Home /Customer Stories /Inspiring Change: 5Minds Boosts Their Collaborative Culture with Google Jamboard
In just five short years, 5Minds, an IT consultancy company based in Germany has grown its operations from 5 to 65 employees, with immediate plans to open two satellite offices. Currently, they serve over 50 major clients across several verticals, providing specialized IT solutions that help them digitalize their businesses. For the 5Minds team, this feat would have not been possible if it weren’t for the highly collaborative atmosphere they have managed to build over the years.
“The three of us came from big corporations. We wanted to adopt a corporate culture that was different from what we were used to,” says Björn Röber, one of the three chief executive officers of 5Minds. Together with co-founders Nicole Jones and Martin Möllenbeck, they oversee business operations, particularly with sales, marketing, and distribution.
5Minds is a German consultancy company specializing in custom IT solutions and software development. They are fully committed to help their customers achieve their goals and meet future industry requirements.
“As CEOs, we aim to provide our staff with a working environment that we wished for when we were still employed in our previous companies.” Internally, their goal was to create a workplace that fostered self-responsibility, accountability, and trust. Björn notes: “Dictating what our employees have to do scales the business but demotivates employees. We acknowledge that it’s much more valuable to support every employee and have them work more independently.”
In line with this vision, they needed a solution that would help them convert their standard meetings rooms into haptic workspaces that would allow for more free-flowing, creative collaboration.
“As CEOs, we aim to provide our staff with a working environment that we wished for when we were still employed in our previous companies.”
“Other solutions we looked at were nonintuitive,” says Björn, noting the complexity of other products that come with special peripherals. According to him, Jamboard’s simplicity had ultimately convinced them. Since operating the Jamboard mimics the use of tablets and actual whiteboards, he and the rest of the 5Minds team could walk over to one and start coworking without the need for training.
“Jamboard’s G Suite integration also played in our favor,” adds Björn. “We’ve been using G Suite for several years now to co-work on documents and presentations from anywhere.” This portability in terms of work was an important point to consider. With their immediate plans to expand their operations to other sites, not to mention how often they have to meet with remote clients, it was crucial for them to be able to discuss, brainstorm, and present ideas wherever they were.
“At one point it was clear that we needed to find a solution that would let us work from different locations,” says Björn. Using the updated Meet for Jamboard feature, they are able to easily schedule and cast quick remote live sessions on whichever devices their coworkers or clients are using. Through live sessions, they can consolidate and apply feedback in real-time as if they were in the same room; it makes coming to a consensus faster.
“Working with shared Jamboards through our iPads is very helpful. The process is more fluid. We’re able to collaborate across multiple locations and have the option to continue these sessions in the future.”
The 5Minds team appreciates the work continuity Jamboard affords them. Björn recalls a time when they were forced to take pictures of their whiteboards after each meeting: “The problem with that setup is that we weren’t able to revise the content anymore. With Jamboard, it becomes possible for us to edit another time."
What makes this more convenient is how the jams are automatically saved to each participant’s Google Drive account after each session. They can also easily export a jam to a PDF or another file format and send it to any recipient in one go.
Since introducing Jamboard into their offices, Björn has had developers come to him asking for more Jamboard units. He says the change in work culture is evident. By giving their employees leeway and allowing them to ideate freely and hold their own self-paced meetings, they were able to boost creativity and engagement.
“We always wanted to take on big projects together. Now, our staff functions like a tribe. We work much better and the process is more sustainable than ever.” says Björn.
5Minds currently has six Google Jamboard units in their main office. Due to a notable increase in collaboration and customer satisfaction after just one year of use, they now have plans to have at least one unit in each of their meeting rooms.
“Now, our staff functions like a tribe. We work much better and the process is more sustainable than ever.”
