They stopped regular work and had a hack week and morale improved. Now they're back to the regular work and having standups again. What does this show other than taking a break is fun?
Yeah, the "we stopped having standups!" is good click-bait, but simply letting people work on their own projects is always going to improve morale and productivity (if you assume the fun projects are aligned with the organization).
I thought the productivity data was interesting but then it stopped right after hack week... Definitely agree, the long term implications are a lot more interesting.