We recently held our latest Waza, our periodic research and development day focused on learning, collaboration, and innovation. Each year, we choose a different theme for our Waza events, and this year's theme was born out of one of our core values: Be curious.

‍The Power of Curiosity

One of our guiding principles at EndGame is to "Listen, explore, ask why, and challenge the status quo. We go beyond what is obvious while staying true to our mission." This year's Waza theme, "🔎 Be curious - Take an itch of an idea and build to help yourself or others," embodies this value perfectly.

Curiosity is the driving force behind innovation. It pushes us to ask questions, explore new possibilities, and challenge the way things have always been done. By embracing curiosity, we open ourselves up to new ideas, perspectives, and solutions that can help us grow as individuals and as a company.

During this Waza event, we encouraged our team to tap into their curiosity and pursue the ideas that have been itching at the back of their minds. Whether it was building a spreadsheet to better track personal finances or developing a tool to streamline a work process, we wanted our team to explore the things that piqued their interest and had the potential to make a positive impact.

‍Why Waza?

A Waza is more than just a hack-a-thon; it's an opportunity for our team to come together and explore new techniques in code, delivery, collaboration, and ideation. We use the term "Waza" to emphasize our focus on developing good techniques and fostering a culture of continuous learning and mastery. 

Read more here in our What’s a Waza blog.

How Waza Works

The Waza process begins well before the actual event day. This year, we held a pitch lunch two weeks prior, where team members had the opportunity to present their ideas and recruit others to join their projects. This allowed us to organise into groups based on shared interests and complementary skills.

Then on the day of Waza, each group collaborated to bring their ideas to life, whether it was coding a new tool, designing a new process, or brainstorming solutions to a problem. The focus was on experimentation, learning, and pushing the boundaries of what we thought was possible. Kelcey, an EndGame designer commented “Doing some mobile first designs has been a bit of a change, and I’ve liked getting to work with people who are not always in the immediate team you’re working with at the time.”

The Teams and Their Projects

This Waza saw our team form several groups to tackle a diverse range of projects:

Fantastic Focus - An app to give you all the tools you need to focus on the task at hand.
Timesheetag - Helping you to manage your timesheets more efficiently.
Improvements to the Hub - Enhancing EndGame's Business Intelligence tool.
Implementing AI Image Generation into Hoist - Integrating cutting-edge AI technology into our existing platform.
The Little Whys of EndGame - Reviewing and addressing the backlog of technical EndGame tasks.
CookEase - Solving inconsistent measurements, information overload, and clarifying instructions in cooking.
EndGame Social Gaming - Expanding and solidifying our weekly social events.

At the end of the day, each team showcased what they had created during a demo session. This was a chance to celebrate our achievements, learn from each other's experiences, and spark new ideas for future projects. Matt, an EndGame developer noted “It’s been very good, we’ve far exceeded what we expected we were going to do today, and we’ve been able to add a new feature to Hoist” (an existing EndGame platform).

What are some of the highlights for our team?“I like being able to do a wee experiment, and do some stuff that I don’t get to do in my day to day job” says Andrew, Product Manager.  “It’s all about having fun along the way, and building some cool stuff!” says DevOps Engineer, Gene.  
And team collaboration came out on top. “The team, all together, on the same page.” shared Developer, Pete. 

Embrace Curiosity and Innovate with EndGame

At EndGame, we believe in fostering a culture of curiosity, learning, and innovation. Our Waza events are just one example of how we encourage our team to explore new ideas, collaborate across disciplines, and push the boundaries of what's possible.

If you're interested in learning more about how EndGame can help your organisation embrace curiosity and drive innovation, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out to me today to start a conversation! Andrew.cox@end-game.com