Positive change through collaboration: Manifesto team day 2018

Every year, Manifesto takes a day to bring the whole team together to reflect on how the agency is meeting the needs of our team, as well as our clients. It’s a day to reflect on where we’re at as a company, and where we want to be. It’s also a day to unwind and spend some quality time together!

Using Design Thinking to work better

This year we ventured North, to Angel, where we set up camp at Anonymous Space for the day. The focus of the morning was around our values, our clients, and using techniques from our new innovation product, Future Foundry, to work on our challenges together.

Using a Design Sprint, we worked in teams to focus on areas of the agency where the team believed improvements could be made. These ranged from very practical challenges such as flexible working space, to how we might encourage the wider team to interact with our social channels. From the group work we came away with a wealth of ideas, some slightly out there (like a Manifesto radio station), and some that could really change things up (like Twitter takeovers).

As a member of the team that is less project based, it’s really insightful to work with members of the team that I’m rarely required to contact on a normal day. It’s also a testament to Manifesto that we can collaborate in such a way that you would think it’s a daily occurrence.

Identifying areas for improvement

A second part of the morning involved sharing what we enjoyed at Manifesto, what we could do better, and what we should do less of. We organised this through a survey so that we could be truly honest in our answers, and we’ve already seen changes made in the areas we highlighted. It’s also a great way to get ideas for upcoming social events, which our Social Committee will work (or wade) their way through!

The third part of the morning focussed on our clients. We looked at the feedback we’ve received through The Drum Recommends platform, and shared ideas of how we can continue to collaborate effectively.

Views from the front line

We also filmed some vox pops during the week, which our Motion Content team kindly edited…

Getting our rocks off

After a morning of the serious stuff, it was time to have some fun! We made our way over to Hackney Wick after some lunch for bouldering, followed by bouldering themed cocktails (because why not?). And what better way to end the day than with dance machines and falafels?

So not only did we come away with some great ideas, positive feedback and company updates, we also have more footage of our awful(ly good?) dancing…