Every other Friday is Mäd Friday, so don’t schedule client or team meetings on that Friday morning.
The idea is to spend some time on each Friday to look inwards at ourselves, instead of outwards to our clients. Finding ways to make Mäd better, working on interesting side projects, and learning something new.
The problem here is to avoid the “Cobbler’s children have no shoes” issue, where we don’t look after our own brand, which is what we do professionally.
This can be seen with many agencies that while offer website design as a service, either don’t have a website or have a poorly designed one, because they haven’t had the time to work on it.
Let’s not do that!
Mad Friday includes:
Full team meeting
Presentations by 3-4 team members
Team Lunch
Hackathon (where we all brainstorm on a particular topic)
Full Team Meeting
This is led by @manny or @erika. This is the time for general Q&A, and to highlight any new work that we’re doing, and any changes that we are making (and we love to make changes).
Team Presentations
Each Friday, we select a number of people who will present on a topic of their choice in two week’s time. We do these team presentations for two reasons:
It helps the person presenting solidify their ideas around their chosen topic, and also gives them great practice in public speaking. The best way to learn something is to teach it.
It gives the entire team exposure to a variety of subjects and helps them become T-Shaped people (see our Team Handbook).
Town Hall
The entire company gets to ask any questions they want to management – no holds barred. We highly encourage questions that challenge the current ways we do things, that dig deep into sensitive topics like finance, and that you normally wouldn’t have the guts to ask in a normal company. Some previous questions include
“Why do your shoes have no shoelaces” ~Internal brand team member to the CEO.
“Is our feedback system really anonymous? How do we know this? What information can you see from anyone who does send feedback through the feedback system?” ~Junior developer to the Chief Culture Officer.
“I’ve just joined, what’s a good way to describe Mäd to the outside world?” ~New Head of Department to the CEO.
Team Lunch
Currently, the budget is set at $10/head, but we might close our eyes if it goes a little higher on occasion.
Hackathon
Whenever we need to brainstorm new ideas or get something done real fast, we put everyone in the company on it. Can be social media posts for the next month, to better ways of working.