How Opendoor Design shapes team culture and connection remotely
By: Gabriel Contreras
Tags: Working From Home, Team Building, Design, Covid 19, Product Design

In today’s environment, many teams are working remote. And while staying connected with teammates can be tough, there are ways to make it easier. One solution we’ve found successful is hosting virtual offsites. Similar to in-person events, virtual offsites allow teams to raise morale, blow off steam, and have fun. Even before the pandemic, the Opendoor Design team was a big proponent of offsites.

Once a year, our distributed team came together in San Francisco to spend the whole day adventuring. This helped us form closer relationships that wouldn’t otherwise flourish in an office environment.

Offsites can also be great opportunities for team alignment, unity, and collective intelligence — like noodling on systemic team problems. At the very least, offsites can serve as a milestone for team members to look back on all they’ve accomplished. The Opendoor Design team has had its share of virtual offsites during the pandemic. And we’ve learned a few things along the way we’d like to share.

Find the right balance between work and play

All work is no fun. And fun for fun-sake can seem meaningless. Try framing the virtual offsite around a high-level team goal to offset the hanging-out part.

In September 2020, the Opendoor Design team had its very first virtual offsite.

We broke into smaller teams and presented the prompt “how can we improve working together remotely,” and the teams brainstormed a few solutions. The session produced many good ideas, including:

Asynchronous design critiques

Jam sessions to mimic working together

Using Slack statuses to encourage serendipitous interactions (such as “dropping in”)

In practice, starting with a “how might we” (HMW) is an easy way to get a team thinking about a problem. This format breaks the offsite into two distinct parts: one about “work” and the other about “fun.” Your team can work through the prompts and come up with their own way to share with the rest of the group. Following up the work session with a “reward” is something we love to do at Opendoor.

The design process is your best friend

You don’t have to be a Designer to solve problems using design techniques (we promise we won’t get upset). Problem-solving methods like brainstorms and share-outs help distill thoughts and give everyone an equal voice. We learned without structure it can be difficult to mitigate when everyone starts talking over one another on a call.

Try dividing into small groups to tackle a single prompt (aka the HMW) using “breakout rooms” — a feature found in many video calling services.

The goal is to agree on one or two possible solutions for the HMW, then present them to the larger group. This usually creates a dialogue around themes that emerge from the exercise. From there, it’s up to you or the leadership to figure out how to make the insights actionable. At Opendoor, whoever feels strongest about an insight can take ownership of it.

How the Opendoor Design team sets their offsite agenda

How to fight “video call fatigue”

A day full of meetings taken from the comfort of your own home doesn’t sound that tiring. But let me tell you, “video call fatigue” is a real thing. We’ve all been in those hour-long meetings. You know, the quarterly-business-development-OKR (add more of your own acronyms here)-sprint-planning ones. If your plan is to wrangle a team together for an offsite, you’re going to need a plan.

Try structuring the virtual offsite by making a slide deck — bonus points if your deck has a theme.

It’s incredible how much a themed deck can transform the energy for those in the room. Having a fun theme — like magic, Hawaii, or dinosaurs — can result in better responses from the “work” part of the offsite. Stay on-brand, but feel free to go a little crazy with it (the more GIFs, the better). The goal is to not make it feel like work.

A deck is also an excellent way to capture the breakout groups’ responses to the HMW. When teams reconvene, the presenter can walk through each team’s deck, so the meeting doesn’t skip a beat. And because the ideas get captured in a deck, it’s a handy reference if you want to revisit any of them. (Like when writing an article about virtual offsites.)

When the team goes on a scavenger hunt 🤪

Get physical!

People miss having shared experiences. But being apart doesn’t mean you can’t share the same experience together. You can still do them individually but at the same time. (You know, like when you’re in a long-distance relationship, and you watch the same movie at the same time. Kind of like that.)

Try incorporating some sort of physical component into the virtual offsite.

“The Art of Soulcraft” talks about how interacting with real-world objects — like preparing a meal — can help get people outside of their heads and become more present in their work. At Opendoor, most of our work is digital. Doing something that involves physical objects can create new connections that otherwise wouldn’t have happened in a doc or a spreadsheet.

The physical component has varied across teams at Opendoor. We’ve had scavenger hunts, wine tastings, cocktail mixing, and even built models from the same Lego kit. One thing that worked for our Design team offsite was booking a magic show through an Airbnb experience. It was an hour of entertainment. And the popcorn-style callouts from the magician kept us on our toes and ready to take part. It was magical.

Final thoughts

It’s worth calling out that simply having remote offsites won’t fix your team culture (or lack thereof). And no matter how much you plan, things may not go the way you want — and that’s OK. Working remotely is new for a lot of people. Be patient. Be flexible. Lean on each other for help. As the saying goes, “It takes a village.”

That village doesn’t just have to be internal. We’d love to hear what’s been working for you. Hit up the comment section and share your thoughts on how your team stays connected.

Interested in joining the team? Visit our careers page for open roles.