RFC:🚰 Water Cooler Break
chr-tatu opened this issue · comments
Proposal: 🚰 PDDE Water Cooler Break
A water cooler chat describes a casual conversation between co-workers about non-work-related topics.
Proposal details
🗓️ Fortnightly 30min Zoom meeting at a time slot that suits multiple time zones, for instance:
- Mondays, 17:30 CEST / 11:30 am EDT (before the Engineering Stand-up)
👻 Rotating host
- The host greets the group and announces the ice breaker (examples: here, here, here). It's up to the host to decide on the topic.
- They split the participants into Zoom Breakout Rooms of 3 or 4 people.
- At the end of the meeting they will ask for a volunteer to host the next Water Cooler Break.
💬 Channel (#pdde-watercooler)
- Where everyone can share pictures, links, ideas, and thoughts about their conversation or the icebreaker topic.
Reasoning
Artsy is a growing distributed-first company. We would like to break the virtual boundaries and bring together people who are not working closely on a daily basis. It's an opportunity to get to know your colleagues - old and new - and to have a fun break.
Additional Context
We have tried different experiments in the past that didn't prove successful. We learned that successful gatherings have a host driving them. Currently, similar events happen either location-based or team-based. We want to break those boundaries, but we learned that having the entire Artsy joining these events felt overwhelming. This time we would like to try a PDDE only event.
Exceptions
Aiming for a time slot that suits multiple time zones is hard to achieve. The proposed time slot might be a stretch for people on the US West Coast or in Asia. Feel free to propose improvements. Any feedback is great!
How is this RFC resolved?
For a week, we will collect feedback and check the engagement for having such an event. We will try to incorporate your comments and feedback in our first 🚰 PDDE Water Cooler Break event.
This experiment will be running for one month. With enough engagement, we will continue having the breaks. Otherwise, we look for other ideas.
I like this :). many teams have a coffee but a company-wide one would be cool.
one quick comment, choose the host somewhere before the end, so it's not forgotten 😅, but it could be done on slack async.
We do also have a global coffee meetup, but one time I went, we were only around 6 people and it was really nice and didn't need a break out room. I am open to trying out the water cooler thing!
We do also have a global coffee meetup, but one time I went, we were only around 6 people and it was really nice and didn't need a break out room. I am open to trying out the water cooler thing!
@kajatiger : Are you referring to the one on Thursday morning CEST? We were also 6 people when I joined. It was a nice coffee meeting.
The difference I see is that the one on Thursday is focused on Europe + Asia. This one is focused on PDDE and Europe + US.
I'm fine with this but would rather use or repurpose an existing channel (#dev-banter, #dev-offtopic)... just a personal preference, but I don't personally find any of our slack channels to be too chatty or busy to absorb some friendly conversation (except channels that have been taken over by bots). Non-blocking.
I'm fine with this but would rather use or repurpose an existing channel (#dev-banter, #dev-offtopic)... just a personal preference, but I don't personally find any of our slack channels to be too chatty or busy to absorb some friendly conversation (except channels that have been taken over by bots). Non-blocking.
@erikdstock : That's a very good point. We also have #tech-culture. The concern I have is that the break is for PDDE, including design and PMs. Is there any existing offtopic channel for all PDDE that we could use?
Is there any existing offtopic channel for all PDDE that we could use?
how about a #pdde-offtopic channel? General but good compromise for me.