Growth Days

One day a fortnight, our entire team stops shipping and learns. It’s not a novel idea — we borrowed it from my wife’s workplace, where they call it a “Jog Day”¹ — but it’s been one of the most effective things we’ve done as a team.

Problem

The team, particularly the engineers, had repeatedly shown interest in time set aside for learning and personal development. We tried to accommodate this with optional slots in the afternoon for learning, or giving people autonomy to take time in their schedule to learn.

However, what we observed is that frequently these time slots were not utilised. The primary reasons given were:

• The slots aren’t respected and meetings are put over them
• It can be uncomfortable taking that time when other people are working
• Because it is up to the individual, people often forget to take the time

The solution

We dedicate one day a week to learning and development¹. For us, that is every second Monday.

The expectation is that the whole team will be learning, tinkering with personal projects or delving into something they find interesting. Where possible we will try to reduce internal meetings but people may have external meetings they still need to attend.

What if the team are really busy?

If there is immense deadline pressure, the team can take the decision to skip a learning day, but this should be a team decision. Where possible the team should aim for a “one for all, all for one” approach where the whole team takes the days. If people start working through it, it can undermine the time set aside leading to eventually no-one taking it.

The outcome

We have been running the experiment for a few months now. The team are taking more time to upskill, and we have a stronger set of engineers for it.