Why Giuneco – An american student experience

I did not know anything about Giuneco before my first day of work, besides that it is an IT consulting company.

I soon found out it is much more, and I am so lucky to have this experience. The first thing I noticed that differentiates Giuneco from other tech companies is the Dorothy program, which was named after Dorothy Johnson Vaughan.

She was a mathematician who made a large contribution to the space race and had a crater on the moon dedicated to her.  This program aims to reduce the gender gap by participating in events that increase the number of women in information technology. As a woman in IT, I greatly appreciate this gesture and it also sends an extraordinary message about who Giuneco is. One of the first projects through the Dorothy program was partnering with “Girls Code it Better”. 

They have accomplished being in 14 different regions, in 116 schools and 4500 female students are participating. It is amazing that Giuneco actively participates in these projects because the gender gap is an issue all companies should be working to fix. Not only does the Dorothy program help women in STEM, but it also helps the overall economy.  

The second reason why I like Giuneco is the work culture.

They actively try to enforce a peaceful and relaxed environment to promote confidence levels and improve attitude. From the moment I walked into the office, I could tell the differences between the environment here and in the United States. I would never imagine seeing a room with fake grass and bean bags shaped as bunnies in the US.

Employees can relax and get away from their computer screens in this room. Often in the US, this type of room would be seen as decreasing productivity. However, Giuneco understands that ‘the opposite is usually true’ because when there is high stress in the workplace, it can be detrimental to the business.

Giving employees a place to relax is a good way to help reduce stress around the office. A place to relax can also fix are eyestrains, backaches, and overall decrease staff illness and sick days. I read an article by windfall, which talks about encouraging daydreaming. Having a place for workers to daydream will jumpstart creativity and hopefully increase productivity levels. This can be another purpose of the bunny room because it is the perfect place to unwind.

As Giuneco creates a modern workplace, their employees are becoming more loyal and hardworking. 

Another aspect I like about the office setup is everyone working in the same open room. The first and largest benefit of this room is the increase in collaboration.

Collaboration helps the productivity of the company and a bond between employees.

As employees converse about current projects, it sparks new ideas. The collaboration space is a great idea, especially since the pandemic. Since everyone is not always in the office, all the space is getting used rather than having vacant offices. The collaboration room is extremely cost-efficient because of the amount of space, the location, and the agility to move at the speed of business. In terms of technology, if everyone is centralized in one place there will be high-speed and secure Wi-Fi everywhere for increased productivity and video meetings. A collaborative space also gives a space to reflect on company culture. At Giuneco, the collaborative space includes 4 large tables that can fit 4 employees.

One of the long walls of the room has large windows with artwork in between each. The natural light from the windows overall heightens productivity levels, which is known to be the most highly sought workplace perk.

The wall between the meeting room and the collaborative room is glass, which makes the whole office feel constantly open.  

Everyone that I have worked with so far is delightful and easy to work with. Ginueco’s emphasis on communication has made employees open to constant interaction. We use Teams for fast communication and meetings.

New tools like Teams, improve collaboration online. The mix of personality and professional tools like Teams, help avoid threads and useless chats. Also, the daily scrum meetings execute good communication between the team members.  

During my first week working here, I learned about the SCRUM framework and the different positions on the team.

I worked with the product owner, Claudia, to go through the process of starting a project for a client. The first step of the process for me was studying and creating user stories for the MVP and product backlog. My specific project was creating a website for a wholesale hardware company.

Therefore, I needed to create user stories for adding items to the cart, the checkout process, etc. I created a user story map to explain why each user story needs to be created. User story mapping also shows who needs the story to be created whether it’s the admin, a reseller, an agent, or a customer. The company I had an internship with last year followed more of a traditional framework and they completed work breakdown structures.

The work breakdown structure would include meetings that may not need to happen or not include work that needs to be done. After I completed my first draft, I got feedback to revise and improve my work.

Giuneco prioritizes constant feedback to all their employees, which improves the overall quality of work.

The agile framework also enforces Giuneco to constantly give feedback to their clients on what they are completing and what they plan to complete. 

After I completed my user story map, I needed to create the acceptance criteria. This is how the product owner checks to make sure the development team completed the right work. On the other hand, traditional project management would have the project manager test everything at the end. I have learned it is important to check through the process to constantly be improving. 

The last step of the process was to create releases, which mimics what we present to the customer. It is important to have multiple releases because the customer needs to be constantly updated because they will want to make changes. At the company I worked for last year, they would complete the whole project, test everything to make sure it is correct, and lastly present it to the customer. If the customer wants to make modifications, it will delay the whole project because it was expected to be done. The process of releases ensures that the customer likes the website. Releases will overall save time and money for the company.