Showcase

Every Friday afternoon, everyone in the company is invited to gather on Discord for internal demos of projects teams have been working on. This tradition was founded by Engineering, but anyone (from Design, Product,…) is welcome to participate.

We value the importance of sharing our work with other people at Dwarves. We hold demos and celebrate our craftsmanship, insight, and learning with others. And it’s a chance for people who don’t work directly on development to feel included in the process.

What to demo?

We don’t want to scare people away with a long, dull presentation. We want our demos to be short, interesting, and easy to digest. In contrast, here’s how we describe what makes a good demo:

Demos walk the team through something that is recently completed or is a work in progress. Share feature work, bug fixes, performance improvements, instrumentation, integrations, prototypes, and refactors. Keep demos to 5-10 minutes and include:

• A light, quick description of what the work is, why it matters and who it benefits.
• A working example that shows how the thing works; i.e., not a code walkthrough.
• A before and after state (in case of an improvement).
• What might be the next step?

Bug fixes and performance improvements can help to make the product better. Instrumentation that improves our own observability is also useful. Prototypes are great to work on, including design mocks. We cheer loudly when I see people demo this stuff.

Though there are many things we want people to - No shaming. We encourage people to share their work. We don’t want anyone to feel pressured, though. Just come and enjoy the work of your colleagues, and think about how you might do it one day.

• No PowerPoint. This is a showcase for what we are building, so please don’t bring your slideshows here.
• No selling. We build demos to help us better understand how to solve a problem. These are not ads, but work in progress. Things you see may not be included in the final product. Keep things confidential if you need to.
• No blaming. Everything happens for a reason, and everyone starts out small. Even if you think your work makes things better, do not undervalue your predecessors.

Come and join us

We encourage you to participate in Demo Day. Working with your team is the best way to prepare. We imagine it would be great if you and your team could meet on Monday and spend some time thinking about what you plan to bring to the showcase on Friday. If you and your team have an idea, ask your manager for a schedule. We are all excited to see what you will create.