Building The Team by Making Sushi Rolls

This post was inspired by my team lead's affection towards sushi rolls that has become a strong tradition for the part of our large team. We usually have a team-building session at our office kitchen every two months. I would say that was the place where I tried to make sushi roll by myself for the first time. 

Actually, sushi has become one of my favorite tool to develop my project teams. This allowed me - who was managing 3 different teams simultaneously at that time - to look at teams' players from a new perspective.

As I mentioned in my previous posts, my professional arenas before the IT-industry were insurance industry, sales and teaching activities in the university. All my previous team-building workshops contained some standard for Ukrainian market items: bowling, outings with a few team games. They were efficient enough increasing team's performance for some time, but it always was a big headache to get $400-500 from the top-management to organize that. No, they were not greedy for money, not a jot :). This is how the things always go in most Ukrainian companies whether they are in sales or in engineering industries. 

I will not discover America saying that team-building can be planned, approved but should be applied in the right time. Not in summer or autumn waiting for God to bless the weather for outings. But only where there is a need to and if a project manager feels the time has come. 

Let's get back to the regular sushi party in my office... 

Undoubtedly sushi is not a day-to-day meal in Ukraine as it is not traditional at all. In fact, though it is affordable but expensive enough to buy all sushi stuff. So, we always share a procurement of materials for the whole team. Also, this is an element of a novelty switching from the daily activities to the unusual process. And this is the groundwork of a team-building success. Especially, such time-sharing activity by non-professional sushi-makers (most of them always have their first time) gives a push to play in a team as equal participants. 

All of us are in the same start conditions. Each team member experiences the same difficulties to follow the recipe's steps. And yes, a change-over from mental work to fine motor activity is a kind of fun for the whole team. Japan cuisine particularities allow to hold a variety of contests, group exercises which results are visual and obviously very tasty :). 

The culmination of the team's union is a sushi party in informal and relaxed atmosphere. Another twist of Japanese dishes is their "non-portioning"; in other words, in contrast to European individual courses sushi, rolls and sashimi are spread on the table d'hote where everyone can taste a masterpiece by the colleague praising the dish. And the latter is in no way less significant than professional credentials recognition.