We would do this gathering all the leads and architects and spend Monday to Friday at a remote nice cabin to plan out the year with lots of breaks to do whateve

We would do this gathering all the leads and architects and spend Monday to Friday at a remote nice cabin to plan out the year with lots of breaks to do whatever you wanted no forced interaction other than the 4-5h of focused work each day. The goal was to make sure people knew each other and personal relationships formed. It helped people understand each other roles and better map their action to stakeholders. It reduced the friction a lot since big architectural decisions would have buy in from everyone.