Meet DevCamp: a development-oriented festival born at Boldare

First, an idea was born

Boldare teams see each other in person regularly. That is basic for us! Daily, we work remotely in different locations – so working together from time to time has become one of the most important of our team-building methods. Company get-togethers have been hampered, each time by the pandemic and a ban on meeting in large groups. This spring, we said: “¡BASTA!”. We felt a huge need to meet up, chat and network, exchange knowledge, celebrate four years of Boldare (!), and have fun.

So we started planning a company event. We thought for quite a long time about what we could offer all of us so that this meetup would remain in our memories for a long time. Something that you can’t buy with a Mastercard. Our goal was to combine three things: freedom, nature, and knowledge. These elements led us to the idea of a development-oriented festival, but one that you don’t have to leave between sessions because you live there for three days. We called it DevCamp.

Originally, it was supposed to take place in June, but we had to reschedule it for September. The postponement did not dampen our enthusiasm. On the contrary – intensive preparations began! We chose the place: Butryny, near Olsztyn. Sleeping in tents outdoors was a bit of craziness, but we needed it after being confined to the house for so long. In the end, the Boldare food truck town hosted sessions on development and product-building and offered all the infrastructure for living, relaxing, and sleeping.

Volunteers needed

When the idea for DevCamp came up, we immediately created a special team with roles related to the event budget, logistics, content, and branding. It quickly became apparent that we had plenty of people on board eager to get involved in the preparations. We met regularly to plan and iterate the following steps (after all, we are Agile:)). Our support was an event agency that organizes festival-type events all over Europe. The agency helped us find and choose the venue and organize attractions. There were a lot of tasks to do: getting all the Bolders to the site, accommodating them in tents, receiving food, creating welcome packs and goodies for participants, planning onsite attractions, and the technical preparations for the main tent for workshops and celebrations, etc. In a word, everything that allows us to freely mix, have fun and learn.

The great day

The culmination came on Thursday, September 8. Out of the window, the sun was behind the clouds, and there was autumn in the air. But in the Boldare offices, there was just great excitement and an eager atmosphere. Only a few hours separated us from meeting in a large group – that was something we were looking forward to, and no temperature or rain could change our joy.

In the afternoon, buses from the Boldare offices in Wroclaw, Gliwice, Krakow, and Warsaw set off. The coaches were full of excited Bolders who spent the next three days together enjoying each other’s company, sharing knowledge, dancing, and having a good time.

After entering through the festival gate into a world of lights, colors, and music, each participant received a DevCamp package. The welcome pack included a sleeping bag, blanket, Kubota flip-flops, and a raincoat in a backpack, all with the company logo and in our favorite color: black. The sleeping bags and blankets kept us warm not just during the cold nights, and the Kubotas turned out to be perfect for the morning shower. We used the excess sleeping bags and blankets at “Grajfka”, the democratic school founded by the Boldare Foundation.

Knowledge-sharing community

At Boldare, we always look for ways of exchanging knowledge between our tech specialists. For example, run knowledge-sharing hubs, so-called innovation chapters. But the practice we like the most is creating a common space for sharing experience and expertise face to face. DevCamp became such a space. We wanted to learn from each other about technological areas, keeping the festival spirit.

To make it happen, we planned a series of workshops led by Bolders for Bolders and one by special guest Adam Bartkiewicz from Product Discovery Pro. What else? Attendees joined a series of lightning talks. What was great, the conversations weren’t just in the workshops or the Q&A slots. Discussions were heard from every corner of Bartbo non-stop!

Part 1: Workshops

The workshops were held on Friday, the first full day of DevCamp, and were really engaging. We covered many topic areas, and among them were:

• IoT. Brainstorming and collaborative code writing showed us the most common pain points of these projects and how to solve them. Speed validating. Short rounds similar to speed dating told us how to painlessly introduce a hypothesis-driven validation approach to products and experiment with them.
• Speed validating. Short rounds similar to speed dating told us how to painlessly introduce a hypothesis-driven validation approach to products and experiment with them.
• Programming for non-devs. Recruiting, operations, budgets, and marketing teams learned the basics of programming by solving a message encryption problem. Together they figured out the algorithm, which they later translated into code. The solution runs on any computer without installing any additional software.
• Design systems. An interactive workshop for product designers about automation and parameterization. It was an introduction to GUI building based on DS MUI using Grid, Stack, Box, and the Typography in React application with TypeScript.
• Event storming. Participants explored the technique of event storming, the types, and the purposes of its use. Everyone took part in Event Storming of prepared domains, and we tried to use the developed effect to create proposed teams, user stories, or architecture.
• Personal brand-building. We got tips on how to do it smartly and profit from it.
• Professional burnout. We learned how to avoid it and what activities really support an effective work style.
• Feedback. What are the best ways to give, receive and ask for feedback? What do you do when you disagree with feedback? What is the 4A framework? Attendees found all the answers.
• Attitudes in a team. The facilitators showed us how to build a work environment that is exciting, inspiring, and full of fun.

The most engaging workshop was led by Adam Bartkiewicz from Product Discovery Pro. Participants had the opportunity to design a proposal from scratch to solve a selected problem with the help of the value proposition canvas. Using the support of product experts, we interviewed users. In the end, we presented our solutions in front of all DevCamp participants.

Part 2: Lightning talks

Another part of the knowledge-sharing was the numerous lightning talks. On Saturday, we had a chance to:

• talk about the opportunities that technical solution proposal architects gave the whole organization. Solution architects at Boldare support business teams with customer conversations and sales.
• get to know the New Business team better. Together we looked at how it could better cooperate with the Delivery area.
• take a glance at the development opportunities for developers in the organization. We discussed how they translate their training into the organization’s good and how they can document their development well.
• get to know the Distributed CTO team better and its strategy as well. It’s the area that is responsible for Boldare’s strong technology culture.
• discuss the technology chapters. There are three chapters at Boldare: Build, Measure & Learn, and Product Strategist. We brainstormed a bit about their roles and the opportunities for self-development they give.

Better knowledge distribution for better digital products

You may wonder why we put so much emphasis on knowledge sharing and the exchange of skills between our experts. The answer is simple: it really supports our product design and development processes and the creative solutions we come up with. We just build better products when we use the full potential of our people. Moreover, teams who are well integrated and like to work together are at the same time more effective and efficient. Team efficiency is one of the most important product cost factors, so we take good care of it for our partner’s benefit. We form cross-functional teams ready and open to sharing knowledge not only between each other but also with our clients.

Building a true team spirit

The DevCamp festival did not start on September 8. It had already started when the very idea of this event was born! Or, more precisely, when we created a dedicated project team. Working regularly on the event and internal communication within the company, the DevCamp team grew close and became a group of good friends. Also, the Bolders, who were the recipients of DevCamp news and announcements, felt more and more excited about the event every day and had the opportunity to talk about it during virtual activities.

What we will remember for a long time is the fun-filled trip to the festival. Already in the coaches, whether on longer or shorter journeys (the Bolders reached Masuria from different parts of Poland), we had the opportunity to get to know each other better, chat, and sing. The karaoke even included the drivers. :)

Every moment of DevCamp was about building bonds and getting to know each other, through watching games together, karaoke, dancing, walking together, campfires and meals. We had the opportunity to participate in more organized activities, such as:

• Drumming workshops and the creation of an orchestra from tubes, conducted by the School of Rhythm from Wroclaw.
• Bolderjada - which is a tournament that our people prepared for us. Two teams (devs and non-devs) faced questions related to the history and current situation in Boldare.
• Joint hand-painting using the four letters that made up an important acronym: B L D R. Each of our offices received one painting.
• Pitching budgets. We quickly formed teams of several people to prepare requests for additional budgets, for a purpose of their choice, to a specially-appointed committee. Among the goals were those related to development or Boldare processes, as well as crazier ones such as expanding the Wrocław office or going to Amsterdam for team-building purposes. The winning team could count on serious consideration of its idea and real money for its implementation.

Let’s roast our co-CEOs

From the beginning of the festival, the founders, Anna Zarudzka and Piotr Majchrzak, were with us. The DevCamp initiative was significant and exciting for them, as gathering so many Bolders in one place had been their dream for some time.

Boldare people were eager to take advantage of their presence and asked the co-CEOs more than a dozen questions, not always comfortable ones. The openness of Anna and Piotr was greatly appreciated during this not-so-easy roast. They bravely answered all questions, even the most tricky ones, like: “Name the five colleagues you like best”. There was laughter, there were surprises, and there were tears of emotion.

We also found space to talk about the mistakes we had had the opportunity to “deliver” in Boldare. In this way, we chatted a little about how we overspent opening an office in Amsterdam or how one project team never saw a bonus from a client. Acknowledging problems and sharing lessons learned are essentials of Boldare culture, so tradition has been satisfied.

Celebration time!

A strong part of the trip was the celebrations. We like to celebrate and appreciate each other’s achievements, so we traditionally celebrated the anniversaries of the Bolders’ new hires – those falling in August and September. To make things difficult, the Bolders had to perform special tasks to receive an anniversary gift. The August birthday celebrants arranged a SCRUM inscription with their bodies, and the September ones sang and danced as if in a pop music video.

The best was left for last. A huge cake and lots of emotion accompanied the celebration of four years of Boldare. Actually, the total history of Boldare comes to 16 years. Anna and Piotr founded the product companies XSolve and Chilid then merged to create Boldare in 2018. It was solemn and joyful, there was champagne and lots of hugs, congratulations, and smiles. And there was also a DJ who played for us until dawn!