GitLab Onsites - Getting your team together in person

GitLab Onsites

GitLab Onsites

noun

Dedicated time for team members to come together in person to accomplish work that cannot be easily done remotely. This largely involves bringing team members together in service of company objectives or to address challenges/achieve alignment that can be best accomplished in-person.

This page is an onsite planning resource for people managers at GitLab. Use these suggestions to guide the way you plan in-person time for your team.

Leading an onsite for your team might be outside your comfort zone. The resources on this page will equip you to feel confident organizing an in-person team event. Lean into the skills that make you a great manager as you plan.

At your team onsite, you should achieve concrete outcomes, alignment or decisions, that will help to move GitLab forward. You should also focus on motivating the team to achieve results and developing a shared understanding and trust.

Helpful resources to plan your onsite

The People Group has created a number of resources to support you in planning your onsite. These resources include:

1. People Safety & Security guidance
2. Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging considerations for events
3. Event Planning Templates

Prepare

Consider the following as you start planning your onsite:

Set a goal

An onsite requires an investment in time and money. You should have a clear business case for why you are having one. And, this business case should have a clear, outcome-oriented goal. This goal should be communicated to and understood by your E-Group Leader, direct manager, and all participants. There should be agreement that this goal is the right goal and that this meeting is needed.

Sample goals:

1. Achieve interlock across leaders on a top company objective.
2. Develop a 3 year vision and clarify individual opportunities for contribution and growth within that vision.
3. Collaborate on a solution for a challenging and persistent issue our team faces.
4. Build trust and get to know each other when a team has expanded or hired a number of new team members and greater alignment is needed.

Plan transparently

Be transparent in your planning to maximize both attendance and engagement:

1. Ask for input from your team early and often: What do folks on your team want to do during their time together? What are they not interested in?
2. Set expectations: Leave nothing as a surprise. Build psychological safety by planning out in the open so folks know what to expect.
3. Share resources: Share resources like our expense handbook, travel handbook, support for nursing mothers, and considerations for working while traveling.
4. Plan in advance: Some functions and roles at GitLab are accustomed to work travel - others are not. Give time to plan and organize schedules to maximize attendance and presence.

Develop a shared reality

Spending time during a team meeting to set norms for your onsite will begin to develop shared expectations for your time together.

1. Assign prework: Depending on the goals you’ve set and the activities you’ve planned, assign prework to help your team prepare. This might be a video, article, or activity to complete prior to meeting in person.
2. Clarify expectations around attendance: Make it clear that remote participation will be offered, but in person attendance is preferred whenever possible.

Integrate sustainability

GitLab is committed to minimizing our environmental impact. When planning team onsites, you have an opportunity to contribute directly to this commitment by incorporating sustainability considerations into your planning process, while creating meaningful experiences for your team.

The following guidelines will help you integrate environmental responsibility into your onsite planning:

1. Transportation: Create a shared channel or spreadsheet for coordinating ride-shares to/from the airport.
2. Walkability: Choose locations where team members can walk between the hotel, activities, and restaurants. This reduces transportation needs and encourages team interaction.
3. Hotels: Select accomdations with sustainability commitments such as LEED certification or green building standards, renewable energy programs, water conservation and waste reduction initiatives, and local sourcing policies.
4. Carbon footprint analysis: Use this prompt with Claude to compare destination options: “I’m planning a team onsite for [NUMBER] people traveling from [DEPARTURE CITIES, COUNTRIES, OR STATES] to [POTENTIAL DESTINATIONS]. Please estimate total CO2 emissions for round-trip flights to each destination and rank them from lowest to highest carbon impact.”

Close the loop

After a meeting, key decisions and outcomes should be communicated to all key stakeholders, including folks who were not directly in the meeting. At a minimum, plan a Slack post that highlights the onsite goal, what was achieved, and next steps.

Activity Planning

The all-remote structure at GitLab is efficient and collaborative. It works really well for problem solving, independent work, and all forms of collaboration - not to mention things like getting up to date on GitLab to-dos and Slack messages.

Time spent together in person has its own benefits, too. It’s great for building trust, getting to know members of your team, and creative brainstorm discussions.

Review the resources below for guidance on what to prioritize when your team is together in person, and what you might save for when you’re back in your home office.

Team Building

Make the most of onsites with intentional time to get to know one another.

1. Set and iterate group norms: Spend 5-10 minutes at the start of each day to set and review group norms. Decide together things like work you’re going to set aside, if/when you’ll take breaks as a group, and how you’ll communicate during each activity. These might be similar to norms your team follows on all-remote team meetings, but recognize that it might be different - like making sure everyone knows where the restroom is and that everyone has a comfortable seat or space to work.
2. Personality assessments: Increased awareness of our own strengths and working styles helps us work more collaboratively with others. Use a framework like Clifton Strengths Assessment. Assign the assessment as prework then have a discussion to share results.
3. Ice Breakers: Don’t cringe - ice breakers don’t have to be super cheesy or put people on the spot. A great ice breaker gets authentic conversation started. Here are a few ideas to get you started. Be mindful of how underrepresented groups and neurodiverse team members might feel during these activities.
   • Conversation Deck: Purchase a deck like The Teamwork Game. Pick a card to start a conversation in small groups, then share.
   • Temperature Check: ask folks to share how they are feeling to start the day on a color or number scale. Give space to elaborate if comfortable.
4. Incorporate flexible social time: Plan team lunch or dinner, exercise classes, group walks, cooking classes, or tours to explore the city where you’re meeting. Be mindful of mobility limitations and your team members’ individual needs.1. Balance team building with independent time: We all need space to recharge. Avoid booking each day solid with activities. Ensure there is time for folks to return to their hotel room or spend time alone to feel ready for each day’s activities.
5. Give back to the community: Turn your team onsite into an opportunity to strengthen bonds while supporting local communities by volunteering through the GiveLab program. Corporate volunteerism has been proven to boost engagement and help team members develop new skills, all while living our CREDIT values. Whether it’s participating in a neighborhood cleanup, supporting a local food bank or animal shelter, or teaching coding workshops to local students, these activities create meaningful impact. Check out our Team Volunteer Guide for a walkthrough of available options, including custom offerings, then open a Volunteer Event Issue to get started.

Consider Utilizing Design Thinking Exercises

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. (Source: Interaction Design). What makes design thinking unique is that it’s a user-centric, solution-based approach to problem solving. The focus is on the solution, rather than the problem. Design thinking gives opportunity for everyone to contribute and can help develop a growth mindset.

Design thinking directly supports our GitLab values of Results, Collaboration, and Efficiency. We balance being ambitious along with a focus on boring solutions - both of which are solutions-oriented.

Listen to Tim Brown speak about the Design Thinking process in this TedTalk.

Regardless of what your team is working on during time in person - whether it be long term planning, high stakes problem solving, or new idea generation - you can apply design thinking activities to achieve results. Here are some suggested activities you can explore:

1. Roses, Buds, Thorns activity: Gather feedback on what is and isn’t working, then identify new opportunities.
2. Eisenhower Matrix: Map top priorities to set realistic goals.
3. Empathy Map: Apply emotional intelligence skills to understand the root cause of a problem.
4. Structured Brainstorming: Focus discussion on a specific topic or problem to solve. Set brainstorming norms to stay efficient.

Logistics

Inclusion and remote participation

It’s inevitable that some team members won’t make it to an onsite. It’s critical to think about how you’ll include remote participation to ensure that folks aren’t missing out on key conversations and team building.

1. Find out in advance who cannot attend. It’s important to know this information early so you can plan a successful event.
2. Plan key team discussions in timezones where remote participants can call in.
3. Engaged remote participants in discussion - don’t just ask them to listen.
4. Use technology to set yourself up for success - tools like Mural can mimic whiteboards and allow multiple ways to contribute.
5. Ask for consistent feedback. Ensure the structure is working for remote participants and adapt as needed.
6. Set clear boundaries so remote participants don’t feel like they need to ‘cover’ for everyone who is in person.

Outdoor events

It’s challenging to include remote participants in team building, especially in an outdoor space. Here are a few special considerations for this:

1. Plan team building that allows for remote participation. For example, in a cooking or painting class, you could accommodate with a Zoom set up so remote participants can follow along. WithConfetti is a great resource for sessions and ideas.
2. Encourage, and provide budget, for remote participants to get together with other remote participants. This could look like a Zoom happy hour, or a shared meal for all remote participants.

Ready to get planning?

The content and suggestions from this page are neatly captured in 2 planning templates. Simply open the template, make a copy, and use this resource to plan your event!

Customize the templates as needed. We suggest you start with the Onsite Planning Guide to plan, then use the Onsite Attendee Guide to communicate plans to your team.

Additional Resources

1. Travel Guidelines
2. Travel support for nursing mothers
3. Expense Guidelines
4. Considerations for working while traveling

Contribute

Our team member community is the expert on what works for time spent together - so contribute! Open a Merge Request to update this page with your favorite (and least favorite!) ways to spend in person time with your team.