We experienced what could best be described as an illuminating and transformational year at 2Paths.   From changes to our processes and tools to the diversification of our team demographic, to teaming up with some fabulous new valued partners and clients, change abounded.  And there’s not a soul among us who would argue that it wasn’t for the better.  As our year concludes, my 2008 retrospective blog finds no shortage of things to reminisce about.   Sit back and enjoy.

From a people perspective, the team welcomed 2 new babies into our extended family.  Congratulations to Michal and Lori on the birth of baby Cohen, and congratulations to Ricky and Lin on their second addition to the family, Lucas.  I personally bought a house and got married to the love of my life, Willy the caveman, in a small Whistler wedding. Garret married the love of his life, the beautiful Priscille, in grand fashion Winnipeg-style.  2Paths gladly welcomed new members to the team Omar Khan, Sandra Widjaja, Gary Meehan, Tim Oxenford, and. Kari Braaten.  And last, and very important – we celebrated Michal Urbanski’s 5-year anniversary with the company by sending him on kite-board lessons in Squamish.  He returned exhilarted and intact, thank goodness.

Processes and tools were areas that 2Paths focused heavily on in 2008, recognizing that these will differentiate us from our competition in the future.  We honed in on our existing skills by cultivating 3 certified scrum-masters (Lorill, Geoff and Omar).   Scrum (a brief daily morning developer meeting) has been pivotal to our successful software projects.   Someone likened it to inviting your mother-in-law to live with you – she may not fix everything, but she will most certainly point our everything that needs to be fixed.  Then it’s just about the fixing.    Next, the team continued to examine open source software tools and added some more to our repertoire, including Grails, Hudson, and Groovy, to name a few.   To ensure we got the latest on emerging technologies and uses of technologies, we also sent 2Pathsians to attend conferences on Geo-spatial technology, the Semantic Web, QCon (a conference of technical depth and enterprise focus), No Fluff Just Stuff, and Agile Methodologies.

In the spring, we moved our office to the Arthur Erikson Waterfall building by Granville Island from Gastown.   In addition to loving the view, we have been enjoying lunch at Go Fish, the NoodleBox, and Sushi Go, not to mention whipping up concoctions in our gourmet kitchen.  After our first pay cheque in the new location, our Synesso Cyncra coffee machine made its proud appearance in our kitchen providing java nirvana for everyone to enjoy.  There has been talk of a group membership to Caffeine Anonymous, but so far we’ve been holding out alright.

From a team-building perspective, we did a TON of fun things together this year.  Our long-standing tradition of playing together, letting off some steam, and laughing is our real secret to strong teamwork.  Here’s the illustrious list of our 2008 fun:

-    We bonded over some spring-skiing/riding at Grouse mountain, followed by beer on the patio in the glorious sun;
-    We learned to Curl at Marpole Curling;
-    We tested our trust in each other during rock-climbing;
-    We golfed at Gleneagles and BBQed at Judi’s new home;
-    We enjoyed some fine-dining at Chambar;
-    We participated in Bike to Work week
-    We enlisted a yoga instructor to lead us through weekly hatha yoga practices on the new roof-top patio in the summer, and in our boardroom in the winter.

One of our major projects has been with the “Insert name of international organization which we will shortly be revealing” on an application that has global impact and countless social good benefits.  It gave us an opportunity to go globetrotting to the likes of Paris and London.  Better yet, it presented a chance to work in concert with partners, Gagan Diesh and Kaaren Schulz of DesignStamp, http://www.designstamp.com/,whom we’ve grown to love and cannot do without.  We were also glad to continue our solid working relationship with our valued client, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, http://www.carlsonwagonlit.com/en.  And, we played pretend, and acted like a client to ourselves, dictating our own requirements towards an internal initiative which we will may be talking about a lot more in 2009.

So, as you can see we have been very busy this year.  Not just building web applications that make complicated problems palatable and bite-size, but also in being good to ourselves and to each other.   And we look forward to an exciting 2009, filled with market improvements, more work with our valued partners and clients, and at the very least, some good conversations, hopefully with you, over a fancy-pants coffee from our cool espresso machine.  Have a safe and happy holiday season, everyone!

2Paths Team

So, having just started working at 2Paths in July, I was pretty excited when I heard we were going to have a summer team event. When I listened to everyone’s ideas for a perfect team activity, I started to get a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Things like hang-gliding, white-water rafting, rock climbing and mountain biking were suggested. Now these activities might seem average to you, but you have to understand that we have a pretty active team of people here at 2Paths who just love to be outdoors and on the go. We aren’t talking a bunch of beginner enthusiasts going out for a day of fun; instead we have a health mix of beginners, pros and those who will do just about anything.

Initially the plan was to head up to Squamish for a half day of rock climbing up a real mountain, however, despite weeks of sunny weather, we were in for rain on our planned event day. And the following day ended up being the day of the huge rock slide on the Sea to Sky highway which closed the highway for several days. So, being the flexible, easy-going group that we are (really?), we decided to head indoors to the Edge climbing centre in North Vancouver. After some initial confusion and delays, we were all outfitted to go climbing.

Now, I have never climbed indoors or outdoors, so I had no idea what to expect. A couple of days earlier, I’d learned that the word “belay” meant having someone hold your rope as you climb up and I’d also heard about “auto-belaying” which we were supposed to do. After watching a few people head up the wall (including a very talented 8 or 9 year old next to me), I gave it a go. I have to say it was actually easier than I expected provided I used my whole body and stayed close to the wall. Jumping down got to be fun on the auto-balays after a couple of tries. The team broke off into smaller groups with some of the more experienced climbers belaying for others. Some of the team also decided to go without any equipment on the steeper cliff faces using just their strength and some soft mattresses below. It was a pretty relaxed, quiet team event but we all got a chance to chill out away from work, and while we were only there a few hours, it seemed like we’d been there all day. Time actually slowed down for a while. Amazing!

Once we’d all headed up the walls a number of times and got our fill of climbing and sore arms, some of the team headed back to the office and the rest of us headed to the nearby Pemberton Pub for some cool beer and appies. For me, this part of the day was the best as I really got a chance to hang out and get to know the people on our team better. Plus the beer and food was pretty good too!

I’m not sure exactly what we’ll be doing for our next team event but I do hope that the planning goes smoothly and that the weather works for us and that we have more opportunity to do something ‘active’ as well as time to hang out and socialize. I’m in for anything provided there is a beginner version, except for maybe hang-gliding.

nice production work Geoff!

Most of us stayed together within the confines of a lovely condo within Whistler Village itself. This allowed for some more relaxed socialising and a distinct family feel to the weekend as we all got to know each other better. The weather was fabulous and the snow was in immaculate condition, being so early in the season. As a group, those of us more comfortable with the terrain managed to stay together and enjoy the skiing/boarding together which is sometimes rare with larger groups as the more hardcore lose patience and trail off to find their own powder moments.

The thing that struck me most of all, apart from the great conversation, excellent skiing and riding and all round good times, was the fact that in two days of constant interaction, we all managed to NOT talk shop. This indeed is something that I think highlights our abilities to gel as a team (and as people) in that it shows we can actually have interesting and constructive interactions which do not necessarily bare any relation to our work selves.