Teamwork Makes The Dreamwork

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” — Andrew Carnegie

Some days ago I noticed an article from Google. They made an research about teamwork. Their assumptions about dream-team were totally different than the results. However, according to Google’s survey, all the successful teams displayed the following trait: the “psychological security” in the group. This proved to be the most important element that makes the team work. This is the main reason why I thought it would be time to tell more about our team at APInf Oy. I started here about a month ago, so I really have fresh thoughts about this community and people who are working here.

Lets start with my first encounter with this team. It was my interview which already was nice. I felt immediately welcomed to the office. They had just ordered pizza and they asked if I wanted to join with them to eat. After that was the interview. My interview was quite long. They first presented the company profile and then different projects undertaken. After that I got the floor to tell about myself and I think I haven´t ever been so excited. I wanted to enjoy this team and be part of something that matters and what can affect things that I feel are important.

I started working right from next morning after the interview. I started getting to know people in the office, chatted with everyone and was observing what they are actually working on. Before I even talked with others, I noticed that they are focused and talented. They also had visible talent to work and fix things by themselves. The whole atmosphere in the office was different than anywhere else I had worked before.

First I introduce the two persons who interviewed me. Chandra Challagonda and Jarkko Moilanen. Chandra is the Founder of Sampo Software Oy and Managing Director of APInf Oy. He has the attitude of listening to customers and finding their need. Despite having the language barrier, finds the middle ground to understand the clients. He is intelligent, humoristic, innovative and a good leader. He has a talent to see behind different personalities and work with anyone. I have always been against many things and my authority resistance is quite heavy. But with this guy I knew immediately that if something is going to fail or being shitty, I can still look myself in the mirror. He knows exactly what he is doing. At the same time when he was telling about his working history, I was wondering what the hell I have done with my life and where all the time has went.

Another interviewer was Jarkko Moilanen. He is the Customer Relationship Manager. He looks out for clients´ and customers’ needs, inspects interactions, educates clients on the API economy, and provides consultation to customer problems. He has a vision about where APInf development work should be taken. Jarkko is an energetic innovator who pushes the team with pace and motivation. He is great. I have been following his work already for some years. He is very inspiring and motivating person. He is Finland’s own rockstar in computing field. If He predicts or forecasts something, I really think that the mass IT population should follow him. His advices have been ignored for couple of times and after some years, the situation has become awkward. There are companies, cities, public sectors fighting repeatedly with those problems where he already had proposed about optimal solutions years ago. Jarkko’s perspective is like my favourite movie and theme song. Ghostbusters. But nowadays, if there is going be some kind of problem, Who you are going to call? No. Not Ghostbusters. Call straight Jarkko Moilanen. I don’t know about you guys, but I definitely will.

Next person who I met in the office was Vesa Härkönen. He appeared to be a very busy person doing multitasking. Before meeting Vesa, I actually thought that I knew what multitasking means. But actually I didn’t. His working areas in APInf is project management, customer handling, team leading, scrum, mobile programming and IoT projects, data collection and cloud computing. There might be also other things going on under the surface but I am now introducing what I learned at my first month here.

Then I can introduce you our UX queen. She is Nazia Hazan. She is User experience specialist, responsible for the availability of the APINf service and talented. She is currently doing her Masters thesis from the local technical university. She is awesome, I can tell! She is creative, well organized and an ambitious woman. Working with her, you get the feeling that you can do whatever you want with your life. I think it is great to have such talented women working in our team. She also helped me a lot during July when some of the people were on their summer vacations and I was the newbie in the office. Now-a-days, we are each other’s side kicks in the lunch time!

Then I have the honour to introduce you to Matti Leppänen. He is the calmest person in the office. He is our own zen guy. He is speaking and working in that mood that even Duracel bunnies, like myself understand what is going on and why. He is fullstack programmer. He is a dependable person to develop and deliver results without frustrations. I admire his working mood and try to learn as much as I can not only about his work but also his attitude for things. Things takes time and you have to wait and be patient all the time. It is necessary. Things are ready when they are ready and good enough.

We also had three younger guys in the office during the summer time. The were Kerkko Pelttari, Tulir Asokan and Joonas Heikkilä. Kerkko and Tulir are from Päivölä Student Innovation Lab and they have been remotely working on APInf. Joonas joined in Sampo Software as summer trainee from June 2017. They are all talented and energetic guys and I also learned lot from them. As a mother, I also hope that my own son becomes as clever and polite as these young mens are. And if our country’s IT future is hands of such young talented guys, we don’t have to worry about anything.

At this week I have also met product owner of APInf, our API Queen Taija Björklund. She leads product development with her long-time experience in software projects. A humanist who makes sure that APInf has a soft side. I have a lot of questions about APIs and I already think that she is the right person ask as she is knowledgeable about the whole product. She also seems to be a precise worker so I am going to ask her opinion about wording and pronouncing things.

In the office I yesterday finally met Brylie Oxley. He is an open source software architect. Brylie is motivated by open source projects. A community entrant who finds ready-made solutions from the open-source world, if available. He is also busy and so focused to his work that I have only little moments of talking with him. I also respect people’s work here, which is why I don´t want to interrupt them, if not necessary. When people have way much longer working history than you, all you can do is listen and learn as much as you can.

So this is our team. Our band. We are playing together well, I think. I have been working in many different places and areas. I think the working atmosphere and teamwork is the main important thing what keeps you moving forward. I have also seen a lot of single players in my life and in the long run, they have all ended up being bitter and lonely in their lives. So if you are good, talented and brave in your own work and sky is not a limit for you, I think you can imagine what is going to be if there is multiple persons like you working together. I still go back to Google results about teamwork. Absolutely, psychological security was the top thing. I agree. When there are different kind of persons working at the same place, you have to be able to be yourself. You do your best, like we all do and if something happens on the road, you clean it up and go forward. The team would be there to support you.