It is a curious thing about adventures: they do not arrive as adventures. They arrive as a phone call from a friend — on an April afternoon, on the road between Rovaniemi and Muonio, driving north through Lapland to a conference at Jeris Lakeside Resort.
Ilya called on the 9th of April. His brother Valentin works at a software company in Bhutan, he explained, and there was a team retreat coming up in Paro in May, in the foothills of the Himalayas. They were looking for someone to come and work with the developers on people development and values. Liisa and I listened together, leaning in as the picture took shape. By the time Ilya rang off, we were already half decided.
Anyone who has read Tolkien will recognise this moment. Bilbo Baggins was perfectly happy in his hobbit-hole when adventure came knocking — and perfectly certain he wanted nothing to do with it. I cannot say the same. But the shape is familiar: a door opens without warning, and what lies behind it is far bigger than the ordinary day suggested. That is also, of course, the name of this company. BilboConsult has always carried a quiet promise: the best journeys are the ones you never planned to take.
By May, Liisa and I were at Kichu Resort in Paro, with the Himalayan foothills outside the window, about to deliver BilboConsult’s first international engagement.
Who is DTB?
Developer Tools Bhutan is the local entity of FIIT B.V., a Dutch software company. Their product, ComponentOne, is a UI component library used by enterprise development teams at Microsoft, IBM, IKEA, Tesla, Ford, ESPN, and Toshiba. The Paro team of 20–25 Bhutanese developers are technically excellent — and on the cusp of growing to 50 with 15 new joiners arriving imminently.
Managing Director Val gave me creative latitude and genuine trust from our very first conversation. That trust shaped everything that followed.
The Sessions
We designed two 75-minute interactive workshops, built around DTB’s own values and the team’s real challenges.
Session 1 — “The Craft You Make Your Own”: Job Crafting
Drawing on Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton’s research, this session explored three ways any developer can actively reshape their work: through the tasks they take on (task crafting), the relationships they build (relational crafting), and the perspective they bring to it (cognitive crafting). The session built on what DTB’s team had already learned in a 2025 session on clean code — which participants still referenced a year later. The question at its heart: how do you own the quality of your work, regardless of what’s on your ticket?
Each participant left with a signed 30-day commitment card — one concrete thing they would do differently.
Session 2 — “A Team Worth Joining”: Values in Action
DTB has four written core values: Integrity, Innovation, Customer Success, and Community. Beautiful words. But what do they actually look like on a Tuesday afternoon, when you’re debugging at 4pm or welcoming a nervous new colleague on their first day?
Working together, the team surfaced the behavioural expressions of each value — the specific, concrete actions that bring these principles to life in daily work. The most tangible outcome: onboarding material for the 15 incoming developers, written entirely in the team’s own words. Authentic, grounded, theirs.
We also opened a deliberate conversation about artificial intelligence — not as threat or hype, but as an innovation in service of quality, anchored in the values the team had just articulated together.
The Experience
I was accompanied by my wife, Eeva-Liisa. Bhutan is not a typical business trip destination, and having her alongside made this a shared adventure as much as a professional engagement.
The country does something to you. The philosophy of Gross National Happiness — measuring progress by the wellbeing of people, not only by economic output — turns out to be a perfect frame for conversations about craft and purpose. The team’s warmth, curiosity, and genuine commitment to each other made every session feel alive.
What I valued most was the people themselves. These were not a team that needed to be built — they were already relational, already committed, already caring about their work. They needed permission and language to name what they were already doing well, and tools to take it intentionally further.
What the Team Said
The anonymous feedback cards from Session 2 told their own story. Participants described the retreat as insightful, exceptional, engaging, inspiring, fulfilling. They asked for more time, longer sessions, and more Q&A. One developer noted that the activities helped them “gain deeper insights into work they had previously considered mundane.” Another reflected on how meaningful it was to speak with international professionals “who were actually present when modern programming was born.”
Val published the team’s own reflection on the retreat — “Cultivating Our Craft: Reflections on the 2026 DTB Training Retreat” — and described the session output as authentic onboarding material born directly from the team’s own words.
Feedback specifically noted my “playful yet concrete activities” — a balance I care about deeply. Learning should be rigorous and enjoyable at the same time.
What This Meant to Me
This was BilboConsult’s first international engagement. But the significance went beyond that milestone.
I have built this practice around a single purpose: to help people and teams develop their best selves — not through frameworks imposed from the outside, but through genuine conversation and discovery. Bhutan gave me the rare gift of living that purpose without compromise. I could focus entirely on people development. I could follow my curiosity across a completely new context. I could work across languages, cultures, and worldviews without once losing the thread of what matters.
And I could do it with Liisa by my side.
The title of this piece borrows from Tolkien — and from the name of this company, which is itself a nod to Bilbo Baggins, the reluctant adventurer who discovers that the journey he did not plan for turns out to be the one that defines him. It really was an unexpected journey. It really was an adventure. And it was one of the most successful and fulfilling things I have done as a consultant.
What’s Next
The relationship with DTB and FIIT continues. As the team grows toward 50, there are conversations about annual retreats, manager onboarding for the new cohort, and deeper work on the human side of software development. I’m looking forward to what comes next.
And I’m grateful to Ilya for the unexpected phone call on an ordinary Finnish evening that started all of this.
BilboConsult helps individuals, teams, and organisations find clarity about who they are and how they work — through facilitation, coaching, and leadership development. If your team is growing and you want to make sure the culture you’re building is worth joining, get in touch.
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