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Client Handbook growcreate.co.uk The sales process The delivery process Support & maintenance Development best practice
Client Handbookgrowcreate.co.uk
The sales process
The delivery process
Support & maintenance
Development best practice
ContentsHandbook intro 3
Growing team 4
Our story 5
The sales process 6
Initial contact
Our proposal
Kick off meeting 7
The delivery process 8
Agile delivery 9
The Product Owner
The Development Team
The Scrum Master
Artefacts
The Product Backlog 10
The Sprint Backlog
Meetings
Waterfall delivery 11
Discovery
Development 13
Quality Assurance
User Acceptance Testing 14
Support & maintenance 15
Support packages 16
Retained hours
SLA 17
How do we manage tickets? 18
Maintenance
Monthly reports 19
Tools we use 20
Teamwork
Teamwork Desk 21
Microsoft Teams 22
Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft Azure 23
Microsoft DevOps
Development best practice 24
Coding conventions
Web accessibility 25
Continuous integration &
deployment
Branching & pull requests
Environments & testing 26
Styleguides 27
Security
Our team 28
Client Services
Company Directors
Your Account Manager 29
The Development Team
Your Solution Expert 30
Specialist Matter Expert
Housekeeping 31
Holiday & sick days
Agency scheduling
Daily “Hola!” 32
Weekly company email
Monthly company meeting
Quarterly hack day 33
The “Summit”
Staff training
Togetherness fund
Remote working 34
1-2-1’s
Deep partnership.Digital excellence.
Creating meaningful results and delivering high-quality CMS implementations.
We’ve put this handbook together to demonstrate how we work and how we deliver great digital solutions for our clients. For transparency, we share both our sales process and internal team processes.
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Adam WestonManaging Director
We master digital challenges through clear communication, creativity, technical excellence and a shared culture.
Growing teamWe’re a pan-European design and development agency creating thriving, long-term relationships with our clients.
With offices in the UK and Germany, we master digital challenges through clear communication, creativity, technical excellence and a shared culture.
Where we differ from other agencies is in the value we place in our working relationship with you.
We’re a friendly, professional team, working together to solve problems and create solutions for your business challenges proactively.
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Theo ParaskevopoulosCEO
Our storyFounded in 2012 by Adam and Theo as a design, delivery and support agency for .NET platforms.
GrowCreate is a Microsoft, Umbraco, Kentico, and Episerver Partner. We help organisations achieve digital excellence by providing CMS platforming of the highest quality.
We offer multidisciplinary expertise, support, and ongoing improvements throughout each project. We always help our clients to deliver better digital results.
Like many agencies, we have a flat structure giving you access to all our team. We are a distributed agency with remote workers, an office just outside London and another in Cologne. Our locations help us recruit the best possible team of UXers, designers, engineers and project managers.
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Delivery and support for .NET platforms.
The sales processWe understand it can be a difficult decision choosing an agency, so we’ve set out the steps in our sales process to show you how we welcome new clients.
Initial contactYou may have found out about GrowCreate through a referral, or you may have found us because of our partnership with Microsoft, Umbraco, Kentico or Episerver. What this means is that you have a relatively good idea of who we are, what we offer and how we work.
Your initial contact will be with Adam or Theo, with the discussion centred around asking many questions and listening carefully. We will talk a little about what we can offer, but we would first understand what you need.
Our ultimate goal is that weall agree our teams are a goodfit as we believe that the betterthe relationship, the better thework. Delivering value is coreto this belief.
Our proposalAfter our initial contact, a discovery call, and a comprehensive brief or RFP, we’ll send you a proposal. The detail of the proposal will depend on how far our conversations have progressed but will always provide:
• a concise project summary • the roles and responsibilities of key team members • an overview describing the stages of the project and a timeline • an outline of indicative costs
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We’re on board for the duration of your project, and you can trust us to make it an enjoyable journey.
Your project deserves a highly trained team that will work together to deliver your solution while making communication and collaboration easy.
Kick-off meetingThe first step of the project is a kick-off meeting. What’s covered will be dependent on the project itself, but typically will establish lines of communication, set project roles and give the team a vision of how the project will move forward. The meeting usually takes place over Microsoft Teams and precedes our UX and Technical workshops.
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Our delivery process has refined over the years, and we have worked hard to build up our Agile delivery model.
Many agencies pay lip service to agile delivery, and we’re proud of the success we’ve had in embracing this more flexible model. Our clients have seen us deliver on time and budget projects because of it.
The delivery processesOne of the strongest aspects of GrowCreate is its Delivery Team.
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At GrowCreate, we’re big believers in Agile delivery and use the SCRUM framework. Scrum is the most used agile method in the world and is lightweight and easy to understand.
The Scrum framework consists of Scrum Teams and their associated roles, meetings, artefacts, and rules. Each component within the framework serves a specific purpose and is essential to Scrum’s success and usage. Please find a brief outline below for each element.
The Product Owner identifies product needs, where value can be best delivered and decides the priority of what gets built when adding value to each product iteration.
The Development Team is in charge of delivering the project requirements. The team may be all developers, but often include designers and testers, dependant on the Sprint needs.
The Scrum Master supports both the delivery team and the Product Owner by empowering the team to deliver the sprint goals. They are focused on unblocking and smoothing the way for the Development Team..
Artefacts are assets used to support the development of your product. Artefacts provide transparency and opportunities for both you and GrowCreate to inspect and adapt the product over each Sprint. Artefacts group in the following way:
Agile deliveryThe Agile delivery approach encourages teams to build quickly, test what they’ve created, and quickly make changes through continuous feedback.
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The Product Backlog is an ordered list of all project requirements. It’s responsive to the evolving project needs. The Product Owner is responsible for organising and prioritising user stories in the Product Backlog. GrowCreate will help ensure that each User Story lists a problem to solve, the ideal solution, and documents acceptance criteria. The Product Backlog enables the Development Team to have all the relevant information needed to deliver a specific feature.
The Sprint Backlog is the agreed list of User Stories from the Product Backlog that has been committed to by the Development Team for completion in that upcoming Sprint.
A Sprint is a basic unit for development. It’s timeboxed, typically to two-weeks, which means it has a restricted unit of time. A Sprint Release is the artefact produced in the Sprint and is all ‘shippable’ features completed.
Meetings (events)Regular meetings are a crucial component of Scrum projects, supporting transparency and collaboration. GrowCreate encourages our clients to attend each of the following meetings:
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The Daily Stand-up is the most frequent meeting that runs either at the start or end of each day. Individuals update team members on the tasks they’ve completed since the last stand-up, their upcoming tasks, and what’s blocking further work. The Stand-up enables the group to deal with any blockers and improveSprint velocity.
The Sprint Planning meeting meeting is led by the Product Owner and is where we agree the User Stories for the upcoming Sprint. Once approved, the Development Team will break the User Stories
into smaller tasks. Multiple team members to work on the tasks simultaneously.
The Sprint Review meeting occurs at the end of the Sprint. It is used by the Development Team to demonstrate the completed tasks to the Product Owner.
The Sprint Retrospective also happens in this meeting and is an opportunity for the entire team to evaluate what went well and what needs improvement. The retrospective results in actionsfor the team to help improvefuture Sprints.
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We understand Agile Delivery isn’t for everyone. For some of our clients, the security of a more traditional delivery model like Waterfall to begin their working relationship with GrowCreate is the right decision. However, with time and confidence, we find that most of our clients enjoy moving to an Agile Delivery model.
We deliver Waterfall projects in the following phases:
DiscoveryAll our projects begin with a Discovery Phase. However, with a Waterfall delivery model, this tends to be more involved to ensure we understand and design all critical aspects of the solution upfront.
As all projects are different, we tailor each Discovery Phase:
• Kick-off Understand the project vision and the requirements list. Review top line requirements of the digital solution we’re working on • Create User Personas • Clarify and document technical requirements - create a technical project specification • Create wireframes to agree on layout and functionality • User test wireframes where required • High fidelity design concepts for some of the template pages and other elements • Create a design system or style guide
There is no “one size fits all” and activities will vary depending on the size of the project and how well defined the solution is.
Waterfall deliveryThere is no “one size fits all”.
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DevelopmentThe GrowCreate technical team will deliver the agreed requirements of the solution to the assets created from the Discovery phase. During this time, things can be a little quiet. Although, by the end of this phase, there will be a working solution to test.
To ensure a smooth process during testing phases, Developers are responsible for:
• Ensuring front end work matches the signed off designs • Meeting acceptance criteria (if applicable) • That the functionality works, i.e. we’ve tested the functionality described
Quality AssuranceThe Quality Assurance phase is our internal testing, where team members test the solution to the specification agreed in the Discovery phase and separately to the Development Team.
Testing will be dependent on the project requirements, although typically these will be:
• Back-end testing, where different content/criteria are added into the solution to test how the solution adapts • Front-end testing, where the solution is compared to the agreed designs and tested for multiple viewports
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User Acceptance TestingOnce GrowCreate is happy with the solution, it’s released for the final phase in our Waterfall Delivery approach, User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
User Acceptance Testing is the responsibility of our clients to ensure the solution meets the agreed specification from the Discovery phase. Any issues are raised throughout the ticketing system, Teamwork, and triaged by the GrowCreate team. Any required fixes are released back to the client to test.
Once the solution is issue-free, it is accepted and deployed to live. All our Waterfall delivery work comes with a 30-day warranty period from the acceptance of the solution.
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“We enjoyed partnering with GrowCreate on this project, working in a collaborative way to enable us to deliver a website which is optimised, flexible and positions us for further growth. The results demonstrate the expertise of the collective team and we look forward to working with them in the future.”
Rebecca Warren, Head of Marketing Communications at FE fundinfo
Most GrowCreate clients sign up for our support programme and retained hours for priority bug fixing and continuous improvements to their solution.
The support might be for large and complex customer portals, commerce or corporate websites. Either way, we provide ongoing technical support, governed by a Service Level Agreement (SLA) to maintain the health of your project.
Support & maintenanceOur support services allow your organisation to reach its full potential. It’s our experience that enables you to efficiently meet your goals, with a partner that’s easy to work with.
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“The WealthHub is an important platform for AFH which required the right technical partner to implement complex requirements. GrowCreate’s ability to build, demo, and adapt the solution to our changing needs allows us to move quickly to real-life business challenges.”
Stacey Costar, Head of Operations, AFH Wealth Management
Support packagesAt GrowCreate, we have three different support packages we offer to new clients:
• Maintenance • Business • Enterprise
The main advantage each of these packages offer is a fixed price, irrelevant of usage, where we fix Priority 1 (P1) or Priority 2 (P2) issues to the agreed SLA.
Your support package will be dependent on the complexity of your solution. Your solution is reviewed by GrowCreate periodically and and will be discussed with you.
You can find out more about the support packages on our dedicated support page.
Retained hoursOur clients often purchase retained hours alongside their support package. They are a flexible way to regularly design and develop new features. Retained hours also carry over if you have a quiet month.
This approach gives clients the peace of mind that retained hours are used only for feature improvements.
We bring ideas and executions that can help you change the way you work and embed them in a productive digital partnership that serves your long-term needs.
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Service Level Agreements (SLA’s)
We understand that issues from our clients live environments need to be dealt with promptly. Take a look below at our SLA and ask us for a copy of our Support Agreement.
Business Critical Failures (P1): an error in, or failure of, the Digital Product that: materially impacts the operations or marketability of the Client’s business, or disables major functions of the Digital Product from being performed.
Level 1 Response - a Support Request must be made using Teamwork DeskLevel 2 Response - Grow Create shall:
• commit a full-time resource to the restoration of full function within 4 working hours after the notification is received; and • exercise commercially reasonable efforts until full restoration of functions is provided.
System Defect with Workaround (P2):
• A critical error in the Digital Product for which a workaround exists; or • A non-critical error in the Digital Product that affects the operations or marketability of the Client’s business.
Level 1 Response: Grow Create will acknowledge the Support Request within 4 hours of receipt.
Level 2 Response - Grow Create shall:
• commit a full-time resource to the restoration of full function within 8 working hours after the Level 1 response time has elapsed; • exercise commercially reasonable efforts until full restoration of function is provided.
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How do we manage tickets?Ticket statuses are a useful way for GrowCreate to show the status of a support query. These support statuses show in Teamwork Desk, the tool we use to manage all support enquiries.
There are five ticket statuses in Teamwork Desk:
• Active is where a ticket has been received or is being worked on • Waiting on Customer is where the ticket can’t proceed until the customer provides an answer to a question on the ticket • Solved is where GrowCreate have resolved the issue but the customer needs to confirm they are happy with the resolution • Closed is where the customer has closed the original ticket they raised
MaintenanceEvery month we have a Support Engineer review your solution and ensure is appropriately maintained. There is a range of tasks to complete as part of this monthly maintenance.
These include, but are notlimited to:
• Checking SSL certificates are up to date and not about to expire • Review Microsoft Insight & Umbraco Logs for any system errors • Check CPU and Disk space to ensure hosting environments are operating inside assigned capacity • Review solution uptime over the last month • Review User Accounts in case permissions need updating • Check Windows Update Service is running and that updates have happened in the last 60 days
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“Thanks for the excellent work you have carried out on our website. We’re really delighted with the results — the charting, new homepage and publishing platform really help move us forward.”
Daniel Reynolds, Director of Communications, NHS Providers
Monthly reportsMonthly reports are available for retained hours.
These reports are in a spreadsheet and updated monthly by your Account Manager.
The information in each monthly report is:
• What tasks have been carried out in the last month and how long they took • How many hours did a customer have at the start of the month • How many hours will the customer carry over into the following month
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Tools we useWe work hard to choose the right tools for day-to-day operations. Our experience has led us to create a minimal but powerful toolkit.
Teamwork is our Project Management tool, and we use it to run all our projects.
Here is the way the GrowCreate team use Teamwork:
• To assign tasks to team members • To log time and understand where the team effort is going • To communicate between team members on individual tasks • To track the status of tasks, e.g. to do, doing, testing, or done.
Here are ways our clients use Teamwork:
• To understand what will be assigned and completed per Sprint • To understand when tasks are blocked and communicate on them to help unblock them • To create tickets for their Project Backlogs (with Agile Delivery) and raise bugs (in UAT of Waterfall Delivery)
New members of the GrowCreate team will be invited to Teamwork when they first join, while GrowCreate Project Managers will invite clients when projects begin.
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Teamwork DeskTeamwork Desk is a ticket management tool from the same makers as Teamwork, and it is perfect for our support clients.
Unlike Teamwork, you don’t need to be invited by a GrowCreate team member and can instead openly register.
You can raise tickets in one of two ways:
Firstly, by filling in the fields on the following link: http://support.growcreate.co.uk/support/
Alternatively by emailing [email protected]
With either option, once a customer has raised their first ticket, they’ll be invited to register on Teamwork Desk to monitor the status of the ticket.
Microsoft TeamsMicrosoft Teams is our main communication tool. We primarily use it in two ways:
Firstly, we use it for video calls. As a remote working team, this is important for our working day and allows us to quickly and efficiently speak to team members and clients alike. Typical calls on Microsoft Teams are, but not limited to; Daily Stand-ups between GrowCreate and our clients, team members working together on a task, Project Managers catching up with clients.
Secondly, we use Microsoft Teams as an Instant Messaging tool. We do this both informally between GrowCreate team members and through our more official arranged “Teams”, clients can also be introduced to our Teams for collaborative instant messaging.
Finally, as part of our technical monitoring, there are various automatic notifications triggered through Microsoft Teams if any support solutions experience technical problems.
Microsoft DynamicsMicrosoft Dynamics is our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool and where we store most of our data for Operations, Sales and Marketing. We primarily use Microsoft Dynamics for:
• Keeping our client’s contact information up to date • Tracking future sales opportunities • Managing clients that are on our support programme • Solution information • Account Manager and Solution Experts details
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Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Azure is our primary and recommended cloud hosting platform.
It allows us to setup solutions quicker, scale hosting environments when required, and hook in with other Microsoft Tools like DevOps out-of-the-box.
We find Microsoft Azure is a great fit for GrowCreate. It offers the biggest portfolio of data centres in the world, trusted by 90% of Fortune 500 organisations. It allows us to setup solutions quicker, scale hosting environments when required, and hook in with other Microsoft Tools like DevOps out-of-the-box.
Microsoft DevOpsMicrosoft DevOps is an essential tool for our technical team. The essential functions it plays in our development processes are:
• To cloud-host source code repositories, which includes team collaboration with pull requests and branching • To build, test and deploy solutions through our Continuous Integration pipelines and deploy continuously
“GrowCreate is most enjoyable callof the week — we never squabble about estimates and we always get things done.”
KPL epb
Most of our projects involve building complex web platforms that seamlessly integrate with third-party systems. Our solutions provide additional features, with a simplified and more enjoyable experience for end-users.
We also don’t stand-still. We’re excited about new technologies, experimenting with new languages, tools, and software, to see what sticks. This culture has resulted in GrowCreate being early adopters in responsive design, cloud hosting, and Continuous Integration.
Coding conventionsTo ensure everyone’s ability to work effectively and efficiently, we enforce several standards across our code. Some of these are for performance and security in high-traffic, high-impact sites, while some enable us to collaborate more effectively.
A Senior Developer manages these and monthly meetings are held between the full Development Team for broader collaboration on monitoring and updating our conventions.
While projects can deviate from these standards (and we encourage experimenting with new standards), projects tend to follow most of these rules and guidelines.
Development best practiceOne of the main reasons our clients love working with GrowCreate is because of our strong technical background.
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Web accessibilityWe build websites using browser technologies (HTML5, JavaScript and CSS) that comply with W3C standards. By avoiding most plugins, we ensure maximum device and SEO support, as well as compliance with accessibility and security requirements.
Continuous integration & deploymentContinuous Integration & Deployment are the automated processes in building and deploying a digital solution onto a hosting environment. Apart from saving time, it can also prevent human error caused by manually deploying. Releases no longer need to be scheduled, and it reduces reliance on a single developer to implement critical releases.
Branching & pull requestsWe use Microsoft DevOps for source control. You can find more about this in the Tools We Use section. Two core tasks we use this for are:
• Branching is the mechanism of allowing multiple developers to work on the same solution at the same time. • Pull Requests is a mechanism of peer-reviewing committed code. Once a developer merges their branch of code, it creates a Pull Request that is reviewed by a Senior Developer, helping to maintain quality and coding conventions.
Environments & testingAt GrowCreate, we typically have four environments that our Delivery teams use. These are:
• Local - this is the environment that developers work in • Development - this is the environment developers deploy their work too. This is where we do our testing • Staging – this is the environment that our clients test on and is the final phase of our testing environments • Production – is the live environment which users will visit
While there is some minimal automated testing in use by GrowCreate, most of our testing is manual. There is an aspirational goal to increase the margin of automated testing over time, dependant on client budgets.
Our manual testing falls into the following categories:
• Local testing by our Developers - done on their work and done during the development window and before official testing begins • Quality Assurance Testing - done by a member of the GrowCreate team and focusses on testing each User Story against its acceptance criteria when all tasks are complete • Regression Testing - standardised testing completed by the GrowCreate Project Manager per deployment to ensure new work hasn’t broken existing functionality • User Acceptance Testing - testing by our clients on staging and typically being both User Story testing and regression testing
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StyleguidesWe have our own set of style guides for each project. These include, but are not limited to:
• Our CSS which is compiled from SASS using Gulp, vendor prefixes are added for older browsers, source maps are created, and then the CSS is minified to provide the smallest possible file size • We can also add Critical CSS to a page • Our Vue sites are styled using the Bulma framework • Bootstrap or CSS Grid and flexbox are used for page layout • All our sites are responsive, built for mobile-first, and then further styles are added for tablet (portrait), tablet (landscape) and desktop • Sites are tested on the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge and Samsung Internet, with older versions of Internet Explorer catered for if required
SecuritySecurity is a passionate subject for GrowCreate and something we are always striving to improve. Here are some of the things we do to ensure us, and our clients are as secure as possible:
• We are in the final stages of our ISO27001 accreditation and expect to have this concluded in the first half of this year (2020) • We have our workstation audit with standardised steps that all team members must follow • Senior Developers specify our solutions with a “Security First” mentality
Our teamWe are a technical and creative digital agency able to simplify the most complex solutions with flexible, intuitive and modern user interfaces.
We have offices in Oxfordshire in the UK, Cologne in Germany, and other team members who work remotely. We also favour long-term partnerships with our clients and have a strong track record of successful website and software launches.
Client ServicesOur Client Service Team consists of Directors, Project Managers, and Account Managers. It is the responsibility of the team to ensure all GrowCreate clients are happy, have their requirements met, and understand the different services we can offer for them.
Company DirectorsGrowCreate have two Company Directors: Adam Weston andTheo Paraskevopoulos.
Adam is our Managing Director and leads GrowCreate’s business in both the UK and German office on a day-to-day basis. He is also our Creative Lead and User Experience expert and has responsibility for the look-and-feel, visual consistency and professional finish of our solutions.
Theo is our Chief Executive Officer, has over 20 years’ experience delivering digital solutions, and represents GrowCreate in the digital industry. He is an expert in CMS and digital technology, oversees the entire workflow, and orchestrates relationships with key clients and partners.
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Your Account ManagerEvery Client who works with GrowCreate will work with an Account Manager. In most cases, this will be either a Project Manager whom they’ve worked with before, while in other instances it will be a full-time Account Manager. The level of service will be consistent if it’s a Project Manager or Account Manager.
Account Manager will be a customer’s primary point of contact. Their responsibilities include, but not limited to:
• Working with clients on their solutions and defining a roadmap of User Stories • Sending and discuss end of month reports where applicable • Acting as an escalation point for any support issues.
The Development TeamOur Development Team consists of Senior Developers, Developers, and Front-End Developers. It is the responsibility of the team to deliver the requirements of our clients, make technical recommendations to continuously improve solutions, and ensure their work is developed to technical best practices.
Members of the Development Team are also Solution Experts and Specialist Matter Experts.
Your Solution ExpertEvery solution that we work with has a Solution Expert. They are often, but not always, a Senior Developer involved in either the creation or long-term management of the digital solution.
The responsibilities of a Solution Expert are to guide future requirements and manage the impact they have on a solution. They may also suggest requirements, based on their experience.
Specialist Matter Expert (SME)A Specialist Matter Expert is a GrowCreate team member who focusses on a specific skill set like security, payment gateways or CRM integrations.
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Holiday & sick daysGrowCreate have a generous annual leave allowance. Our Project Managers keep track of team capacity, and any impact leave has on projects. Leave is planned and communicated to our clients by the Project Manager and in line with the agreed project plans.
There may be occasions when people fall ill and are unable to work. Our team members inform their Project Manager as soon as possible, and the Project Manager will, in turn, keep our clients informed of any impact.
Agency schedulingWe expect everyone working at GrowCreate to take responsibility for their work schedule.
However, we keep information about who’s planning to spend how many hours doing what. For this,we use ResourceGuru our scheduling tool.
To support this, the GrowCreate Client Services Team meets weekly on a Wednesday to review the schedule. The schedule is discussed with the team on a Monday morning in the daily ‘Hola’.
HousekeepingWe invest a large amount of time and trust in our team to work in a self-organising way. Here are some of the ways we build the right foundations to make this happen and how we handle situations that challenge it.
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HousekeepingWe invest a large amount of time and trust in our team to work in a self-organising way. Here are some of the ways we build the right foundations to make this happen and how we handle situations that challenge it.
Daily “Hola!”The ‘Hola’ is the GrowCreate daily company stand-up. It happens every working day at 9.00 am, UK time, and typically lasts for no more than ten minutes. The following points are standard every week:
• Each day is an opportunity for the GrowCreate team to raise anything that is blocking them from completing their work • Monday includes a summary of the scheduled work for the week • Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday include updates from different members of the GrowCreate Client Service Team • Friday is “Free for all, Friday” and an opportunity for the team to share anything they feel would add value to the broader team
Weekly company emailTheo sends a weekly email to the GrowCreate team, with highlights of the week and a look forward to the following week.
Monthly company meetingOnce a month, the entire GrowCreate team get together remotely for a one-hour company get-together. Theo features things like show-and-tell sessions from recent launches, lightning talks on interesting topics, and celebration of achievements from the last month.
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Quarterly hack-dayThe hack-day is when the team get together to agree on topics to work on to solve interesting challenges. The hack-day often results in new tools and systems to introduceinto GrowCreate’s day-to-day working life.
The “Summit”The GrowCreate Summit is an annual event where the whole agency team are physically together. The location of the Summit changes every year, and past summits have taken place in Bristol (2019), Utrecht (2018), and Cologne (2017).
The event involves a couple of nights in a hotel, some social time and a one-day meeting. Team members have individual feature presentations, and the company directors will talk through their vision for the upcoming year, while the Head of Delivery and Head of Development will run team workshops.
Staff trainingThe work GrowCreate does for its client’s changes rapidly and means we need to invest in our team’s skills and experiences continually.
Each GrowCreate team member has a generous training budget that enables us to do this. How a team member uses their training budget is agreed at their 1-2-1’s.
Remote workingThe success of GrowCreate is a tight collaboration between people who know each other well.
While most of the team have an office location in either Long Crendon or Cologne, some work remotely. The broader team can also work where they choose on individual days if they have a reliable high-speed internet connection.
This remote working culture is possible because of the technology used by GrowCreate. It is further reinforced by initiatives to bring the team together at certain times of the year.
1-2-1’sEvery GrowCreate team member has a one-hour 1-2-1 with their line manager once a month.
The monthly one-to-one meeting is an opportunity to take a step back from day-to-day work and discuss what’s on the mind of our team. 1-2-1’s are structured in a way for the team member to do most of the talking. Typically, but not always, they will cover:
• Sharing and celebrating the team members achievements • Discussing the current top challenges and how team members progress ties to our annual company goals • Time for the team member to give feedback to their line manager
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Talk to us about your next project
Contact:
Oxford / UKAdam [email protected] 202522growcreate.co.uk
Köln / DETheo [email protected]+49 (0)221 8282 9825growcreate.de
