How to Organize the Work of a Product Team During the War

The office of our company Tranzzo is located in Kyiv. Before the war, 120 of our employees created innovative FinTech products here. Nobody was prepared for February 24, but russia’s full-scale invasion happened. During the first days of the war, it was an incredible shock for people and businesses.

We accepted this challenge – we did not give up and started working even harder. This allowed us to preserve all the pre-war developments in the company, get closer to each other in the team and find new values in this challenging time. I want to share insights on how the Tranzzo team established a war-work balance and reached a new level of performance. 

Team Coordination

After the first missile attacks, our employees packed up exceptionally quickly, lived in bomb shelters, and were forced to migrate through half of Europe.

Under such critical circumstances, process management became one of the key priorities. We arranged video calls daily to understand our pace, progress, and priorities. “Your” and “my” tasks were gone; all of them became “ours”, which is shared. The team felt the importance of the shared result particularly acute. If somebody could not complete the  job, it was picked up by a colleague.  

Fear for life and the uncertainty about tomorrow paralyzed the ability to concentrate. However, we did not surrender. Moreover, we got a second wind; new strength arose – the way it happens in times of great stress.

Regular Communication and Mutual Support

Starting from the first early-morning rocket attacks, my team and I were in touch 24/7. I kept my colleagues informed about the situation in the company all the time. We supported each other in both working and personal issues.

There was a case when one of our developers, Yevhen, was near Makariv at the beginning of the war. This town, 50 kilometres ride from Kyiv, was severely shelled by russian artillery. Our developer was out of connection for two days, but fortunately, he had sent us his address beforehand. We were in super-fast mode with the whole team looking for an opportunity to evacuate him and his family from the shelling. The situation was complicated and nerve-racking, but eventually, we succeeded.

The war revealed people’s real faces. We became emotionally very close to each other in the team.

Business Processes Reformatting

The new reality forced us to search for new business solutions quickly. After February 24, we needed to save the business and the ability to pay employees their salaries. In particular, we focused on mastering the international markets. 

Since March, some of the employees have lived in Europe. They started attending international exhibitions and conferences to promote Tranzzo’s products and services. Everyone supported the company and wanted to contribute to keeping it afloat during the war. Thus, over the last six months, we have expanded our cooperation in the new markets – Malaysia, the Philippines, Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Nigeria.

In Ukraine, we focused on projects that helped accelerate our victory. This is not a story about profit but about the faith in our people and a strong desire to help. In cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, we launched money transfers for AFU in the mobile app of the government service “Diia” (in late February) and donations to support Ukraine on the fundraising platform UNITED24 (in April).

Socially Important Project for Ukraine’s Victory

Every day we motivated ourselves with the idea that we made an essential contribution to the expected victory. It depended on our decisions on how quickly Ukrainians would have a convenient service for transferring funds to the military. The realization that our choices brought Ukraine’s victory closer gave the team an additional point of support.

And on the third day of the war, we managed to launch donations for the army through the mobile app of the government service “Diia”. On February 27, 290,000 Ukrainians donated nearly $1 million to the army through “Diia”. These were the exact results we worked on 24/7 during the first days of war despite the explosions, missiles whistle, and enormous stress. It motivated us tremendously.

 Our next important project during the war was the cooperation with the UNITED24 fundraising platform. This is an initiative of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to unite the efforts of the whole world in supporting Ukraine. Together with our team, we implemented funds transfers from a card of any world bank on the platform’s website. The cooperation inspired us with the best experts in the country and the realization that together accelerate the victory.

Team Spirit

During the war, our team spirit has become even stronger. Despite being in different countries, we continued to have online teambuilding events to congratulate our colleagues on their birthdays and anniversaries of their work with the company. By the way, we have established a new tradition – on birthdays, and we now transfer funds for AFU instead of a gift.

We set the record of donations for the military on the 5th anniversary of Tranzzo in August. We spent that day on a radio broadcast during which we held a charity auction. Our employees bought many lots – branded clothes from Ukrainian designers, our national embroidered shirts (vyshyvanka), historical stamps with a sunken russian ship and more. In a few hours, we raised about $30,000. It was a very emotional event for us! We realized how much we missed each other. Some of our employees even decided to return to Ukraine after this online party.

And in conclusion. The war has made us stronger. Today we consider ourselves a family rather than a team. And my secret to well-coordinated teamwork under super stressful conditions is simple – constant communication, ability to respond quickly to changes, understanding of new goals and priorities, and mutual support in the team.