DataCite is a fully remote organization with 22 team members across 11 countries. Once a year, we have the opportunity to meet in person at our annual team retreat. Last week, this annual retreat took place in Sintra, Portugal. For some of the team members, it was the first time to see colleagues face-to-face, while others were happy to meet again after last year’s team meeting. These retreats are particularly important to DataCite as they allow the team to both strengthen their bonds, and—without technological barriers or distractions—explore new ideas and have more in-depth discussions on how to best serve our community.
Full Team Sessions
While in Portugal, the full DataCite team had fruitful discussions about the DataCite strategy, values, and collaboration opportunities. In addition, we reflected on our messaging and discussed how we can better reflect the community aspect and the range of resource types that we support. A brainstorm session on metadata completeness gave us new ideas on how we can improve the quantity and quality of DataCite metadata and you will hear more about this topic later in the year. Sharing ideas and thoughts across all the DataCite units ensures that problems are solved holistically from all perspectives.
Break-out Sessions
Wednesday was dedicated to matters more directly relevant to different units, and the Engineering and Engagement teams organized their own break-out sessions. The Engagement team planned goals for 2024, and debated best practices and examples demonstrating the use of DOIs and metadata. Current strategic initiatives, such as the Global Access Program and Make Data Count were also addressed because these are important focus areas for the remainder of the year. Among other topics, the Engineering team discussed the design and development process, technical debt, and effort estimation.
Celebrating Team Culture and Teamwork
As this year’s activity, we went on an excursion to clean up a beach close to Sintra. This not only helped foster cooperation within the DataCite team, but also reflects our values. Since our last team retreat, not only has the DataCite staff grown, but a year has passed filled with exciting events, projects, and other developments. It is very important to spend a few days reflecting on this as a team. Therefore, we took a moment to celebrate all achievements with a DataCite-branded chocolate cake.
We were very happy with this opportunity to meet in person and have broader strategic discussions. As a next step, our attention turns to taking the results of our collaborative activities and putting them into action. More information will be shared through our blog later this year!
Rorie Edmunds
