November in Scandinavia can be a tough month for motivation. Add to that the added challenges of remote work and tough COVID restrictions. We really needed to find a way to connect and have fun.
Welcome to Jayway’s first “Bäst i Test” challenge.
“Bäst i Test” is the Swedish version of a British tv show (Taskmaster) where contestants complete random tasks for points. The tasks are deliberately weird and specific to encourage panic and lateral thinking.
We made our own version to keep ourselves busy during the dark November days. Our challenge had two elements — physical activity + special challenges. This was to help us stay active when working remotely, and get our brains engaged in something different from our normal routines each day.
Physical activity: Participants gain 1 point each day for their choice of physical activity. The physical activity must last for at least 20 minutes and raise your heart rate. Streaks (consecutive days) give bonus points.
Special Task: Each weekday has a new challenge, with an extra special challenge on weekends. Participants get one point for completing the challenge, and bonus points for the best submission each day on slack.
Tasks were posted daily in slack, and winners announced the following workday. Our goal for the tasks was to make them small and quick enough to do in a (fika) break but have enough potential to be able to spend free time on if you wanted to go all out.
How did it go?
Daily we were surprised by how creative, cheesy, intelligent and extravagant our colleagues could be. We had a lot of fun and got good feedback from our colleagues:
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It was a nice way to meet new and remote colleagues
We are 250 people spread across 8 studios (5 offices). Pre-Covid we would get to mix with other studios and offices at share competence days, trips, conferences etc. Being remote has made it harder to connect, outside of your team, project or studio. We had almost 60 people participate in “Bäst i Test” in all our Scandinavian offices. It made it easy and fun to connect with the different studios and meet different colleagues, as well as get insight into how their ‘creative’ brains work! -
It was entertaining
It was so fun to watch people’s entries! From the smallest emoji reaction in slack to threads talking about crazy attempts, it was fun to read and watch even if you weren’t part of it. Even on busy days where you couldn’t participate yourself, it was fun to check in on a fika break and see what other people did. -
Creative play is important
Some of the tasks made me feel like I was in school again, trying to build a tower with spaghetti and marshmallows. It was really fun to be forced to create physical things, think laterally and challenge yourself to be childish. -
Random interactions matter
The best thing about this whole challenge was the random interactions it created. Even the ‘bad’ entries were fun to see and provided a catalyst for conversation. We are so concerned with respecting people’s time on remote work that it’s hard to find reasons to chat with random colleagues as you would by the coffee machine — when someone posted an entry it felt like they were opening a conversation. To see why that is important, check out this article.
What did we learn?
This challenge came together very quickly, and we experimented a lot along the way. Here’s what we learned:
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More constraints = more creativity
The tasks that worked best were weird, specific and constrained. These forced action and creativity, as well as a little clever ‘working around the rules’. The tasks that ‘flopped’ were ones written too loosely, or that felt too big to get started on. -
People get competitive
It’s amazing how stressed you can get having fun! A risk we knew we were taking was that people could get too competitive. Luckily, no one got upset, but those doing well-felt pressure to keep delivering, and those who didn’t join early were discouraged from joining in because they couldn’t catch up. Doing it again, I would avoid rewarding streaks for tasks, and perhaps have a daily or weekly winner instead of cumulative points. -
Tasks are more exciting than physical activity
It was easy to forget that part of the challenge was to be active, and we didn’t reward this strongly enough. The tasks and solutions were shiny and fun, and the Taskmaster accidentally rewarded streaks for activity + tasks instead of just activity, which made it hard to stay motivated if you were just doing one or the other. If we do this again, I would find a way to reward physical activity more to keep it ‘equal’ in motivation.
We had so much fun organizing, executing and participating in “Bäst i Test”!
Thank you to everyone who joined in and made it an awesome experience!
Try it yourself!
If you want to try something like this at your workplace, with friends or family, here is our full list of challenges to get you started:
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Create the best picture using a geotracking app. Best picture wins.
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Throw a teabag into a mug from as far away as possible. Furthest distance wins.
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Take a picture of someone holding an egg. The strangest picture wins. The egg must remain intact.
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Make the best graph. Best graph wins.
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Draw a self-portrait while blindfolded. Best self-portrait wins. You have 5 minutes.
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Have fika. Most swedish fika wins.
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Create the best Rube Goldberg machine. Most satisfying to watch wins.
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Write a poem about your team, project, studio or Jayway. Best poem wins.
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Draw the smallest picture. The most impressive smallest picture wins.
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Make the most dramatic entrance into a room. Most dramatic entrance wins.
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Throw a piece of A4 paper into a bin. Most spectacular throw wins.
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Caption this meme. Best meme wins.
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Score a goal. Best goal wins. Bonus points for the best goal celebration.
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Paint/draw the best blue thing. You may ONLY use the colour blue. You have a maximum of 15 minutes to execute your idea. Best picture wins.
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Recreate a famous landmark using only household items. Most impressive landmark wins.
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Take a photo of an inanimate object that looks like you. Best likeness wins.
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Build the tallest tower, and balance the most unexpected thing on top. Tallest and most unexpected tower wins.
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Have Fredagsmys. Mysigaste fredag wins.
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Create the best picture/video in the dark. Most illuminating creation wins.
