Chapter 7: Why we needed to change — and why we went off site for it
Welcome to chapter 7 of our SpaceUp Series. After covering Spaceports and Societies, Missions, and key roles, as well as going over the Mission Lifecycle in our previous chapter, it’s time to answer an important question: Why did we want an offsite in the first place?
We wanted to have an offsite, because we wanted cultural change, to change our mindset. That was the biggest reason. The claim of the whole initiative was “To the moon and beyond,” it was really about this change in mindset. We knew that if we want to have an impact, that it can’t be just another presentation in a hole, because then no one would really feel that something is changing. And we wanted to emphasize this change. That was also the reason behind the SpaceUp name.
So now we have a claim, and something like a manifesto — since the whole SpaceUp is like a manifesto. It’s codified, we have it written down, you can go back to it, you can read it. And the reason for taking it off site was that we wanted the audience to focus on it, to not be disturbed by anything else. And also, to feel the importance of it. To feel that this is like a checkpoint, like something’s just finished and something new is starting. This is what we wanted to emphasize, that something new is really, really starting.
Also, when we were discussing the claim of the offsite, we decided that we needed a special visual to go with it. Something that people will remember. So we hired an external artist, and they created a truly special set of visuals. I remember people coming up to me saying that it looks gorgeous, it looks fantastic. Some people even thought it looks too good, which is the aspirational moment I was expecting. I wanted to point out that we’re targeting the next level. We’re not adolescents anymore.
Another reason is that we suffered after two years of COVID. And we are growing quite fast in product development. One year ago, we had just 100 people and today we have around 215. We doubled the size in just one year. And it was the same at the off site, which happened over six months ago now. But we are still growing at the same pace.
An example: Michal Klaus, in his introduction at the offsite, asked the audience “Raise your hand if you’ve been in the company for less than six months.” And almost half of the crowd raised their hands. That was interesting, because we really didn’t have a chance to meet each other and create, to launch relationships with each other. So that was also one of the reasons why we really wanted to have this gathering, so people can have an opportunity to build these relationships. That’s important because we are also experiencing a huge cultural change.
When I joined the company almost three years ago, we had maybe 130–150 people, and now we are at almost 500. Three years ago, almost everything was based on pure human relations. We didn’t have many processes. We just knew who you should come to if you want to get something done. Now, this is changing.
Unfortunately, there is a lot more anonymity that comes with the size and we wanted to somehow fight against it. Not just talk to people through screens, but also see them, feel them, see their immediate reactions so that we can adjust our talks and everything else. For us, it was also kind of an experiment. We had tested it with some leaders’ product sites, or technical, or engineering events before the SpaceUP offsite, but we still couldn’t anticipate what the reaction would be. This was also one of the reasons why we wanted to meet in person.
My strongest memory from the offsite was that I was terrified. I’m not used to talking before such a huge crowd, it was almost 200 people. And I was preparing my talk even while traveling there. But immediately after the first day we started building those relationships — we had an evening program, then we had some team building activities the next day, like minigolf, dragon boats, cycling, etc. So that was the first part…and then maybe the bigger part was that we had separated the crowds to the Spaceports already, because that was a completely new concept. And some of these folks had never even met each other before.
Before the restructuring, we had around 18 regular-sized Scrum teams of five plus-minus two people, and one of the biggest changes for them was that we put them together into the Spaceports. Some of them were created naturally, but some were made artificially, and they really didn’t know each other. So it was really an opportunity for them to introduce themselves, so they know “Okay, I’m Tomas, I’m a product manager and my passion is juggling,” things like that.
My expectation of the offsite was that each Spaceport will end up with some plan, like “what’s the first objective on which you’re going to focus, how are you going to control the space, what kind of processes will you have there, what kind of people and in which roles will you need there?” But I don’t think all of them were really met at the end of the day, because they spent much of the time on introductions, who they are, and what they want to build. So there were huge discussions, but I think it was really worth it because they needed to find common ground, they needed to find their north star so they knew where they were heading.
That was really the moment where they could build relationships and bond with their Spaceport. I think they created the basics for their own culture because this is what every Spaceport has now, they have their own culture. Each of them behaves differently because each of the Spaceport leaders has a different personality, with different attitudes towards things. So every Spaceport is different. And that’s totally okay. I think they really created the basics for this on the offsite, because many of the Spaceport leaders weren’t really well-known beforehand.
At Ataccama you grow really fast, which means you are installing people in key positions when they are not really prepared. Then, you need to provide them with training and mentoring and all the rest. So, you don’t promote leaders, you create leaders. And I think it was also the case for the offsite. With the Spaceport leaders that we installed, including myself, there were people who really weren’t prepared until this point, weren’t known as leaders. So this was also where we needed to introduce them. And I think that’s the whole point with the culture, the relationship-building, and the introductions. You basically let the people grow, giving opportunities to those who — and this is inevitable and will definitely happen — will fail at a certain point. But there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s the buzzword, right? Fail fast. But what I think is really a reflection of Ataccama is that I have never seen anyone blamed for a failure. We are always given a second chance. Or even a third one.
