Re:Announcing The Fog Creek Fellowship
by josefresco on Monday July 21, 2014 @12:51PM
(#8064570)
I worked for a small company that did this. After the first few successful weeks, the high wore off and we would lose people to stress/pressing projects and the novelty of gaming at work lessened the excitement.
Crazy as it sounds, you have to manage this effectively to keep it from becoming "the norm" and losing people along the way.
You need from the top down, a continuing excitement so that each week's even is special.
Yes. Making it an every week thing would make it boring pretty fast. It might be more useful if done a few weeks every year or so.
Re:Announcing The Fog Creek Fellowship
by josefresco on Monday July 21, 2014 @01:44PM
(#8064887)
I tend to agree. We also had weekly Friday lunches and even weekly tai chi which became almost a chore after only a few months.
I believe a good manager/boss should be keenly aware of the emotional state of his or her team, and plan accordingly.
This is to get people out of their cubicles and away from their computers and talking to colleagues. It helps people have a break from a particular problem (which is often all they need to solve that problem). It allows people time to chat to each other, about problems they're trying to solve or just general stuff. You know that you're not interrupting someone's work during one of these afternoons.
So, if a company is going to force some social time this is probably a better way to do it.