light is coming for others, but do recognise that travel and gathering is a great privilege right now.

5. Survey more than you used to.

I've previously been a part of, and organised many workshops and gatherings like this before. However I don't recall too many times systematically surveying a basic team meeting in person for feedback on content, remote attendee quality, the impact on their feeling about the company, or the quantity we might gather like this. Heck, I don't think I surveyed the attendees of the workshop in the photo above in NOLA. Now that we are likely to travel less and squeeze more out of each event, knowing how to make it valuable is very important. Thanks to the thought process of our DACH, EMEA and TrendMiner leader Frederick Motte, we put together a survey that we ran across both events on the last day and got some amazing insights from both events (more on that later).

6. Don't try to go back to "the way things were".

This is my final thought but I feel maybe my most important. In 2017 and 2018, I spent in each year something like 20 days inside an airplane. 20 days! Thats not even including immigration, customs, baggage, taxis, delays, transfers and the trip itself. Oh, and for those following at home, ~240,000 miles is also the distance from Earth to the Moon.

Although we are all excited to gather again, my one key takeaway is - be much more intentional in squeezing every last drop of benefit from a trip, and force yourself to question if you couldn't occasionally gather in smaller groups, remote or hybrid.

The Results

So how did it go?

In 2 short days each time, our amazing team of cross functional skills created best-in-class CS process architecture in our very own Aris. We had the enviable position of being able to bring Customer Success experts from multiple product lines in the one company together to share as well as many special guests from sales, product, marketing, renewals and more. We created amazing new ways to engage with customers through both our technology and our people, we shared notes on how to help customers when their journey is "off piste".

Some of our best presenters (including one of our customers) were still remote participants. We scored 100 from employees who attended on the NPS question (yep, we are in CS, of course we asked the NPS question, and yep, that means zero detractors) and over 4.5/5 average for all questions about the event, save for the feedback from our attendees on remote participation, which was a great reminder.

Most importantly we came away recharged ready to work with our customers along with our colleagues in other teams for their success.

But will we be doing one again every month? No way, my children say. We treasured the time, and are all now back enjoying our Management Team's innovative virtual-first approach to hybrid work at Software AG.