Uptime teams meet every winter, in addition to other activities, on a two-day ‘winter days’ retreat, bringing together people from both Tallinn, Tartu, Norway and Denmark at the beginning of the year. Software development involves teamwork, but this event allows us to get together also with others we may not see during the year.
This time, the international community gathered at a recreation farm near Vasalemma, a borough in North-West Estonia to start with a seminar about exciting solutions and tools, and to sum up the successful financial year.
This year, our winter days really were in keeping with the season. During the Powerpoint presentations no one could become distracted by the view out of the window – the opaque snow covered everything in the yard!
Then, after the lectures, all the participants went outside to walk on the thick snow to get to the geo-adventure checkpoints in the forest.
The teams were equipped with a GPS device and camera, and they had to look for the hidden tasks of “thinking outside the box”. Some tasks were also quite athletic.
In the evening, the winning teams were announced, stand-up comedians stepped up on stage and our traveling bar was opened. People also joined with interesting board games sessions and visited a sauna, of course, because it is necessary after walking in the frozen forest.
Uptime teams have grown during the last year in Estonia, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland, and now we have over 100 employees. All of them can get together at least twice a year – in Uptime Summer Days and Winter Days.
