How about making wednesday mornings, a 4hr 'personal project' time? Make it a requirement that everyone has to work with tools at the edge of their skillset, that is also relevant to work, but let them choose what, why, how. They could work on a personal project, or experiment with a new library or tool they would like to incorporate.
Start the day with a "not really a standup", where people can quickly explain what they want to accomplish in the next four hours.
Once a month, you spend a couple of hours of the time demoing the work you have done for each other, explaining the technology and what you have learned, and then discussing and evaluating our individual technical weaknesses and deciding what to do next. This rest of this monthly meeting could also be spent improving social coding skills - code and commit hygiene, team processes etc.
Not only would this keep people technically sharp but it keeps them from playing with toys in production and breaks up the work week, while still fulfilling company goals.
If you have to start giving reports, it kills creativity. The point is to do something everyone else may think is irrational, but you feel would lead somewhere interesting.
Start the day with a "not really a standup", where people can quickly explain what they want to accomplish in the next four hours.
Once a month, you spend a couple of hours of the time demoing the work you have done for each other, explaining the technology and what you have learned, and then discussing and evaluating our individual technical weaknesses and deciding what to do next. This rest of this monthly meeting could also be spent improving social coding skills - code and commit hygiene, team processes etc.
Not only would this keep people technically sharp but it keeps them from playing with toys in production and breaks up the work week, while still fulfilling company goals.