We started off the day at 9:00 with some energizing team building exercises. Tim and Sangeun had us tackling three fun (and deceptively tricky) activities. “Connect the thread” - an exercise that help to link our interests (outside of work) and discover unexpected commonalities; the “Pipeline game” - an exercise where each team had to construct a pipe route to guide a ball to its target (spoiler: harder than it looks) and the “Helium Stick” challenge - an exercise where each team had to lower a lightweight stick to the ground without losing contact with it.  

The last one turned out to be the highlight, with lots of laughter (and a few groans of confusion and frustration) as we all struggled to complete the task. Who knew a simple stick could be so uncooperative? The lessons and reflections from this game lingered on even after the team day… 

Once the laughter died down, we switched gears to learn about what everyone’s been working on the past months. It was indeed a great chance to hear about the work of other colleagues and by the end, we realized many of us were working on overlapping themes. A lot of potential for collaboration, exchange of ideas but just in time, the pizza arrived! It was time to first to recharge our stomachs! 

After lunch, we revisited the shared interests that had surfaced in the morning. We mapped out common themes and broke into small groups to discuss specific areas where we would like to exchange or collaborate in the future. The discussions were short but intense, leading some new ideas. We then regrouped in plenary to share our results.   

Next on the agenda, Andrea and Tim shared with the team current project proposals that were in the planning. They walked us through the main objective, the project scope, extending an open invitation for anyone interested in contributing to proposal writing. It was a great chance for team members to explore potential involvement in these new projects.  

Finally, we tackled administrative and organizational side of things - because, let’s face it, we sometimes just need a reminder. Andrea walked us through the most important things, like taking holidays, business trip authorization, sick leave, to make sure we were all on the same page. 

To wrap things up, we discussed how we want to continue these conversations beyond just this one-day event. Should we set up ad-hoc meetups? A more formalized exchange group? Who’s interested in which topics? In the end, we agreed to let things sink in and revisit the discussion at our next lunch meeting. 

16:30, we were feeling energized from the day (or rather let’s just say we were a little talked out and exhausted). But we all agreed that such a team day was what we needed periodically,