The importance of team building

As a growing company, we continuously strive to strengthen our team. Therefore, we get together outside of work for fun and challenging team outings. For our last team-building day, we canoed through Utrecht.

Navigating our way through the curvy canals, multiple obstacles demanded our attention. We had to look out for our surroundings and the obstacles coming our way such as other boats or bridges ahead. At the same time, we had to make sure we were staying on the right path. Most importantly, as we were in two-person canoes, effective communication and coordination with our canoeing-partner was crucial. We were only able to maintain the optimal flow of our canoe if we paddled in sync, coordinating speed and steering.

Stepping out of the canoes, we realized: the obstacles we had to overcome in the canoe are a reflection of our daily work in teams. To create the most effective flow of our work at Data4Development, we focus on leveraging each other’s strengths. Creating an atmosphere of support and coordinating our work allows us to create the most value as a team. Finally, there was an interesting overlap between our progress and progress on the water and the D4D agile way of working, in which we focus on being flexible and adaptive while moving forward. The day out in the canoes highlighted the importance of this way of working for us once again and we will continue to improve the way we work as a team at Data4Development to create most value for our clients. Let’s see what our next team outing has in store for us!

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