The story of one challenge or how to launch a startup event inside a bank

It all started with the fact that I found myself in the usual trap of a DevRel manager – endless meetups and demonstrations, repeated like clockwork. It was necessary to break out of this circle, come up with something new and living.

This will be a short story about how even in a bank you can implement cool and non-standard external activities. I will say more, this event changed my overall approach to organizing events.

Step one. Target

Thinking about standard formats, I decided to start from the opposite: what problems would I like to solve first?

• Gather bank employees and hold something unifying (in a completely remote environment, seeing colleagues is nice);

• Improve the skills of not only 1-2 speakers, but of a larger number of people at once;

• Take people out of their comfort zone and routine.

At Rosbank, business analysts and systems analysts are united into one Guild (that’s what we call communities). These guys work with external and internal customers, so it is important for them to develop soft skills. This is how the idea of ​​“Holivar Analytical Gatherings” appeared.

Step two. Idea

Remember school or university debates? I was hooked on this idea too. “Cool format for an event,” I thought. But, in order not to “stew in one’s own juices,” I pitched the idea to my colleagues in the shop. Other dev guys immediately told me that the format sounds interesting and easy, but there will be a lot of pitfalls. However, as an experienced kayaker, such obstacles do not frighten me.

Step three. Assemble a reliable team

Assembling a team turned out to be more difficult than I expected. People said “ok”, but then they had other priorities. The team grew and then shrank. At some point, I had difficulties with the budget allocated for activity, which means that you automatically become dependent on your partners. Considering that this is a pilot project, and no one knows me as an organizer, and apart from the idea I cannot show relevant cases, the project was on the verge of disaster.

With partners, everything was also very difficult. The idea was born at the end of March. By mid-April, the “get-togethers” had already taken shape, but the partners began to fall off one by one. Then I realized that the project was “sinking.” However, instead of changing the idea, I decided not to be discouraged, but to go all-in, expanding my partner base.

And, lo and behold, it worked!

My lucky ticket was Lena Bessonova from SberZdorovya SberZdorovye We have long wanted to meet. During the call, I told her about the bank’s standard projects and mentioned “Holivar Analytical Meetings.” Lena literally snapped her fingers and fit into this adventure 🙂

So the “get-togethers” took on a new life.

Step four. Planning, planning and more planning

Remember what I said about the team? A strong team boosts any task. For “Holiday Gatherings” we recruited analysts from Rosbank and SberHealth. The guys not only helped with the activities, but also served as a referee committee.

At this stage, I realized that I had made the right choice in choosing the audience: the analysts drew up the requirements for the game, calculated the scores, and highlighted difficult moments and pitfalls.

Step five. Let's say no to perfectionism

My initial idea was to hold debates and a couple of warm-up activities, but the guys quickly brought me to the idea that competitions should be useful, organize people and involve them. As a result, we had 3 competitions.

IT cities. The team names a term from IT, and the next command calls a new term starting with the last letter of the previous one. Here we have added a captain competition to determine the winner.

Absurd debate. Defending absurd topics turned out to be more interesting and useful. Here are some of them:

Meet me in the gateway! We go to dissatisfied users for personal communication.

Baptism by fire: reducing Time to market, testing directly on production.

Crop circles: circles in a telegram instead of documentation.

Cyborg multiplied by eternity: the analyst must be able to replace everyone.

Analytical crocodile. Team captains received a list of terms and then explained them in any way they could. If time ran out, all teams guessed. The game didn't go according to plan, but it was a great learning experience.

I'm a fan of board games, and I understand that broken balance can ruin any good game. Therefore, we were very worried about the assessment, so that there would not be a sharp gap in points between the teams. I would never have thought that during hour-long calls we would spend most of the time discussing the point system, timing, etc.

Did we manage to create an ideal system? Nevermind. In some places, the points system did not seem transparent to the participants (in some places it was intended to be so), but overall the result was very good and there was no sharp lead in points between the teams. And as one movie character said: “Perfect balance is the basis of the universe.”

Step six. Design and marketing are everything to us

I was lucky and my hands were not tied in terms of design in this project for a number of reasons, but even if you are not so lucky, still try to involve a designer. Save a lot of nerves and your own time.

This is how the slides were designed

And these are our score sheets and voting cards.

I believe that a great event should be great in everything. Starting with the idea and ending with leaflets for the jury.

Step seven. Conduct a marketing campaign

With marketing, things were a little more interesting. Let me remind you that I am at the point where there is no budget, but there is an idea.

Here many thanks to all the guys from the devrel community. There were no those who would refuse my request to present an announcement to their communities or interested colleagues.

In general, marketing without a budget is just how we like it.

And while we were bringing everything to perfection, of course we slightly missed the deadline for launching the advertising campaign and started later than we would have liked.

At the mailing stage, I said to myself: “There will be about 20 people – that’s great.” We will hold intimate gatherings and test the format.

After the first couple of days of mailing, the conversations were in the spirit of: “Well, 20, maybe 25 and we’ll probably stop recording.” So that everyone has enough space, gifts and it is interesting to interact within 3 teams.

By the end of the first week we had 33 people registered, and before the event itself we had 54 registrations.

As you understand, the difference between 20 and 54 people is significant! In general, we began to dramatically rebuild everything, think about how to be more flexible when breaking down into teams, etc.

I'll share conversion numbers and other metrics at the end.

Step eight. Carry it out and don't screw it up

An event classic.

Expectation: I will do everything in advance and will conduct everything calmly, according to the plan.

Reality: everything is not going according to plan, and your ass is on fire every minute.

First joke. It was this week that the rules and forms of access to the bank office premises changed. While I was sending the forms to our security, some of the registered ones dropped out. You cannot add this manually; you need to submit the form again and wait for confirmation. In general, I hoped that I would greet guests with a smile, but in reality I was running like crazy with a laptop and phone, either to security or to our location.

In such situations, I act according to the rule: be flexible and let people around you help you, do not “slap your hands,” thereby discouraging initiative.

The most important thing here is to express gratitude to the entire team. The guys from the jury began to greet the guests, and so that no one would get bored, their colleagues did something like exercises.

Everyone was involved in the process as much as possible. If someone noticed thin spots or sagging, they tried to pick it up, help and generate a bunch of ideas. In general, the team is your everything. And you should have a full match with her.

I won't tell you how it all went, it's better just look at these photos And read this post.

Summary:

• If an idea strikes you, collect feedback from colleagues;

• Look for like-minded people – it’s easier together;

• A good team and connection between you are the key to success;

• Write down an event plan and have several variations of actions;

• Don't waste your initiative. If people are willing to help, don't think you can do it alone;

• Be flexible and listen to your colleagues.

And yes, I promised numbers. Here link to presentationwhere there is everything you need and even more.

PS: Special thanks to the partner company SberHealth and personally to Lena Bessonova. To our jury: Konstantin Retivykh, Olga Pashkova, Sasha Galkov, Andrey Rublev, Tanya Oshurkova. To my wonderful assistant Masha Shumilova and to the head of my stream “People+” Galina Kuptsova.