fitting in at MMID

September 15, 2019

6 weeks back, I started as an intern at MMID Delft. They say time passes faster when you’re having fun. As far as I can remember, never in my life has it passed any faster for me. I’m halfway through the internship in the blink of an eye and can confidently say that I have enjoyed every second I spent here.

A year ago, I came to study in the Netherlands, far from home in India. Having ´career at a design consultancy´ always at the back of my mind, MMID was the first Dutch product development consultancy I learnt the name of. Situated a 3-minute bike ride from where I live, I had crossed the MMID office many times while going around the city. I hoped I would get to look inside someday.

Fast forward a year when the time came to look for internships, it wasn’t a surprise that MMID was the first company I applied to. I had followed their work religiously and got a chance to ask all sorts of questions to two previous interns. I was blown away by how much MMID’s ideals about design match mine. I was bursting with happiness when I spoke with Scott at a business fair and he offered me a position as a functionality design intern.

The first thing I noticed when I entered the office is that there is no hierarchy at MMID. We are a team of 45 people in the Delft office and 70+ in the Dutch, German, and American offices combined – designers, engineers, interns, HR support, sales managers, IT specialists, all of whom believe that working together without boundaries is what pushes us and our clients forward.

We work together, eat together, play, and enjoy together, and if there is one word to describe MMID, as Marco rightly described, it is gezellig. This Dutch word is one of many which cannot directly be translated to English. Gezellig is the convivial and cozy feeling of the warmth inside a room on a snowy day. It is the comforting feeling while sitting in a group of close friends, Such values are what makes us stand apart and how we build real deep connections with our clients. It is not only due to our expertise and experience of product development that MMID has been growing for 27 years but also due to our understanding and care for people.

Though at first, I was a tad bit anxious about starting to work at a new place, all of it flew away on the morning I stepped into the office. I felt instantly at home due to the welcoming nature of my new colleagues and dived right into projects as if I´d been here for a long time.

Interning at MMID is in absolutely no way different from working here as an employee. I am a part of a cluster, which is one of the 4 sub-teams composed of specialist designers, content owners, and sales managers from all 4 offices ensuring a diversity of knowledge and experience. Clusters are a way for MMID to let the offices function together effectively as they throw out boundaries and bring in the ability to work seamlessly. Such a way of working concurrently across countries has been practiced since MMID went international in 2011.

I believe efficiency to be key to produce consistent profitable work for a long period of time. I see high-quality work done efficiently by every single colleague around me. As an outcome, each of us handles multiple projects from different clients dynamically while giving all of them sufficient importance. MMID’s unique Product Innovation Process (PIP) has been developed over the years to ideally facilitate this, the benefits of which I started seeing soon after I started.

It would be an understatement to say that MMID is exceptional at product development and a huge reason behind this is the people. Our matching values allowed me to fit very well into the team and are proving to be mutually beneficial. Within the short duration of my internship, I am focused to learn as much as possible from the massive experience around me while contributing significantly to the projects I work on. With this note, I look forward to the rest of my internship and a continued association with MMID.