Introducing our Build-Me-Up Platform

Our Team

Introducing our Build-Me-Up Platform

by Felicity de Lang

01 Sep 2021 · 2 min read

Our team loves coming together and celebrating each other, it’s something that is genuine and thoughtful. Having the opportunity to not only build the platform but create something that has such an ongoing and significant impact on the team is so very Inlight.

What does our team do best? Take ideas and create something of value.

One of the best and most joyous examples of this is the Build Me Up platform.

Back in a time we barely remember this concept was done in real life! We had an actual “Build Me Up” box in an actual office and to coincide with our fortnightly all-team Huddle people would drop in notes to call out the amazing work people were doing, to thank them for helping out or for just a general gee-up for being excellent. It was a great way to close out Huddle and end the week.

Taking this virtual became very, um, manual. Doing a call-out on Slack on a Friday morning, and reminders through the day for people to direct message and then translate that across to our slide deck.

One fine day one of our fabulous designers, Maddi sketched out a rough idea for “what if we could build something that looks like this?” And when two of our developers, Michael and Jonathan jumped on it things started happening. In a demonstration of the capability and passion of our talented team, an MVP was built in record time.

We’re always looking for ways to problem solve, even on internal projects and this is no exception. Having the creative freedom to turn doodles into a fully-fledged digital experience in just a matter of weeks is a designer’s dream. I’m immensely proud to see it used and enjoyed so frequently by our team.

Maddi

Designer

The intent behind this is to celebrate our team and we also thought it would be a great way for the team to regularly connect with our values, linking these call-outs with the values we want to recognise and celebrate. The inclusion of GIFs really was the icing on the cake and the value of building a product for your own team where you know what’s going to land.

Now at the end of each Huddle, we open the virtual BuildMeUp box and the team takes turns to read these out. For dramatic effect some even like to describe or even enact the attached GIF.

It’s wonderful to be able to adapt the platform for our purpose, such as expanding it to accept nominations for the recently introduced People’s Choice Award. This is a quarterly award we introduced and a chance for anyone in the team to nominate someone who has been a stand-out for the selected spotlight value using a story about how it's shown up. In the early stages of the platform this would switch modes to open for the nominations in the last week of each quarter. It now accepts entries for either all the time.

Like any services business, it’s really gratifying for the team to have something to invest in that is our own and to chip away at it in the background. It inspires creativity, the opportunity to play with new tech and to execute something that they had full control over. The platform acts as a chance for the team - most recently an intern - to jump in to either familiarise with our preferred tech stack or to build out new features.

It was super gratifying to create Inlight’s much-loved Build Me Up box in digital form. We had the opportunity to play around with a fun new tech stack, which we loved so much that we’ve even started using it on some client projects. My favourite part of the BMU app is the GIPHY integration and getting to see the hilarious GIFs people attach!

Jonathan

Developer

About the author

Felicity de Lang

Performance and Culture Lead

Felicity de Lang | Performance and Culture Lead

Felicity leads the search for finding great people to join the team. She is passionate about Inlight's culture and in creating an environment where people collaborate and produce quality work. That means leveraging the different perspectives and skills of our team and creating experiences that connect people’s work and interests to Inlight's purpose, generating shared meaning and value.

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