It’s “Schiscia Time” - what ‘Tech Talks’ look like at lastminute.com

“Schiscia Time” is the Lombard version of a ‘brown bag’ meeting - a casual meeting that takes place during lunch break. They began so that our IT development teams in Chiasso and Madrid could share ideas, best practices and become closer and better aligned.

They are not led by the most experienced members of the team or any one person - anybody can suggest a topic which is then written on the board. Everybody then votes on which order they should be discussed in.

In general the teams might talk about new technologies, coding or anything else that comes to mind. Our last meetup was centred around discussions about JavaScript without frameworks.

The success of the these meetings hinges on their casual nature (and the fact that we always choose a room with plenty of facilities - microwave, coffee machine, etc!). There is no obligation for anyone to attend and people normally come once every couple of weeks.

“Schiscia Time” has been through a few iterations, and will probably go through a few more, but we are seeing a lot of success in both participation and involvement, as well as the learnings and concepts that are coming out of the brown bag!