The magic spells for openness and efficiency: Stand-up and Sprints

The minute you step into the Toppr office, it’s bustling with energy. You’ll find yourself in an open office, where everyone is walking around with a purpose. We’re a team of engineers, creators, founders and thinkers who want to get things done and do it exceptionally well. Every single person you meet is a reflection of our values, working towards one mission: to make learning personalized. Our work culture is just like our workforce; young, energetic and determined and that’s the spirit with which we undertake every task. A vital aspect of our culture is openness and efficiency and here’s how we uphold these values.

Stand-up

At Toppr, a lot can happen in half an hour. At 9 am, you’ll find us all enjoying Anna’s delectable breakfasts, sharing a laugh over his famous idlis, upma and vadapav. And, at 9:30, our team is huddled in a conference room for a meeting we call stand-up. It’s a company-wide meeting consisting of 30 or more people, where the purpose is to present an update about on-going projects, achievements, lapses and targets. This gives everyone a clear idea of what’s happening, how it can be improved and how fast we’re moving towards our goal on a day to day basis. At first, it can be intimidating, but slowly it becomes a platform where you can catch mistakes early and set course accordingly.

Sprints

A question that always haunts every manager is, ‘how to make the most of each hour?’ Being a startup, we needed to maximize our productivity and prioritize projects appropriately, that’s why we instilled the culture of sprints. Right from our design team to our tech team, everyone works in sprints. Our sprints are two week long and every working day is divided into 2 slots. This gives us better visibility of our project timelines and a fair idea of how fast it can be shipped. It’s a great way to see how much we can achieve in a matter of hours and how much more we can aim for. Every time a sprint is planned, the whole workforce is notified and can add projects to any team’s to-do list. Projects are taken up according to their urgency, making sure we’re shipping the need of the hour first.

These are the most powerful practices that define a day at Toppr. They’ve made us who we are and shown us our potential to grow.