Team Retreat

Report by Roland Maier and Sebastian Krumscheid

In May 2025, our groups went for a joint team retreat to Bad Herrenhalb. The motivation of doing the team retreat together was to have a larger number of people and to also better connect the two groups (which have some possible connections in research). Thanks to the YIN support for setting up such a retreat, we came in well-prepared and had a lot of plans for the two days. Our goal was to have several team activities with everyone, team-internal discussions, and some time for research-related exchange between the teams. Despite the careful planning, there was some uncertainty on our side, whether the teams would match well and whether the format would work out. In the end, we were pleasantly surprised: the two groups matched extremely well and everyone was very open to discussing team-related questions. In particular the (group-internal) activities on defining rules for a satisfactory team environment were a great success within both teams. We discussed how, e.g., communication, information flow, task distribution, and team meetings are currently handled within the teams and what improvements could be made. While this part was originally only planned for one time slot, it turned out to be extremely productive and we decided to significantly extend the discussions on the topic. We also discussed the outcomes between the groups, which was very inspiring. In between, we included some team games to relax the tough schedule. Due to the extensive discussions on the team-internal structures, we had to skip the research-related part in the end (except for some exchange during the hike at the end of the second day). Nonetheless, we set the stage for joint research activities. For instance, we jointly supervised a Master thesis and developed a precise idea of a common research theme since then. 
In summary, the team retreat was a great success in two ways: 1) We had a stimulating atmosphere to discuss wishes and needs within the teams, which we could later implement into our every-day team life. 2) We laid the foundation for exchange between the teams. Finally, we agreed that we will have such an event again - possibly with even more time to better include the research perspective.