This blog was written by Apurva Srivastav from Dasra
Good team sprints are meant to be full of reviews, roadmaps, and hackathons, however the great ones are also full of food, games, and stories. I found it is a brilliant idea that Tech4Dev does sprints at a location that people want to travel to. It makes the event aspirational so everyone comes prepared, enjoyable so the team stays engaged, and greatly improves the recall value of just about every conversation you have during the sprint. It’s much easier to tell your teammate later- “Remember that idea I told you after the walk at Ward’s lake”, than it is to say “Remember the zoom call on 24th Oct….” You get the drift 🙂
Side Note: I am glad that one of the ideas (regarding AI for the sector) which got deliberated at length over a Meghalese lunch during this sprint is soon getting tested via a pilot launch in Jan ’25. More on that in the next blog, perhaps.
In October’ 24, I had the chance to attend Tech4Dev’s quarterly team spring in Shillong. It was my first sprint with the Project Tech4Dev team. It was insightful to get a deeper experience of the platforms, processes, and people, as Dasra and Tech4Dev stay close partners always looking to complement each other’s strengths. While I had met some of the T4D leaders and team members earlier, at Dasra in Mumbai or at the Philanthropy forums in NYC, the majority of the 35-member team I came to know directly in Shillong and from the onset their energy was simply infectious. Almost everyone seemed to have a natural flair for organizing, hosting, and entertaining, be it for 3YP vision exercises or party games. It seems like an unsaid hiring criteria and surely made everything more fun. (Kudos to Radhika, Ashwin, Gautam, Tejas, Nishika, and many others who planned this sprint’s events)
Here are some of the key observations that have stayed with me 2 months post the event. Yes, there is a good reason for the delay on this blog
The team that hikes together, strikes together!
This could be the Tech4Dev contextualized version of the saying ‘the team that plays together slays together’. Almost every morning, folks went for a morning jog, walk, hike, or some sorts. I don’t know who in the team has created the record for most hikes done before-during-after a single quarterly sprint but my money is on Lobo and Vinod. I joined for 2 of the 5 days and I was quite happy about that success rate. I still am, considering the end of the sprint (more on that later). We even shot a dance reel on the hike to Laitlum Canyon where the team’s rhythm was tested. After a few test runs, the production shot was on point beat 🙂
Compete to win, but give others a hand when you can!
There is something about hackathons- adrenaline, creativity, caffeine (more on that later), snacks, and ofcourse the anticipation that adds life to the sprint. This time there were 10 unique problem statements which teams of 2-4 members worked on. The common thread was leveraging data to improve decision making, process efficiency, and/or NGO user experience. Expectedly, AI and LLMs made an appearance in most of the projects. There was a fair amount of competition between teams as it should be, but it was also wholesome to see a general willingness to point others in the right direction when it came to finding solutions to common challenges. Also, it didn’t hurt that the team I was a part of D3- Data Dialogue Decision (thanks Devi, Ashwin, and Poorva) won the prize for high-impact. I am expecting some coupon, or certificate, or something to reach me any day now 😛
Good Leaders eat last (according to management books) but they will likely finish the good coffee first 😛
The culturally diverse team discovered a few strong differences of opinions on crucial topics such as vegetable to water ratio of an ideal sambhar, however we stayed united in our common love for good coffee. From giving nuanced feedback to the hotel staff on their filter coffee to making freshly brewed french press for the post lunch sessions- leaders led the foray here too. Caffeine fueled the deep discussions in Dalgo and Gliffic visioning workshops and we practiced staying with the questions more deeply, rather than jumping to potential answers right away.
Some answers will take more than a few sprints!
My favourite question of the sprint stays- “How do you define impact?”. We deep dived on the meaning of established metrics such as ‘lives impacted’ and what role Tech4dev plays when working with the NGOs. How do we weigh access to insights, time to decisions, efficiency of scale, and which ones are better to prioritize in what contexts? I encourage anyone reading this blog to also share with us their version of the answer in the comments; because this is not a question we answered with certainty during this sprint, and will surely keep revisiting in the upcoming ones.
Remember the Why- spend time knowing the people you want to impact
To ensure that the blue-sky thinking of product vision sessions or the high optimism from the hackathon triumphs didn’t get to our heads, and that we stayed true to the needs of our users- we ended the sprint with an in-person meet of 30+ NGOs in the north east. We reflected on localized solutions, multi-stakeholder collaborations, and above all the need for visibility to the work of NGOs and communities in the north-eastern states. Many of these NGOs are grassroots organizations that have recently joined forces with Dasra.org and Tech4Dev or are exploring support from either of our two teams to do more.
Be careful of snags right before completion
All good things must come to a conclusion and so did the week long sprint, with a spare day planned for some sight seeing and more hikes, of course. Unfortunately, I hit a snag on Friday eve when a slip and fall led me to break my ankle (bone and ligaments inclusive). Being within a team that actively hikes and plays sports came in quite handy- the quick thinking emergency response was commendable (shout out to Ashwin, Antony, Abhishek, Thomas and so many more) and so was the support of everyone who tried to keep me entertained on the last day 🙂
All in all, the sprint was thought-provoking (workshops, hackathon, and NGO meets), productive (reviews, hackathon, and goal setting), as well as enjoyable (hackathon, team building, catch-ups). Yes, the hackathon did break a leg (pun intended) in all 3 categories! And yes, my road to recovery although long and tedious is thankfully on-track 🙏
All the best for the next sprint, team. Stay intact!
