Bud was born with the mission to transform people's work experience into something lighter and more human. We decided to start with strategy management because it allowed us to bring a series of important cultural changes to our clients, such as a more transparent, collaborative, and less hierarchical and bureaucratic work philosophy. So, the focus of the first months of our platform was to deliver an excellent OKR (Objectives and Key Results) experience. Today, we are finally taking a step beyond strategy in delivering our value proposition.

Context

Mental health has become an increasingly relevant topic in the business context. The pandemic brought even more focus to discussions on issues like depression, anxiety, and burnout in the workplace, but these problems have always existed. Within the context of Bud, we have always heard in our interviews how challenging it is to understand how people at work are feeling, and even more challenging to know how to help.

This difficulty is an extension of a larger problem of visibility, especially in hybrid or remote contexts. It is becoming increasingly complex to gain clear insight into the status of ever-changing situations within teams, whether for tangible aspects like projects and tasks or for personal and emotional challenges that individuals face.

Until now, Bud had taken concrete steps to address the first challenge - our platform already provided clarity and visibility into the progress of strategic initiatives, including OKR objectives and goals but also diving down to the level of specific tasks. However, we had never had a specific solution to track the human component that drives work. That changes today with the announcement of our first feature beyond OKRs.

Team Routines

At Bud, we are always studying the best ways to support our users. This includes continuous conversations, tests, and feedback sessions, but also extensive research into the latest scientific and academic findings regarding the problems we are trying to solve. The conclusion is clear: one of the most effective ways to keep a team close and aligned, including on emotional and well-being issues, is the creation of tracking routines such as check-ins, chats, and retrospectives.

This type of ritual allows people to share how they are feeling in their own words, and leaders not only gain visibility into how their team members are performing and feeling but also understand how each factor varies over time. When a routine is conducted correctly through software, it also enables the exploration and cross-referencing of this data in a variety of useful and interesting analyses that make the process even more effective.

That is precisely the focus of Bud's new functionality: to make our platform the best way for people to maintain alignment with their leaders and colleagues and to do so in a way that remains true to the type of culture we want to promote – an open, transparent, collaborative, and caring culture.

How It Works

Our vision for the future includes a series of useful and interesting team routines, but we decided to focus on a specific one to start: the Weekly Retrospective. Here's how it works:

1. Every Friday, Bud users receive a notification to answer a quick questionnaire. Bud sends this notification through the platform itself and also as an email reminder.

2. By clicking "Participate," the person is directed to a new screen in Bud to answer the specific questions for this routine. The questions are presented one at a time and include inquiries about the overall feeling of the week, major barriers or difficulties, as well as what the focuses were for the current week and what will be the focuses for the next.

3. Once they finish answering the questionnaire, users are taken to a new area on the team page: a tab dedicated to the Retrospective. In this space, everyone can have an overview of the team's responses, including the average feeling and productivity week by week. They can also explore individual responses in more detail.

4. Individual responses are public and can be viewed by anyone with access to Bud, just like OKRs. This allows anyone, not just the leader, to take an active role in offering support and assistance to those in need, fostering a culture of community care and horizontal collaboration. It is also possible to navigate between responses from different weeks to understand each person's evolution.

5. We decided to reinforce the social aspect of this routine by allowing users to comment directly on their colleagues' responses. Everyone is encouraged to share a message, whether it's to congratulate someone on an achievement or a challenge overcome, to offer support in overcoming a barrier, or even to provide words of comfort during a difficult time.

Acess to the Retrospective

The adoption of the retrospective through Bud is a choice made by each team. If the team decides that it's not the right time to adopt this routine yet, the leader has the option to disable notifications so that Bud doesn't send reminders on Fridays. Nevertheless, each user will have the option to respond as an individual action since this type of tracking can also be quite helpful on a personal level. In our tests, the simple act of listing the main achievements of the week helped people have a sense of pride and accomplishment for their progress. Additionally, listing priorities for the next week aided

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So, how do you like the new features? :)

How about that? Did you like the news? :)

The launch of the Weekly Retrospective is a significant milestone for the Bud team! This feature is the result of months of hard work, dedication, and care, and we are very excited to share it with our users. Our internal teams have been using this feature as a prototype for several months, and the weekly retrospective has become one of the team's favorite rituals. We hope it becomes one of yours too!

If you'd like to share your feedback and suggestions about Bud or if you need assistance from our support team, please reach out to us by sending an email to help@getbud.co.

Until next time, and best of luck with your OKRs!

Bud Team