There are countless reasons to shy away from adventure. That Kraken over there can’t wait to tear our ship apart. “Adventure” sounds like it’ll interfere with second breakfast, no? And won’t this journey cause our team’s productivity to dip?

However, just as the adventurers that came before us embraced the unknown for the promise of great rewards, we at Steamclock have embraced our own perilous journey: dedicating large chunks of non-billable time to… *checks notes* self-guided, project-based experimentation.

Build It Days: It’s Expensive and It Works

Twice a year, Steamclock sets aside two days for the team to brainstorm, build, and demo a project of their choosing. While Google and Apple have their 20% rule and Blue Sky programs, why would an agency that builds mobile apps — a company where time is literally money — dedicate effort to non-billable pursuits? After 5+ years of thoughtful experimentation, we’ve found that making room to try new things is critical for levelling up our team to get even better at shipping great work for clients.

Build It Days give us a chance to challenge ourselves, take risks, and be creative while collaborating with peers we don’t often get a chance to work with. Past Build It Days have led to Quests, a ranked matchmaking server for Two Spies, explorations into KMM and Flutter, better QA tooling, levelling up our team’s use of LLMs, plus countless other improvements that help us to be more effective every day.

Although we’re always tinkering with the Build It Day structure, we’ve had a lot of success with a two-day format: on Day 1 we get together in person to brainstorm, collaborate, and plan. On Day 2 we hit the ground running with fresh eyes and clear objectives. At the end of the second day, we share what we’ve learned. While it’s twice as expensive to run Build It Days over two days, setting time aside for collaborative pre-planning leads to outcomes that are more impactful and thoughtfully scoped.

While twists, turns, and side quests might be inevitable, they’re also manageable provided you keep some clear landmarks within view throughout the journey. While every team is different, here’s what works for us.

Stormy Weather

Although Build It Days are an open-ended exercise, it’s completely reasonable to expect teammates to deliver a result. That deliverable can be a demo, a key insight, or a solution to a tough problem — anything that chronicles the distant shore they managed to discover and how they got there. To keep us focussed and oriented, the landmarks we keep our eyes on are:

• Process, not polish. By far the biggest constraint is time — there’s never enough, and that’s okay. While it’s important to have something to show at the end of the day, there’s far more value in the journey than the destination.
• Prompt, don’t prescribe. While Built It Days are open-ended, leading questions can add just the right amount of definition. Even simple prompts like “What milestones do you hope to hit throughout the day?” and “What are the biggest challenges you anticipate?” help folks sharpen their plans.
• Preparation, not procrastination. Remind folks to get ready ahead of time. Not only is it a buzzkill to start building by installing and troubleshooting dependencies, but it also wastes valuable time.

With these landmarks firmly in view, how do we generate project ideas that will be a good fit for Build It Days? Typically, some combination of brainstorming and planning is needed — a process that can be weirdly difficult to get right.

Here Be Dragons

There are a bazillion brainstorming methods out there, but we favour simple techniques that encourage diversity of thought by giving everyone, regardless of skillset, an equal opportunity to participate. We follow up those exercises with focussed, collaborative planning to make sure we’re thoughtful about what we’re about to build. But despite those efforts, terrors lurk in the shadows that can threaten to knock things off course:

• Lack of communication. Brainstorming can be uncomfortable for some folks because it can feel like being put on the spot to be creative. Sharing the process ahead of time gives everyone time to warm up.
• Overcommitting to solutions. People tend to get overly attached to solutions once they’ve come up with them, even when more effective approaches are available. Instead, by focusing on problems, you help folks take stock of a broader perspective for generating more creative ideas.
• Moving too fast. It’s important that everyone gets a chance to participate, which can mean giving people time to think before speaking. Every now and then, pause to let everyone absorb, process, and respond. It might feel awkward, but silence is golden.
• Distractions. Don’t expect other work to get done during Build It Days. As a company, if you’re telling everyone that you’re carving out time so they can explore new ideas, you really have to mean it.
• Ill-defined scope. Specific project goals = good project goals, e.g.: “I’m going to learn more about Flutter by roughing out an Instagram clone” will lead to a far better outcome than “I’m going to try out Flutter”.
• Lone-wolfing it. While it might be tempting for folks to run off and work privately, sharing project plans in a post-brainstorming discussion is effective to help break down work even further into nugget-sized goals.

The World Is Not in Your Books and Maps

We’re always experimenting with our Build It Days format in order to improve. But what remains constant is our commitment to making the experience valuable, fun, and ambitious. Build It Days are more than just a break from routine — they’re a chance to broaden our horizons and stretch our skills. They’ve been the source of many Steamclock adventures, and have led to some of my favourite projects.

As we continue to refine and evolve our format, we invite you to set out on your own adventure of discovery. Whether you’re experimenting with new technologies or taking a fresh look at old ones, the key is to take the leap.