Team Boost Sessions: Wake up and boost your knowledge

How can you know that you picked the right company to work in? Just take a look at your teammates and think how well you feel when working with them. Here in Vega IT, we have quite a large FE team and I feel awesome knowing that I'm a part of it.

However, it is not that easy to gather people and make a good team. They need to feel comfortable to work together, help each other and share knowledge and ideas. All of these "great-team ingredients" inspired our team lead Sladjana to look for an interesting way to build better relationships between us and transform our working group into a small, but strong front-end community. So, she came up with an idea to organise in-house front-end meetups called "Team Boost".

Take a look at your teammates and think how well you feel when working with them.

Although we organized the first internal front-end mini-conference named Front-end day at the beginning of 2018., we needed something more dynamic which takes place more often. The idea behind "Team Boost" was to share stories from our daily tasks since we all have a different level of knowledge and experience, and we mostly work on different projects, meaning that we find ourselves in various situations every day. Also, given that we more or less know each other, this kind of meetup should help the people who are afraid of a public performance to overcome their fears and speak publicly with ease, which is another benefit of this kind of meetup.

When I heard about "Team Boost" for the first time, I knew it has the potential to become a very important part of our routine. Nevertheless, the timing wasn't very good - it was supposed to be held every second week, for half an hour before our working day starts. I couldn't help but wonder - how would people react if they knew they had to sacrifice 30 minutes in the morning? (I'm looking at you guys, I know you know who I'm talking about!)

Seven months later, I can only be proud when I see how many of us keep coming to the meetups, discussing front-end topics and even take over the role of a meetup moderator. I've had a chance to learn new things, resolve some of my doubts related to my job and get to know my colleagues better. And, it's always funny to see our back-end colleagues peeking from the outside of the conference room, wondering what we are talking about there.

This is our way to say Thank You to Sladjana for taking care of us.

Ana Bjelica:

When I think of “Team Boost”, I think of a group of young people hungry for knowledge, willing to cut on their much-loved sleep in order to learn something new and contribute to the team. I feel energized and much closer to my colleagues after each knowledge sharing, and that’s why I wish to praise the idea of bringing our team closer in this way!

Mihajlo Radmilovic:

Since I am new in the company, “Team Boost” is a great opportunity for me to learn more about interesting and advanced topics that haven't been explored enough.
Some of the topics and techniques discussed caused me problems in the past and some of them I didn't even use. However, knowing about them gives me a solid base to explore them further and use them in the future. Also, it's a great chance to meet and spend time with other team members since I work from an office located in a different city.
Thank you Slađana for arranging everything, so that I can join “Team boost” meetings from a different office.

Zorica Pilipovic:

It is funny how little time you need to invest early in the morning to get up a bit earlier and attend  “Team Boost” meetup and how much it helps us to learn so much more at the same time. This is a very nice and useful method of acquiring knowledge because it helps us become stronger together.

“Team boost” makes me feel more eager to learn more and advance in my career.

Nikola Loncar:

FE “Team Boost” represents not only a way of learning about and getting familiar with the technologies in everyday work but also a chance to understand each other better, learn about each other, as well as about our strengths and weaknesses. To me, not only does it develop a sense of belonging to the company and the team but it also boosts motivation and desire for work.

David Milivojev:

For me, “Team Boost” represents a great way to socialize with other teammates, exchange ideas, talk about certain novelties and different ways of solving problems, exchange experiences and share knowledge. With each “Team Boost”, I gain more insight into FE, and I adopt a better approach to solving a particular assignment. On top of that, “Team boost” makes me feel more eager to learn more and advance in my career. I believe that this kind of meetup is exactly what we need in order to improve faster.

Srđan Dejanovic:

It is funny how hard it can be to break the routine and get up a bit earlier. But, after a couple of meetups, I’ve seen that it’s totally worth it. The harmony between the newest teammates and the ones which have been in Vega IT for a longer period of time is improved and that’s partially thanks to “Team Boost”.

“Team Boost” is a great opportunity for people to learn something new from other colleagues, something interesting which they may not have heard of before.

Marina Senjov Boric:

I’m so glad that Sladjana introduced “Team Boost” to us because we got an opportunity to learn new things and progress better. Through the examples given by other colleagues, we can hear more about subjects we haven’t seen in the projects we are working on. Learning in a group is more interesting and it brings us closer to each other. I hope we’ll continue attending this meetup in future.

Dejan Boric:

“Team Boost” is a great opportunity for people to learn something new from other colleagues, something interesting which they may not have heard of before. This method is sometimes more effective than learning on your own. Although we have to get up earlier than usual, I’m glad Sladjana came up with this idea -  “Team boost” gets a big plus from me.

Dusica Petkovic:

Besides talking about a new subject on every meetup, learning something new or finding a new way to approach problems, “Team Boost” is like mini team-building to us. The team members, who don’t work directly with each other, have a chance to get to know each other better, which results in more successful work on projects.

Jovica Ostojic: 

"Team Boost” is an awesome idea! We can improve our knowledge and learn something new on each gathering. There is a new subject on every meetup which we can talk about and discuss. It’s not time-consuming, and it’s useful for the whole team.

Dusan Petrovic:

From my standpoint, the concept of this kind of quick meetups is very effective because, in just 30 minutes, you can hear about so many new ideas, which can arouse curiosity regarding the technologies we haven’t used so far. Also, other colleagues’ experience can help us work better on our future projects.

Nikola Dragan:

“Team Boost” is a great way to discuss real problems and situations we are dealing with on our projects. When more people share their opinion about an issue, we have the opportunity to get a lot of useful information. The interesting part is that topics are always closely connected to the things we need in our everyday work, and everyone can benefit from each gathering.

Marija Petrovic:

As a new member of our team and a beginner in front-end, attending “Team Boost” is very useful and interesting to me. The idea is awesome - it helps us learn new things, confirm things we already know, but also hang out with other colleagues.

The ideas I get after the meetup make me feel really good.

Nebojsa Jovanovic:

Every second Wednesday in a month, I drink my coffee a little bit earlier in the morning. Every second Wednesday that same coffee tastes a little bit better when I’m listening to my colleagues and share knowledge with them.  
I am sleepy, that's true. But, the ideas I get after the meetup make me feel really good.

Nikola Topalovic:

What does “Team Boost” mean to me?

• That nostalgic feeling at the beginning of a career when you come to work in the morning and hear something new and useful.
• A chance to feel like a part of a team.
• A chance to be late somewhere :)

Valer Varga:

Not only do we have a chance to spend a great time together at every meeting but we also have an opportunity to improve our knowledge. For example, there are topics I wasn’t even aware of and I wouldn’t even have been exploring them if they hadn’t popped up on “Team Boost” meetups. Besides that, it’s always a good idea to take part in the event which makes you arrive at work on time, or at least, occasionally :)

Nemanja Fent:

For me, “Team Boost” is a great way to discuss the problems we encounter while working on projects with other colleagues, share our knowledge, learn something new and meet each other better.

Vladan Velojic:

For me, “Team boost” is something that can:

• Boost our wish to gain knowledge,
• Boost our team spirit,
• Boost our creativity,
• Boost confidence in ourselves,
• Boost reliance on each other

It can also:

• Boost fun, laugh, smiles, jokes, happiness,
• But, most importantly, it can boost our trust in our team lead

Aleksandar Milic:

“Team boost” helps us to improve our knowledge very quickly while listening to our colleagues’ short presentations. I think we should continue organizing this kind of meetup where we can talk about our experience or share knowledge.

Do we plan to be early birds in the future?

Despite the fact that we are all different in our team, we share the same passion for front-end. And, to me that's the proof that we are all in the place where we should be. Even though our meetups were rather humble in the beginning, after seven months of actively participating in them, we know that it has turned into a tradition. While we look forward to every other Wednesday, we eagerly await the next Front-end Day in 2019.